Welcome back to Copyblogger! I'm Stefanie, Copyblogger's Editor-in-Chief, and today's quick tip from Brian Clark is about building trust with your content marketing. These three techniques focus on demonstrating your subject-matter expertise rather than merely claiming it. --------------------------------------------------------------- Sponsored Community Powered Marketing (CPM*) is a daily newsletter from Blue Terra. Each edition offers valuable insights on how to organically grow and nurture a loyal community. â[Click here to find out more and access a free gift when you sign up](). --------------------------------------------------------------- How to Build Trust in Relationships with Content Marketing â written by Brian Clark Know, like, trust ... If youâre not hitting all three, youâre likely not enjoying success with your content. Traditional marketing is big on the know â itâs all about creating awareness in the marketplace. Add in some clever messaging to prompt some level of liking, and mission accomplished, right? Itâs as if awareness of a brand is enough to spark trust. And itâs true â we do tend to prefer brands that we know, even if thereâs no true difference between one product and a generic one. But when it comes down to choosing between two or more brands, trust becomes critical. This is one of the benefits that content marketers have over competitors. And it can be a substantial benefit if done correctly. 3 ways to build trust In terms of persuasion techniques dating back to the time of Aristotle, ethos is an appeal to the authority, honesty, and credibility of the person speaking or writing. Aristotle also thought that a key component of effective ethos was a combination of likability and selflessness, which he characterized as âdisinterested goodwill.â Disinterest here doesnât mean you donât care if you get a beneficial outcome â it means you serve your audience whether or not you get that benefit from any particular person. The art of disinterested goodwill When you give away quality content thatâs so good you could have charged money for it, youâre acting with âdisinterested goodwill.â That means your audience received value regardless of whether they ever pay you a dime. Just the act of performing content marketing triggers the power of disinterested goodwill. Lacking that, there are three techniques you can use to achieve the same goal. 1. The âreluctant conclusionâ technique A classic persuasion technique is the âreluctant conclusion.â You share with your audience how you had a change of heart based on overwhelming evidence. For example, youâve recently raised the price of your digital products and discovered that itâs killing your sales. You could just quietly change the price back and hope no one notices, but youâll build more trust and goodwill with your audience if you explain that you were wrong about the price raise and will be reverting it. Meanwhile, youâve also met your goal of sparking dormant sales. Itâs a win-win-win when you count the additional trust that youâve built with your audience for future products and promotions. 2. The âpersonal sacrificeâ approach Another tactic is the âpersonal sacrificeâ approach. Yes, your free online workshop could have been a paid product, but youâve decided not to charge for it so you can help more people. Iâm sure youâve seen this done many times before, with varying degrees of skill in the execution. The key to handling it well is, as always, to know your audience. --------------------------------------------------------------- Sponsored by Community Powered Marketing (CPM*) Free Analytics Software for Community Builders When you [join the Community Powered Marketing (CPM*) newsletter](), you also get access to download Prosper202 for free. It's self-hosted tracking and analytics software for community builders. Start tracking your community powered marketing campaigns to find out exactly which channels/messages drive your best results. --------------------------------------------------------------- 3. The âAbraham Lincolnâ technique And finally thereâs the âAbraham Lincolnâ technique. Lincoln was an unusual-looking guy with a hick accent and a whiny voice. When he gave speeches during his run for president, he added fuel to his personal fire by claiming to be a poor public speaker with nothing new to say. And yet, Lincoln was a very bright man with an excellent grasp of the nationâs problems. He lowered expectations by presenting himself as a sincere fool, and by the end of a speech he had won the audience over completely. So, if youâre a chiropractor who also does content marketing, itâs really easy to claim youâre âno master copywriter." Again, you need to intimately know your audience to understand whatâs appropriate when it comes to these things. Whatâs in it for you? If any of the three tactics above sounded hokey or even manipulative, youâre not alone. That doesnât mean they donât work to build trust with certain audiences; they just might not work on you. Thatâs why I repeatedly say, âKnow thy audience.â I donât use those tactics on you, because I think Iâd get a chorus of eye rolls. Youâre more sophisticated than a typical audience, so those approaches might hurt more than help. My approach to building trust My approach is to simply never be shy about saying whatâs in it for me. It was a lesson I learned back in 2007. I had been giving away valuable free content on Copyblogger for 18 months at that point. No product, no service, just relentless focus on serving and building the audience. Then a strange thing started happening. I began getting emails from people who didnât understand why I was giving everything away for free without asking for a sale. It caught me off guard, but the people in my early audience were worried that they couldnât trust my content, because they didnât understand what was in it for me. Color me shocked. So, even though I still try to be as generous as possible, I never shy away from saying whatâs in it for me. If weâre doing our jobs correctly, whatâs in it for you should always come across as superior â which makes it a sales strategy as well. Demonstrate trustworthiness The most powerful way to establish yourself as a subject-matter expert is to demonstrate your authority with your content rather than simply claim to be an expert. Overall, serving your audience with the right valuable content is the best way to demonstrate your trustworthiness and establish true âdisinterested goodwill.â Other than that, the natural impulse to hide your economic motivations or business objectives is almost always a mistake. Realize that people increasingly think everyone is âon the take,â and your primary job is to assure your audience that youâre not. Building trust is bigger than tactics â itâs your entire mission. Read on Copyblogger: [How to Build Trust in Relationships with Content Marketing]()â Talk with you again soon, â â[Stefanie Flaxman](=)â
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