How to Inspire Trust in Your New Startup
It’s extremely likely that your new business venture is going to need a website or app. Whatever you do, whatever the product or service, a web presence is expected. Not only is the easiest, most cost-effective and controllable form of advertising, but it’s also the best way to inspire trust in potential customers. The way you present your company online can make all the difference to success or failure.
One of the main stumbling blocks in building trust online for startups is a lack of history. After all, you’ve never made any sales and don’t have any testimonials. Customers are used to looking at reviews, (sadly most are unaware of the quality of internet reviews and how to check if reviews are real or fake), but they’re used to seeing ‘something’ and it’s up to you to convince them that it’s OK to go ahead without them.
Ramp Up the Human Factor on Your Website
One way to get around this problem is by ramping up the human factor on your website. Companies have all those About Us pages for two reasons, to give prospects the comfort that they’re dealing with a real and trustworthy entity, and to encourage people to apply for jobs as they can see what a cool place this is to work. You might not be recruiting yet, but if the right sort of people are prompted to get in touch, you’ll have a nice list of suitable and interested people to hand when the time is right. This could save a lot of time, money and effort when the business starts to grow and you need help in a hurry. Create a section about the team and the product. Add details about the people behind the page, even if it’s just you. Photographs are a great way to immediately inspire trust. Keep them up to date.
Social Media Can Inspire Trust – If It’s Done Properly
Use the same photos on your blossoming social media pages too. You might not think you have time for social, but you don’t need to use every platform. You should know your ideal target customer well enough at this stage to be able to predict the best social media platform to find them on, especially if you’re not using any paid advertising. Focus on your target platform and keep it up to date. Prospective customers will often click through to a link, and if it takes them to a Twitter feed set up by an efficient web development company that hasn’t been updated by the client for 3 years, it’s extremely likely that they’re going to go and look elsewhere. Remember, unless there’s an up to date blog post, news item or copyright notice on the front of your site, the average person will have no idea how old it is and whether you’re still in business. Make things easy for them.
Make it Easy for People to Contact You, Before and After they Buy
Include details of easy ways to get in touch with you – this is where a phone number and an email address will help a lot. Make sure that you’re using a dedicated email that matches the website domain too. And if you can add a landline phone number in the same location as the contact address, prospective customers will immediately understand that you are where you say you are, without even needing to pick up the phone. If you can’t manage this, consider the sort of phone number that allows people to call from anywhere at a local rate. Not only will this make you look more professional, but it will also encourage people to get in touch and the numbers are generally recognizable to the majority of people, again increasing trust.
An anonymous contact form doesn’t inspire trust, it might be easier for you, but some people like to know that there’s a way to get in touch for any after-sales issues. If you must have a form, add the comfort of some wording that explains exactly how and when they can expect a response from you. If you’re asking for any sort of data from them, it should be clear who is using it, for what purpose and how it is stored. (Yes it’s time to read up on your GDPR for SMEs now). And again, don’t forget social media here, tell people you’ll be happy to respond to messages there and then make sure that you do. If they’re happy, they’ll likely respond on the page, your first public review!
We hope you enjoyed this promoted piece as much as we did!
