We live in an age where Word of Mouth (WoM) is critical for businesses simply because people increasingly trust other people’s opinions rather than believing what advertisers tell us about their products.
Each year Nielsen produce a report entitled Global Trust in Advertising. The Nielsen Global Trust in Advertising Survey polled 30,000 online respondents in 60 countries to gauge consumer sentiment about 19 paid, earned and owned advertising mediums.
The most credible advertising comes straight from the people we know and
trust. More than eight-in-10 global respondents (83%) say they completely
or somewhat trust the recommendations of friends and family. But trust
isn’t confined only to those in our inner circle. In fact, two-thirds (66%) say
they trust consumer opinions posted online—the third-most-trusted format.
This reinforces my argument that to sell your products and services you need both visibility and credibility. But how can you build credibility?
Let’s start by looking at an online business.
Building Credibility for an Online Business
You could build credibility in various ways – these are just a few suggestions:
- doing webinars so that people can hear you and interact with you
- being interviewed by a radio host – this igves people the chance to hear you but it also has the advantage that you are being endorsed by someone that people like and trust
- interviewing someone who is well known and trusted – this enables people to see how you interact with someone they like and trust but also acts as an endorsement
- guest blogging on the blog of someone who is well respected by your target clients
- having someone who’s well respected guest blog on your blog
- being seen with the right people in the right places and posting those pictures on your Fcaebook Page or on Instagram
- being part of an offering by someone with a large audience that includes your target clients
- giving a talk on a membership programme – for example last year I gave a talk for Mari Smith and her Inner Circle
- if you’re delivering home study programmes delivering the programmes offline for a major university or organisation gives credibility. For several years I delivered my Idea Generator and From Idea to Launch programmes at McGill University in Canada. This gave me the credibility I needed for Dillington House in the UK to agree to include my Idea Generator Workshop in their 2016-2017 programme. Both of these give credibililty when I promote my online programmes.
My question to you
What do you do to build credibility for your business?
