The importance «Trust» in Marketing
What functions do we typically see in a Marketing job description?- Increase brand awareness,
- Increase revenue generation.
The customer.
We can’t approach digital marketing like traditional advertising. The equation for sales in these days was simple, but it worked:It was a perpetual motion machine of money. The only difference is…Today we build an audience first and THEN we interrupt them.
If these tactics ever did work in the digital space, they do not work anymore. At least not in a capacity that will grow your business in the long term.
Go read some marketing blogs or listen to some marketing podcasts and listen to professional marketers complain about things like Reach, Engagement, and Attention
There is no doubt, that interrupting your audience with advertising will yield some sales. If it didn’t no one would do it. The issue is when you want more sales.
When you want more sales you have to spend more money.
Then comes audience burnout and the subsequent ad blindness (Think banner ads on websites).
Now you need to find a new audience that hasn’t been burnout and isn’t yet blind to your advertising and begin the process again.
Advertising is an Unconnected Generation concept. We advertise in newspapers and billboards to capture the Unconnected Generation consumers who aren’t online and have no other way coming in contact with your brand.
Except we’re talking about digital marketing, these are Connected Generation consumers, who don’t want their online experience interrupted for some brand’s benefit.
It’s time that we realign our marketing job description to include true digital asset acquisition: Trust.
So the new formula is: Audience + Trust = Sales
Trust acquisition should be the primary responsible of every marketing department.
Trust makes the journey from consumer need, to your product comfortable and effortless. Without trust there is friction in the sales process.
Here are job functions more suitable for marketer focused on trust acquisition:
When you are focused on building trust, you need less advertising. The trust focused marketer has no need to interrupt the lives of their audience.
Once trust is
established, the sale is simply a result of the natural evolution of
the consumers relationship with your company.