👋, I’m Kimberly. I’ve been creating obsession-worthy brands for the past fifteen years. And now, I’m giving away my secrets every week in this newsletter.
A few months ago, I started buying 3D printed personalized vitamins. That’s right—3D printed personalized vitamins.
I purchased them off of an Instagram ad, because I’m the type of person Instagram targets with 3D printed personalized vitamins.
And it’s good targeting—because I bought them.
When the 3D printed personalized vitamins first arrived in the mail, my husband was skeptical.
“3D printed? Personalized? Vitamins? From some random company in England?” he said, handing me the package. “O-k…”
His doubtful reaction set off the Alarm Area of my brain:
Hmm, I did just buy these 3D printed personalized vitamins that I’m going to put into my body off of an Instagram ad from some random company I’ve never heard of in England....
But then the Branding Area of my brain jumped in:
Wow, this 3D printed personalized vitamin company certainly made me trust them to get me to do this. Awesome job, 3D printed personalized vitamin company!
Inspired by the 3D printed personalized vitamin brand’s awesome job, I’ve sharing my five-part framework for getting customers to trust your brand… no matter what industry you’re in.
But first things first…
You Need to Establish Your Baseline
Trust has always been one of the most important things for brands to establish. It is the basis of every good customer relationship.
Because why in the world would you ever buy something from a brand that you don’t trust—at least a little?
I find it useful to think of trust in terms of what exactly your customers are trusting your brand with:
Are they trusting your brand with… their health?
Are they trusting your brand with…. their safety?
Are they trusting your brand with… their money?
Are they trusting your brand with… their environment?
Are they trusting your brand with their…. personal information?
Are they trusting your brand with their… success?
Are they trusting your brand with their… appearance?
The majority of brands tend to stay in one or two main lanes of trust here. For instance, you trust a beauty company with your appearance. Or you trust a bank with your money and your personal information.
But some brands extend influence over multiple lanes.
Multiple lane brands tend to be built around some central authority that puts its stamp of approval on things. Customers decide that they trust you as a brand to make all sorts of good decisions about things that impact their lives.
An example of a brand like this would be Goop—the lifestyle company started by Gwyneth Paltrow.
People take Goop’s advice on everything from what $1K sweater to wear, which macrobiotic dish to cook for dinner, and where to travel on your next immersive experience vacation.
Another example would be a brand like Nordstrom. According to Gemma Lionello, Nordstrom’s executive vice president, customers return to the brand time and again “because they trust our service and rely on our expertise.”
It’s important for you as a brand to know exactly what your customer is trusting you with in what area(s) of their lives. You’ll need to keep this in mind when you design your communications.
Trust Gets Grandfathered In
Lists of “most trustworthy brands” tend to be topped by very big, very known brands.
For example, here are Morning Consult’s Top 25 Most Trusted Brands for 2020:
According or Bobby Calise, VP of Ybrands, “Young people may trust brands like Hershey's, Oreo, and M&M's because they've consistently made products they love for a long time—and there's no reason not to trust them.”
Similarly, he says, “Megabrands like Amazon, Target, Google, and Netflix are so ubiquitous and popular that young people innately trust them.”
The more trust you build, and the more years you build it for, the better.
All the work you put in to establishing trust for your brand at the beginning will pay off in the long run.
My Framework: The 5 C’s
Based on my experiences creating trusted brands across industries, here’s the framework I’ve developed to help my clients.
Answer all of the questions below in the affirmative—and your brand will be well on its way to being trusted by everyone who matters to you.
1. Consistency
Are you presenting your brand in a clear and consistent way across channels?
Do your words and visuals always make sense together?
Are you showing your customers that they can depend on you?
2. Competence
Does your product do what it says it does? Having awesome reviews helps establish this for potential customers.
Is your brand founded by, backed by, and/or endorsed by industry experts and people of influence or authority in your field?
Do you have the backing of credible third-parties? Show off the seals or organizations. If applicable, having clinical studies and scientific facts to back up your claims falls into this bucket, too.
3. Candor
Are you being transparent about your operations? Today’s customer wants to know the who/what/when/where/how of your product.
Are your mission and values clear to the customer? Your motives matter—and it should be easy for people to know what you stand for, and what you don’t.
Is your brand being upfront and honest with customers? One thing I’ve been telling my brands for years is that you can show “progress not perfection.” If everything in your business isn’t perfect yet, that’s ok. As long as people know where your heart is and feel like you’re honestly working toward the right goals and making progress, they’ll forgive the fact that not every part of your package is made from recycled parts just yet.
4. Concern
Speaking of recycled packages, is your brand being conscious of the environment? Doing better by the planet has reached critical mass, and its important for customers to know that your brand cares too.
Is your brand giving back and being philanthropic in some way? Having a charitable connection is table stakes now—and not giving back stands out in a negative light.
Are you taking care of your customers AND your employees? Being good to everyone makes you more worthy of trust.
5. Connection
Are you reaching out to interact with your customers? You should be talking with them and getting their feedback on a regular basis.
Are you making it easy for customers to reach out to you? You need to make sure you’re accessible. Answer whenever your customers pose a question or make a comment—whether it is to your customer service department or on a TikTok video.
Are you actively educating your customers? Giving them information that makes them smarter about your product makes them better customers—and better brand advocates for you down the road.
Now, Back to Those 3D Printed Personalized Vitamins
With my 5 C’s in mind, I took a look back at Nourished, my 3D printed personalized vitamin brand, to see how it stacked up.
Consistency: The brand’s clean visuals and straightforward language work together to give an air of legitimacy across the website, social channels, and ads.
Competence: Nourished highlights all of its fantastic customer reviews on its site, on social, and in ads. They are “the highest-rated vitamin in the UK.”
You can quickly see that the brand has been featured in big name publications.
Nourished highlights the credibility of its founder (a registered nutritionist) and its techies, makers, and scientists. The brand also cites accredited research studies and shows off that its technology is protected by patents (not one, but 8!).
Candor: Nourished’s mission and values are front and center on the About Page. And Nourished tells in-depth stories about the making of its vitamins and its revolutionary packaging solution (individual wrappers are actually made from a unique wood pulp material which will compost in your garden in 32 weeks!).
Concern: Nourished devotes an entire page of its website to discussing its local-supply, plastic-free, and home-compostable approach. And the brand actively gives back to Vitamin Angels, a charity that supports children and pregnant women around the world.
Connection: Nourished responds to all of its customers’ comments on social, and it is easy to get in touch with the company. Nourished also does a great job of educating customers—teaching them about ingredients and explaining technical terms like “bio-available.”
I love this example of both connection AND candor on the part of Nourished.
When a customer writes that she wishes she could add her allergy meds to the Nourished vitamin, Nourished immediately responds that this is something the brand is making progress on:
In summary, Nourished is doing an A+ job of hitting all of the C’s in my five part framework.
And seeing how trustworthily the brand comes across, I feel much better about my decision to purchase 3D printed personalized vitamins off of an Instagram ad.
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About Me
I help early stage founders create the kind of brands that get customers so obsessed, they’ll do your advertising for you.
Based on my experience founding my own consumer brand, I developed The Branding Sprint—a uniquely collaborative, streamlined, and agile approach to brand creation.
Click here to learn more about The Branding Sprint, or schedule a call with me.