Less and less people believe brands. People are worried because new technologies are coming out quickly, there is a lot of false information out there, and people are using data in bad ways.
The scores for trust are proof. Only 30% of customers have a lot of faith in businesses, and only 61% believe that business leaders will tell the truth.
Long-term customer loyalty depends on trust. What keeps people coming back or makes them want to tell their friends and family about your brand if they don’t have a connection with it?
Customers don’t trust your brand, so you have to keep marketing hard, but it only pays off in the short run.
What’s going on here?
Consumer trust has gone down over the years, especially in the last ten years, due to a number of reasons.
People are smarter and pickier than ever before.
People are flooded with digital material. As a result, people are selectively engaging with content, choosing content that is useful to them over content that is meant to bother them. This means that each customer’s journey is more complicated than ever, involving more than one venue and point of contact.
It’s not a good way to sell to push information along these journeys without considering individual needs. Marketing needs to meet people where they are or where they want to be. Misalignment leads to situations that people don’t want and will have bad reactions to.
AI efficiency vs. real contact
Generative AI is exciting for marketers because it gives brands and content makers new ways to come up with ideas and speed up production. It’s getting better quickly and saves time and money.
AI, on the other hand, often fails to make real bonds with people. Engagements that aren’t real turn people off and keep eroding faith. When brands rely too much on generative AI for storytelling and interactions with customers, they miss the point of what makes branded content interesting and worth connecting with: real connections.
Everybody is a marketer.
Brands and marketers need to see news sites, publishers, and even influencers as rivals. Each one tries to get people’s attention and reach them, which makes more noise and different stories.
All of these things can be useful on their own, which means that marketers have less room than ever to connect with customers in a meaningful way online. In this setting, it’s hard to deliver an authentic company story and experience.
These rivals could make people forget about brands more than just their attention. Plus, they might lose control of their own stories. They have to face these complicated relationships head-on if they want to write a story that makes people feel connected.
Getting people to trust again
Marketers need to work on building strong, trusting connections with customers if they want to connect with them and keep them as customers for life. How?
Bring up the right answers
Giving people the answers they want on their own terms is a key part of earning their trust. You can make something and let the customer find it when they are ready if you really know what they want. You’ll get through to them if you give them what they want and give them content experiences that fit.
Let people lead, not AI.
Using AI tools for marketing needs to be overseen, guided, and assisted by a person. AI can’t really connect with people on its own because it lacks that undeniable human factor. This is the reason why marketers should control AI tools and have human review their work instead of using AI as a complete connection option.
Take charge of your story.
Boost and align your brand’s main messages and tales. Use the things you own to tell your story online before other online writers decide your story and the path your customers will take.
Now is the time
Giving customers the answers they want on their own terms is an important part of earning their trust. You can meet with more people in a real way if you leave a strong digital footprint that is based on the customer journey and puts the customer’s needs first.
Giving customers what they want early on in the trip (and all the way through it) helps you tell your story and keep their attention. Don’t give up either to the competition; instead, use the things you already own to go the extra mile. To make and keep the trust that real relationship needs, follow these steps.
