5 Reasons Your Content Marketing Must Focus on Trust, not Traffic

When you are about to make a major purchase, let’s say a car, and you are considering makes and models that you have never owned before, how do you go about making a decision? Of course, you test drive several, and you read consumer reports. But chances are pretty great that you talk to a neighbor, a friend or a colleague who has owned or currently owns cars you are considering. It may even be that you have only looked at cars that these people have recommended.

Why? Because you trust their opinions. Trust drives a lot of our purchasing decisions, in fact, and that is why building trust in your brand is more important than anything else you do.

Here are 5 reasons why trust is critical to your bottom line.

 1. Most People Behave as You Do – They Share Only What They Trust

Why do you share content? Chances are you do so because of one of the following reasons:

•  You found it very useful, and you think your communities will find it useful too. You want to be helpful.
• You found it humorous, entertaining, and/or inspiring, and you want others to have a “pick-me-up.”
• It answered a question or solved a problem you have had, and you want others to have the answer or solution too.

As you can see, you are not really being selfish when you share content (well, maybe just a little if you are trying to get credit for the share). You want others to have the benefits you have from the content. Most everyone else acts just like you do, and they share for the same reasons.

On the other hand, there is a lot of content that you do not share. Some of that content might be offensive or go against your values and beliefs. But some of that content you don’t trust, and you won’t share it until you have checked it out.

Most everyone else acts just like you do, and they share for the same reasons. They also refrain from sharing, if there is content they don’t trust.

As a content marketer, you need to remember this. Rather than gauge your success by traffic to your site, gauge your success by number of shares you receive. When those are substantial, you will know that you have become a trusted expert and that your brand is trusted as well.

 2.      Millennials Must Trust Before They Buy

The millennial generation was responsible for about $5 billion in online sales in 2014, and, when we get the stats for 2015, that number will have undoubtedly risen. And here’s the thing about millennials:

• They rely on each other for recommendations when they are ready to make a purchase.
• If trust in a business has been lost, or if an experience with a business has been unsatisfactory, they will inform their communities of this. If you lose trust, you will have a terrible time regaining it, if ever.

 3.      People Who Trust You Stay With You

Traffic to your site is only a measure of how many “hits” you have received. And most of those “hits” are pretty fleeting. They don’t stick around if they can’t find something worthwhile in your content. They don’t get into the sales funnel nor do their communities.

The first step in building trust is creating content that solves their problems and answers their questions. And if your content continually does that, you have a reader who does stick around and shares in order to be helpful to others with the same problems and pain points. When those continually growing reading audience then has need of the product or service you offer, you will be the choice.

 4.      Trust Means You Get an Email Address

Part of any content marketing strategy has to be building an email list. This is how you continue to communicate personally with your audience, other than through conversations on your blog and social media sites.

You may have gated content on your site which requires and email address to access. If people trust you and your brand, they will provide that email address. If they see it only as a means for you get that email address so you can engage in “hard” sales tactics, then they will stop short of providing it.

If, however, a reader gets an email from you, and you are providing great useful information, that trust is gradually built up and so are the shares.

 5.      Trust Means You Remain Competitive in a Sea of Content Marketing

There is just so much content floating around, that people become overwhelmed with social media, especially when it is businesses that are posting on their walls or sending them emails or re-targeting them everywhere they go.

If you have taken the time to build trust among your readers and followers, then they are far more likely to delete the posts and emails that are flying at them from a competitor. If you are selling clothing that they like, and their experiences with you have all been good, they will have no desire to comparison shop.

 You can have numerous “likes” and comments. And that is good because you know that people are reading your content. But the real test of your content is the number of “shares.” Shares mean trust and larger communities. And larger communities mean more sales.

from Darlene Milligan http://ift.tt/21JnBVm via transformational marketing
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