Building brand trust and ensuring brand safety are vital to a profitable and growing company. Knowing how to build brand trust is the challenge.
Understanding what drives brand trust is easy–even intuitive. An online search will turn up dozens of articles on the topic. But knowing that it is important to provide “good value for the price,” “high-quality products,” or “great customer service” doesn’t help you actually build trust.
To do that, you need specific insights, not broad observations.
What specifically drives trust in your industry with your customers?
Without specifics on brand trust drivers, you cannot plan a marketing strategy or take action. You need to know what drives brand trust in your company with your customers and among your competitors. The first step in building brand trust is defining it. You need details around topics such as:
- What is considered a good value for the price in your industry?
- What features characterize high-quality products for your customers?
- What are your customer’s expectations when it comes to delivering on promises?
- How do they define great customer service and responsiveness in your market?
- How would they describe the reliability of your products and the dependability of your people?
- What do customers demand when it comes to data privacy and security?
Brand safety is as important as brand trust
While having high brand trust can help you attract and keep customers, making a mistake can destroy your brand reputation. That is why understanding the dynamics of brand safety is just as important as the dynamics of brand trust.
Brand safety focuses on things that lower customer perceptions, lead to a loss of trust, and ultimately damage brand equity and brand health. You will want to research and prepare strategies to prevent or deal with issues related to the following:
- Product recalls
- Lawsuits
- Customer service mishaps
- Data breaches
- Ethical lapses
- Disgruntled employees
While not pleasant to think about, thinking ahead about threats to brand reputation puts you in the best possible position should you face brand safety issues.
What can go wrong in capturing the data you need for brand trust insights?
Trying to build high brand trust without knowing what drives it in your industry is a waste. Trying to do it with inaccurate data is just as wasteful.
Because the insights you need for a brand trust strategy are specific, you can’t talk to just anyone on a B2B research panel or to people who find a way past your screener. If you want to understand brand trust in medical devices, you don’t want to talk to a stay-at-home parent impersonating a neurosurgeon. Finding the right people is absolutely paramount.
The costs of bad data include wasted time, wasted money, and, worst of all, bad decisions that destroy customer trust in your brand.
Work with a market research partner you can trust
Creating and maintaining brand trust, as well as customer loyalty, is mission-critical to your business. That is why you need to work with a market research vendor you can trust. Whether it is building a trusted brand reputation or safeguarding it, the right market research partner can ensure you have the information you need to meet your brand trust goals.
