Branding is a powerful weapon in business, and using it to build investor and customer trust is a brilliant way to put you on the road to success. Here are a few ways to build investor trust, as well as some ways to build your customer’s trust in you.
Consistent Visual Identity
Whether it be through your packaging supplies or your logo, a consistent visual identity is one of the best ways to build trust with both investors and customers. Whether it be your logo, typography, or color scheme, consistency equals reliability.
Consumers and investors react far more positively to a brand that knows who they are and what they stand for, as opposed to a brand that is constantly trying to change or reimagine their image.
On-Brand Messaging
On-brand and consistent messaging is vital to building trust and reinforcing your brand’s values. Whether it be through email blasts or social media posts, ensuring your message aligns with your brands voice and mission leads to recognition and trust.
A brilliant example is Nike with their “Just Do It” slogan. It is short and simple, but it conveys the brand’s message of empowerment, strength, and determination and is easily spread across marketing channels.
Employee Alignment
Your branding isn’t the only thing that needs to be consistent; your employees also need to be part of the message you are trying to convey. How they interact with customers and the values they strive for show investors and consumers that they believe in the mission of the company they work for.
When your employees are part of your brand identity and message, they become brand ambassadors who deliver a consistent brand experience to all of your customers.
Long-Term Consistency
Consistency and trust aren’t things that are achieved overnight; they require long-term plans that take changing wants and needs into consideration. Developing a branding plan allows you to outline your branding goals and show the ways you would adapt to changes.
This, in turn, shows investors that you are thinking about the future as well and how your brand will interact with a changing landscape.
Multiple-Channel Experience
Finally, another key aspect of building trust is having your branding across multiple channels. From your storefronts to your Facebook or Instagram pages, your branding should align no matter how customers or potential customers see or interact with it.
There are many brands that have created seamless branding across all of their marketing avenues; this builds trust and consistency in the minds of both investors and consumers.
Other Ways Your Brand Can Build Trust
Beyond building trust with your investors, there are a few methods you can use to build trust with your consumers. Trust and reliability are two driving factors behind sales and growing your consumer base.
Speak to Your Customers
One of the first things you need to do is communicate with your customers like a human and not like a business. A “business voice” is one that sounds too generic and not personalized, while a human voice makes a customer feel like they are talking to someone directly.
Customers want to feel like they aren’t just a number, and talking to them directly and personally and makes them feel like their question or concern is important and worth your time.
Build Relationships
Beyond simply communicating with your customers, building relationships with them is a great way to build trust. Customers want to feel like they are doing business with a friend who has their best interests at the forefront and not just a faceless name brand trying to take their money.
Use & Value Feedback
Feedback is one of the most crucial parts of growing and expanding your product and business. Knowing what your customers like and don’t like and what they want changed allows you to develop a product or service that is more focused on what your target audience wants.
Customer Service
Never underestimate the power of consistent and valuable customer service. One of the main areas that businesses fail is having weak customer service that doesn’t help customers but rather annoys them.
Whether it be on the phone or online, providing customer service that is efficient and solves a customer’s problem without any hassle to them shows the customer that you are reliable and trustworthy.
Look to Your Audience
Don’t go down the generic road with your branding and implementing overused slogans and promises that consumers can see right through. Instead, look to them for what they want out of you and provide that.
See what they want and how they want you to provide value, and then build your communication and branding around that. This will instantly resonate with them, and they will view you as a reliable solution to their problem.
To conclude, branding is an exceptionally powerful tool when building trust in both investors and consumers and when done correctly, you quickly separate yourself from the crowd and become a brand that consumers look to for consistency and customer satisfaction. While it isn’t something that can be done overnight, the long-term benefits of brand trust are invaluable.
