5 types of content that will help you win your customers’ trust

To convince people to shop with your small business, you need to know how to win and keep your customers’ trust. And, content is one of the most effective tools you can use for this.

There are so many different types of content you can publish on your company’s website, but certain types are going to be especially great for earning your audience’s trust. In this article, we’re going to be taking a look at 5 of them. Read on to find out more.

Blog posts about the latest industry news

If you can demonstrate that you know your sector inside and out, people will be more likely to trust you. And, one of the ways you can show this is by frequently publishing blog posts about relevant industry news. For example, you could publish news about announcements or policies that affect your industry, new trends, or even awards that people in your industry have gotten.

The more often someone visits your website, the more likely they’ll be to make a purchase. To get inspiration, let’s look at some examples of businesses that keep their audience updated with the latest industry news.

Reid Supply is a company that provides industrial parts to manufacturers. And, their website has a section for industry news where they share information about their tools and products being used in their field of work.

They publish posts that give readers more insight into their industry and how they work. Their audience will appreciate the effort the company takes in providing information about the sector, and they’ll keep coming back to learn more. They’ll also be able to gain customers’ trust with the value they are giving for free.

Another example comes from Hootsuite, a social media management solution. As a company that operates in the social media industry, they understand the need to keep their audience updated on the new features and announcements coming from different social media platforms.

For instance, Instagram and Facebook recently rolled out the option to turn off like counts, and Hootsuite has a blog post that talks about this announcement. They discuss the update, initial feedback from customers, and provide a mini-tutorial on hiding like counts. This is a great way to offer valuable and actionable information, and it will go a long way in helping to win the trust of their audience.

If you also want to provide valuable industry updates for your customers, ensure you always do it in a timely manner. This can mean signing up to the email lists of relevant and authoritative websites in the industry, or regularly visiting their social media pages to stay updated.

Expert content that answers their frequently asked questions

Another way to win your customers’ trust is to show that you truly understand their needs and concerns. You can try demonstrating this by creating content that answers their most frequently asked questions.

To identify the questions you should be answering with your content, try to look through the queries that are received by your customer service team. Or you could also use forums like Quora or Reddit to join relevant conversations in your niche. When you do this, you’ll be able to see discussions that people in your audience are having and then identify the questions you can answer with your content.              

When creating expert content, try to make sure you go in-depth to provide actionable and useful information to give your clients the most value possible.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Here are examples of businesses that use this tactic well to give you a better idea of what expert content that answers FAQs should look like.

RMIT Online offers people the opportunity to study various courses and programs online. One example of expert content they’ve created is their post on marketing skills people need in 2021.

As they offer different marketing programs, they know that their students require information on the type of skills they need to develop before graduating. So, they created a detailed blog post to educate people on the skills they’d need to be successful marketers. Not only does this do a great job of gaining their audience’s confidence, but it also shows that the school cares about what happens to its students after graduation. This is sure to earn their trust.

The Silicon Review also shows us how to create expert content with their guide on how to write an essay in a hurry. In the post, they give useful tips for completing an essay when you’ve got deadlines and are rushing.

The post provides a lot of actionable and helpful advice for people in their audience who have been dealing with the issue of rushed deadlines for an essay. Also, it reassures them that they can trust the website to provide valuable content that gives answers to their questions.

When creating expert content for your site, try to make sure that you don’t use overly technical language, and speak directly to your audience. Even if the topic is technical, your expert content does not have to be complicated, because you’re trying to help people in your audience, many of whom might not understand technical terms.

Buying guides or comparison pieces that will help customers make the best decision

If you can show that you only want the best for your customers and aren’t just out to make as much money from them as possible, they’ll be far more likely to trust you.

One of the best ways you can make them feel at ease is by making it very obvious that you want them to make the best purchase to suit their needs — even if that means not spending money with you.

Buying guides and comparison pieces are ideal for this, as they will help people work out what they actually need and compare and contrast some of the best options they have. When creating these types of content, make sure that you are unbiased and neutral, especially if your product or service will be part of the round-up.

To give you examples of excellent buying guides or comparison pieces, let’s take a look at some that are already out there.

Our first example comes from Best Value Schools, an online resource for people who want to pursue higher education. They have a comparison piece that outlines the best online universities in 2021. The post provides information about the universities mentioned, like the number of programs they offer or the amount of tuition required.

Most of the people in their audience will be trying to decide which school to enroll at and, with access to this kind of information, they would find it much easier to make their decision. The post also doesn’t favor any school over another, which proves the readers can trust the site to be as objective as possible.

We also have this heavy equipment buying guide from The Silicon Review. The guide educates people on whether they should buy a new or used forklift. It talks about price, the type of engine, and the kind of tires to get. It also mentions to confirm whether the forklift you are buying comes with warranty coverage. It’s a great guide for someone who might be purchasing a forklift for the first time, and it includes all the important information someone might need to know.

Content that will help customers truly understand your services

In a similar vein, you’ll want to ensure your customers truly understand what your products or services are like so they can make an informed decision when buying from you. To do this, you can create content like product demonstrations, case studies, or written guides that explain your products or services further.

When creating content that explains your services, make sure to keep it simple. Don’t confuse prospects with technical aspects of your products but, instead, simply show them how your tool helps solve the common problems they have.

You could also highlight the benefits of your product and the results you’ve been able to get for previous customers. This can work quite well if you are creating case studies for your site.

If you need more information about how to create content that can help customers really understand your products or services, here are some examples of businesses already using this tactic to earn their customers’ trust and make more sales.

FreshBooks specializes in providing an online accounting solution for small and medium-sized businesses. To help people understand the exact service they offer, they have a post that explains cloud accounting software and why companies might want to use it.

The guide goes into detail about the safety of cloud accounting software and how its primary benefit is the data backup and disaster recovery that people have access to in the event of any unforeseen circumstances. It truly helps explain their business’s goals and why they created an online tool to simplify the accounting process.

Also, take a look at Vyond, an animation software tool that can help businesses to create professional animated videos. On their website, they have a product demonstration video that highlights the features and benefits of their tool and what it does for customers.

The short video outlines the tasks that customers can use Vyond to accomplish and explains why people should use such a tool. It’s catchy and entertaining, and it does a great job of getting new website visitors to trust their brand and believe that investing in an animated video tool will play a part in improving their business.

If you want to create content like demonstrations, they tend to work very well for product-based businesses as they allow you to use high-quality videos to show the inner workings of your tool and what it can do. This is great for managing your customers’ expectations and earning their trust.

Free tools that address your customers pain points

If you can prove that you’re able to help your ideal customers without them ever having to spend money with you, they’ll be far more likely to come back to make a purchase. And free tools are ideal for this. The way the free model works is that you can give your customers a taste of what you’re capable of without any cost, and that makes them eager to get more from your business.

There are different free tools you could create, depending on what you do. These could include free templates, checklists, or interactive calculators. The best free tools should be relevant to your business and audience, and that’s what makes them work. These tools are excellent for earning customers’ trust because they show that you are open to giving away value for free to help people solve their pain points.

Now, let’s take a look at some examples of businesses that already have great free tools or templates so you can get some ideas.

Looka, an online branding specialist, has a great example of a tool that they offer for free on their website. It’s a business name generator that helps people to pick a brand name, check for its availability, and also see the search volume that the name has on search engines.

It’s a really useful tool that could help prospective customers who might not have settled on a business name before deciding to get a logo. By creating the tool, Looka has made it possible to solve one pain point of their customers without needing them to make any financial commitment. What a way to inspire trust in the minds of customers!

Also, let’s take a look at this free template library from Xtensio, an online platform where teams can share and collaborate on documents. They’ve dedicated an entire page of their website to free templates spanning various fields like business development, marketing, or product management.

These templates will help their customers to perform different tasks like creating content calendars or handing over a project. They’re super helpful, and they address so many issues that Xtensio’s customers would have when it comes to creating professional documents and presentations. Seeing as they’ve provided all this value for free, their customers would be more inclined to trust and stay loyal to their brand.

Free tools and templates usually work especially well for service-based businesses. When creating them, you could decide to make it compulsory for visitors to enter their contact details before accessing the tools. This allows you to add them to your email list for future correspondence.

Summary

Trust is a very important factor in growing your business. People will only become your customers if they feel like they can trust you enough to spend their money with you. And they’ll also only stay if they trust you well enough to continue doing business with your brand.

In this guide, we’ve outlined some of the best types of content for winning and keeping your customers’ trust, and those are blog posts about industry news, expert content, buying guides, or free tools that address your customers’ pain points.

And, if you’re looking to get regular updates on new strategies to help your business, you can always check out The Silicon Review for all the latest and important digital marketing news.

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Author bio & headshot:

Alex Ratynski is a Content Strategist at Loganix, an SEO fulfillment partner that works with agencies and marketers. The company focuses on helping businesses to improve their online visibility, so they can grow and reach their goals. If you enjoyed this article, visit the Loganix blog for more expert advice.