Digital strategy consulting may seem like a vague term, but it’s best to think of it as a service that pulls together all the various aspects of online marketing and branding for your business — professional web design services, web development, social media, etc. — into a cohesive effort. And what should that effort be? Of course, some aspects of digital strategy consulting will focus on the more mechanical aspects of bringing in customers, but at the heart of any successful online business strategy is trust. If you’re not building consumer confidence in your brand, then you simply won’t see your business grow. Building that kind of trust takes constant assessment and adjustment, but here are five policies digital strategists recommend that you can start implementing right away:
- Get the Right Seals
Especially if you’re running an ecommerce site and asking customers to input sensitive information, you have to let them know you take their security seriously. If your site has been secured by a certain program or protocol, ask for a trust seal you can display on your site so that visitors know you care about their data privacy.
- Initiate Conversation
Trust is built when you create personal relationships with your customers, and two-way communication is the foundation of any relationship (both in business and the rest of life). That means using avenues like social media to initiate true conversations, and not just using them as megaphones to blast your narrative.
- Use Personal Photos
If you’re going to build a real relationship with your customers, you need to be genuine. That includes using real, personal photos instead of generic stock photos for your website and social media accounts. Keep in mind, however, that these should still be high-quality professional photos, not blurry selfies.
- Be Transparent
Give your consumers all the information up front, rather than making them dig for it. Are you getting a commission for recommending something? Do you have a policy limiting refunds? None of those things will necessarily break your customers’ trust — unless you try to keep them secret.
- Keep Your Promises
This is probably the most important aspect of creating a trustworthy brand: You can absolutely never break your promises. If that means taking the occasional financial loss in order to make something right with a customer, then that’s simply what you need to do. It also means you need to be extremely careful about the promises you make in the first place; it’s better to under-promise and over-deliver than the other way around.
Have you considered implementing comprehensive digital strategy consulting to work on aspects of your business like this? Discuss in the comments.