Earn their trust early in the buying journey and watch your revenues explode.
85% of SMB leaders value trust above all else in their relationship with vendors. — Salesforce
In a recent post we addressed how the SMB’s buying journey often doesn’t begin as a buying journey at all. Here’s what we mean: before SMBs realize they’re in the market for a product or service, let alone ready to choose a vendor, they’re typically looking to solve a problem. Often, only when someone —possibly a brand—suggests that there is a solution and shows them the pathway to get there do most buying journeys begin.
If you can engage with them at this early stage, you have an opportunity to set them on a buying journey with your brand top-of-mind along the way. By pointing them toward resolution of their challenge, you create a level of trust that will give your brand an inherent advantage over others that come later.
Creating trust with content
The place to start is with the content on your website. It should offer SMBs help with their opportunities and challenges. This content can be related to your product benefits, but it’s important that it’s not overtly sales focused. In other words, it should focus on the needs of SMBs rather than on the specifics of your product or service. Remember that, sometimes, SMBs don’t know what they don’t know. They may not know what solutions exist, or where to find them. Call out challenges that you know they’re facing, and show that there are options.
Once you have a rich mix of helpful content on your site, you need to get it in front of your audience. It is critical to go beyond the SEO benefits of your content and promote and distribute it. Your newsletter is an essential vehicle for this, as are other tactics such as paid social. Don’t rely on your audience to find your website content for themselves. (Look for a future post for more on this topic)
By creating great content and ensuring it gets seen, you can become a resource for information that is of real value to SMBs, and gain their trust before they even begin looking for specific products or services. This can help generate incremental demand for your product or service by putting your brand on their radar from the start. Then, by offering content that moves them through their buying journey, you’ll be able to keep them engaged, reinforce the trust you’ve created, and even accelerate their journey.
Trust is a competitive advantage
Salesforce puts it well in a new report: “In today’s business landscape, trust isn’t a commodity—it’s a differentiator.” At some point, your SMB prospects will check out your competition, but if you’ve earned their trust from the start and continue to add value throughout the journey, they’ll likely stick with you to the end.
Get insights and tips for marketing to small and midsize businesses from the people who speak SMB.
