Building trust from your marketing

Marketing is anything you do that advances knowledge in the community about your business. That includes:

• Print advertising
• Radio and TV promotions
• Direct marketing
• Email newsletters and offers
• Your web site
• Affiliate programmes

Marketing is not exclusively about your business or products. It is about who you are and how you operate in your business. Building credibility and trust are key aspects of successful marketing.

Earning trust

If your business operates locally, your trust is earned by the face-to-face dealings you and your staff have with customers. The key thing for a local businessperson is to make sure your staff members reflect the same fair-minded, respectful attitudes that you display.

The training your staff receives should concentrate on customer communication and how to handle difficult situations.

Impersonal businesses

If your business no longer has that local connection (if, for example, it is in a city or attracts a lot of passing traffic) then trust becomes a harder feeling to generate in customers.
You can, however:

• Offer guarantees that staff point out to customers
• Include printed material outlining your refund/return policy
• Train staff to talk to customers so as to uncover their personal needs/wants and to sell to those. This generates a feeling of being understood and leads to trust
• Sell already trusted brands
• Encourage customers to give feedback about new products by asking them to send in, email or enter feedback in a web site survey (offer an inducement)
  

Creating a relationship

You may notice that these ideas are not to do with the product you sell, but all to do with creating a relationship. You are in fact turning unknown customers into your local buying community. You are building trust and building loyalty. Your customers matter.

Reading an article about marketing, and there are many on the Internet, will not make it happen for you. Marketing needs to be planned to match:

• The type of business you have
• The product or service you sell
• The demographics of the market you are targeting
• The length of time between first contact with a customer and the sale
• Your prime method of sales - face-to-face, e-commerce, mail order

Where to go for support

To ensure we continue to offer the best advice, Edutech works closely with other business advisory services. If your requirements are outside the services we offer, we will be happy to make a recommendation for:

• One-on-one business advice
• Business training courses
• Business and marketing information

Call or email us now.

Edutech KM Ltd

PO Box 25-241, Victoria Street, Christchurch;
phone: 64-3-337-0234
fax: 64-3-337-0235
info@edutechkm.com
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