Turning Decision Makers into Customers:
Bridging the Credibility Gap

There are some ads running on ESPN currently—on both radio and TV—where one of their on-air celebrity is out in public doing some mundane activity: dropping someone off at the airport, grocery shopping, etc. Suddenly, out of nowhere, someone comes up to the radio star and starts talking to him; in one variant, the average guy says to the celebrity, "Wow, you're grocery shopping! That's great, just like me! You know, we really have a connection; we even finish each other's sentences."

The celebrity then says "That's great, but I don't think we actually"—and now the average guy chimes in with the on-air personality—"finish each other's sentences." Then the ad fades to black, followed by the tag line: You know us. We know sports.

The point the ad is making is—because you know them—there is a trust, a familiarity, and more important, credibility with the ESPN and their on-air personalities; you can't get that anywhere else in sports media. ESPN has invested mightily in their brand, and they also benefit by being interactive with their audience. Despite their size, their marketing budget, and their exposure, ESPN shares something that all businesses face: the challenge of building trust and establishing credibility with their customers. The fact that ESPN has ads out there touting their strong relationships with their audience lends credence to the idea that all businesses are trying to achieve the same level of trust with their clients.

Your mission (and you have to accept it)

Unless your organization has the budget or media exposure of ESPN (which has a big enough budget on its own, but it's also a subsidiary of Disney, so their pockets runner deeper still), you will have to find other ways to establish a relationship with your prospects and customers.

One of the reasons ESPN is so successful in building trust and credibility with their target audience is because of the ESPN brand; it would be hard to find an 18-35 year old male in North America who doesn't know about ESPN. Once upon a time, however, ESPN was at the bottom of the lowest form of television: cable TV. The idea of a 24-hour sports network was ridiculed. But that's ancient history. Some 30 years later, they now have a well-respected brand and know how to use it.

For everyone who is not ESPN, the first challenge is to get noticed. No one is going to run to your organization simply because you exist; this is what we call the "Field of Dreams strategy," and doesn't bode well for future success.

Bringing the audience to you

One of the best ways to create awareness is to get noticed on search results. In fact, if you really want to get noticed, you will be best served by starting with Google AdWords. The next time you find yourself weighing media options for building awareness of your brand, consider the following:

• Nearly 8 out of 10 tech B2B users type keywords into a search engine to find manufacturer, content, and distributor sites.¹
• Google ranked as the #1 web site used by nearly all business technology job functions—from CXOs to IT professionals to developers—when making technology purchase decisions.²
• Google is #1 in tech site search referrals, sending more traffic to tech sites than all of the other search engines combined.³
• 63.9 percent of B2B users make search their first stop over manufacturer sites, industry portals, consumer review sites, and e-commerce sites selling product.⁴

In other words, if you sell technology-related offerings, the majority of your target audience starts their search with Google; trends are similar in other industries. Moreover, search is used throughout the buy cycle. The graphic below illustrates the typical buying process. Although the buyer probably wouldn't articulate the buying process in this way, even the most casual purchases are made with a similar process. From the business perspective, being discovered early in the process is critical; the results from the first few searches create the baseline criteria that all others will be measured against.

To take it a step further, Google not only puts your business in front of users actively searching for information on Google.com and other search sites such as AskJeeves and CNet, but also puts you in front of users surfing content relevant to your business on well-known sites such as TechTarget, ZDnet, the New York Times, and thousands of smaller relevant sites you would have difficulty finding on your own. Google helps advertisers connect to business technology decision makers across the globe and throughout the buying process at the critical point when they are most open to hearing from you.

First steps toward credibility

Once someone has become aware of your offerings, do not expect to convert the contact into a sale right away. Most B2B (business-to-business) sales (and some B2C (business-to-consumer) cycles as well) are long, and there are several reasons for this. One of the most important is trust. This is amplified exponentially if the price of the offering is over a certain threshold (which can vary by industry). Once over the threshold price, the prospective customer wants to make sure they will have a solution that will last; they want proof they aren't going to end up with a solution that's not more expensive and problematic than the initial issue. They are looking for a relationship. They want to trust the company they will be buying from. And trust isn't instant; it occurs over time.

After a prospective customer is aware of your offerings, they are likely to doubt that the offering can do everything they need for the price they can afford. Your organization is in good position to close this deal, but you are still miles apart; what's between you is the credibility gap.

The best thing any organization can do to build a bridge across the credibility gap is to provide something of value as soon as possible. More times than not, that "something of value" will be in the form of sharing information that the company has and the prospect does not. In other words, your goal is to educate them.

This education can take shape in numerous ways: .pdf download, YouTube video, email newsletters, tele-seminars, webinars, and any number of other methods. As the graphic in this section illustrates, search is not only a great tool to create awareness for your offerings, but it is one of the best ways to educate your target audience about what you offer. Links from search results—organic results as well as paid positioning—can bring the prospect directly to educational materials. And this is happening right at the magic moment the prospect is searching for this material, which is much different than advertising on radio, print, and television.

The key to any good relationship: Communication

Now that your prospects know who you are and what you do, it's time to build trust. The key to any good relationship is communication, and a business-customer relationship is no different. Hopefully along the way, you've captured the prospects' contact information (ideally an email address). Now it's time to put it to use. Continue with your educational campaigns and continue to provide value to your prospective clients. Your goal is to keep the lines of communications open.

One of the most effective ways to continue communicating with your prospects is with an email campaign. By using a reputable email marketing system, you will be able to track who opens email, which links are clicked, easily manage who opted-out of your list (incredibly important to do this; violating this rule will not help your attempts to build credibility). Yet, the biggest advantage of email campaigns is that they are easily forwarded on by those who receive them. If you were to send a post card—email's fiercest competitor in the direct marketing space—the only person likely to read it is the one for whom it was intended. It would be rare, indeed, for the recipient to repackage the postcard, place it in an envelope, address it, place a more expensive stamp on it, then send it to a friend or colleague. But this happens all the time with email.

Why does this matter? Because the credibility gap can be made smaller when a friend introduces your offerings to another friend. Your offering has now been endorsed by a person of credibility and shares in that halo effect.

Over time, and if you are providing real value your prospects can trust, your audience will regard you with the same familiarity and trust as the on-air personalities at ESPN.

Your customers have learned to trust you. They know you. And you know how to provide value to your customers.

Learn more

Every organization has its own specific challenges to solve, but every organization must build solid relationships with their clients and prospects. Contact us to learn more about how your organization can bridge the credibility gap with your prospects and customers.

1. Source: Insight Express, September 2004

2. IntelliQuest CIMS 2004 Online Business Study, November 2004

3. StatMarket, November 2004

4. The Role of Search in BtoB Buying Decisions, Enquiro and Marketing Sherpa/October 2004