Earning Customer Trust Online
Making money through Internet marketing depends on one key factor …trust. If the visitors to your internet marketing website don’t purchase the products or services offered you will NOT make any money. If consumers cannot trust the information on your site they will refrain from making any purchases.
Building customer confidence in internet marketing is a mix of superior branding, good design, and good content. An internet marketing website needs all these three elements to successfully create an environment of trust that encourages sales.
Branding is about the values you stand for, trying to discover a way to convey those ideals in a convincing way, and eventually building a total trust that you will always deliver.
Internet Marketing Branding for Success
Branding is not necessarily limited to big businesses. As soon as you open the doors for any type of business you become a brand in the eyes of all your potential customers. The only option you have is to decide whether to have a negative brand, an undifferentiated brand, or a powerful, motivating brand.
Effective branding on an internet marketing website will make your clients instantly identify your product or service along with the associated benefits of using what you offer.
Don’t brand your business by using generic terms. Instead brand your business by showing the uniqueness of what you offer. For example instead of simply labelling something as "cooking", try to to be more descriptive and enticing by calling it "Exquisite French cuisine for French food lovers”.
On your internet marketing website you have to present your brand so that customers can interact with your message as well as with your site. In the case of internet marketing your potential customers have full control over what they see, read, and hear. This exactly is the reason why traditional advertising doesn't work with Internet marketing.
Internet Marketing Design Considerations
Visitors interact with your internet marketing website when they do their shopping. The internet makes it possible for you to have total control over what your potential customers see. You should always try to create a positive shopping experience or face losing the sale. A 2002 survey by the Stanford Credibility Project shows that 46% of those who took part had said that the design plays a crucial role in a website’s creditability. Even a trusted brand with a badly designed internet marketing website could turn people away.
Just like in a crowded out store, where you simply cannot find the section you are looking for, a crowded and cluttered website confuses a potential buyer. Your internet marketing website should have simple graphics and an easy navigation. You should ensure that the purchasing process is fast and easy to follow. To boost the click-thru rate, your site must offer instant satisfaction in terms of information and clarity.
Customers enter your site at different points, so it is important your brand message remains constant and clear on every page of your internet marketing website. Try to make the appearance of your internet marketing website and offline branding cohesive. Have the same colours on your internet marketing website that you have in your offline marketing materials.
Internet Marketing and Trustworthy Content
Creating content assuring your customer a sense of safety and security is also a way of building trust with your customer. Fraud and identity theft are big concerns for online shoppers. Sadly, Forrester Research results on internet marketing shows that 71% of online shoppers are of the belief that the retailer cannot protect them from fraud. As a result they are unwilling to give out financial and personal information. The research results also revealed that consumers believe that only 49% of companies will protect their privacy.
Visitors to your internet marketing website need to feel that the information they provided will be kept confidential. Before asking someone to give you his or her email address you have to ensure you have a privacy policy statement. The ideal location for your privacy statement is near the email sign-up.
To help set your potential customers mind at rest of a secured financial transaction, you can use security certification seals like of Verisign, Hackersafe, and Thawte. You should have these seals prominently displayed on the shopping cart and throughout the checkout process of your internet marketing website. Research by Forrester revealed that sites using these certification seals has had a 14% increase in conversion rates.
Using the privacy seals from BBB online and TrustE is another good method of showing your authenticity. These third party logos will help convey the message that your company can be trusted and have met a standard for reliability. These seals should always be prominently displayed throughout your internet marketing website next to email signups, registration, cart, and checkout.
Communicate to Build Trust
Building trust in internet marketing all boils down to communicating clearly with your customer. A simple thing such as failing to post the total purchase price upfront can lead to shopping cart rejection. According to Forrester research 57% of shoppers will reject a shopping cart because the shipping charges were more than what they expected.
The goal of your internet marketing business should be to create a worry free shopping environment. Ensure that your company’s brand is clearly expressed through good design, and trustworthy content.
