Have you been putting in months or years of hard work into your brand without reaping the rewards?
Perhaps you feel your brand should be a leader in your field, but potential clients don’t know who you are?
Sound familiar?
Clients will be hesitant to invest in your brand if you have not first invested in your brand’s credibility.
Ideally, brands want to put themselves in the best light possible and provide a credible customer perception that they can be trusted.
How can you improve your credibility and build your reputation? We’ve written out a few of our best tips below:
Testimonials and Case Studies
Let past clients sing your praises with testimonials and case studies!
Have your previous clients had an excellent experience with your company? Ask them to write a testimonial for your brand.
Worked with a client that’s had results that were too good not to be shared? Compile your results and testimonial into a case study. We have some examples from our clients here.
Place these testimonials and case studies front and centre on your homepage or services page – where potential clients will be sure to find them.
These act as social proof from real clients, helping potential clients feel safe and comfortable reaching out and working with you.
Don’t forget to share them on social media too!
We’re Qualified!
Your team members or brand may have amazing qualifications that people don’t know about.
Ensure that these logos and accreditations are on your website, your blogs, your social media, and everywhere else you can put them!
Similarly, are there industry awards that your brand can partake in? Winning, or indeed being shortlisted for awards, gives an added sense of credibility to your brand.
Reviews
Unlike personally delivered testimonials, public reviews could be on Google, Trustpilot, Facebook etc. – platforms that allow anyone to contribute, giving clear visibility to your reviews on a platform that your brand doesn’t control.
While these platforms may not be within your control, you do have the power to sway your star rating – encourage your clients to give you 5 stars on Google (or the channel of your choice), again helping potential clients to gain confidence in your brand.
It’s also absolutely worth taking the time to respond to individual reviews, both positive and negative, even if it’s just to thank them for the feedback. Studies have shown that brands who respond to all (or even most) reviews are perceived more positively, receive 12% more reviews, and generate more revenue.
Make Friends
From clients and customers to publications that you may have been featured on, let people know who you have worked with!
Many websites will have a section for previous clients or partners, displaying their logos to give that extra sense of credibility.
Featuring logos rather than text is an instantaneous visual cue of your credibility. Blocks of text can hide this visual cue.
What if you are a new brand and haven’t worked with many clients yet? Obviously, you won’t have a collection of previous client’s logos and testimonials to share. However, as you build your business, reach out to different publications or partners to offer your expertise to help them or be featured within their publications.
This is more of a long-term goal and will take time to build up. Take the time to think about anything that could be used here – from clients to accreditations, even charities you support.
Quality Guaranteed
Have a quality guarantee for your product/service. Think about something that will give peace of mind to your clients.
For example, at Sprint Digital, our guarantee is that our clients are happy with the services, websites and branding that we build for them.
Put your money where your mouth is with this – as a company, you should be proud and have confidence in your product/service. The confidence you have is then passed on to your clients and, if backed by skill, is reflected in your results.
In a practical sense, ensure that your guarantee works for both sides.
- A ‘guarantee of satisfaction’ with a branding project could work for your client for 5 years until they want to update again.
- A ‘guarantee of satisfaction within the project completion timeframe’ doesn’t imply the project will be open to edits for years to come – everything within reason.
Clients who have not worked with you before are taking a risk – they are giving you trust by choosing to spend their money on you. How can you return this trust to them?
Make Information Easy to Find
Phone numbers, email address, physical address – these all provide peace of mind for clients if they want to call you or see you in person. In an era of dropshipping and illegitimate digital storefronts, this makes clients feel sure that you are a legitimate business – they know who to contact and where to find you.
Adding a ‘team’ page to your website will put faces to a name, enabling prospective clients to see the faces behind the business and emails they receive.
Show What You Know
Show that you know what you are doing by demonstrating that you have done the work and have the results to back it up.
Blogs, videos, reports and more allow clients to see that you know what you are talking about and give them insight into your process.
Demonstrated expertise can give clients a sense of trailing before they purchase, so they know what your style is like through your content (This is another reason why your tone, content and brand values are so important to stay consistent throughout your online content).
Brand Ethos
Lastly, consider what your brand ethos is and ensure this is clearly featured on your website. Clients will get a feel for what your company is about through your company ethos. Ensure it answers the following questions:
- Why were you established?
- What do you stand for?
- Where are the products coming from?
- Sustainability initiatives?
- Which charities do you support?
Hopefully a few of these tips will be helpful to you in improving your credibility and building your brand’s reputation. Tell your story to let clients share in your passion!
