What do Marks & Spencers, Samsung and Ikea all have in common? They hold high brand trust. The retailers are the three most trusted brands in the UK. The companies are brands we have a positive relationship with and can reliably have a positive shopping experience with. This secures new customers who trust they will have a good experience and ensures they have a high volume of return shoppers.
Suspicious shoppers
Internet scams have built a world where we are all (rightfully so) a little suspicious of any brand we see online. Is it a real brand? Is it a scam? Will they deliver good quality? This caution means we shop with trusted brands we’ve seen repeatedly.
The average person sees a brand seven times before making a purchase studies show. One significant reason for this is due to a consumer building a relationship with the brand which results in trusting the brand. PR builds a continual presence in the media. Every time the consumer sees another piece of press about your company a little more trust is built in your brand.
Word of Mouth
WOM Marketing is one of the most successful forms of marketing. Annually it drives $6 trillion of consumer spending and is estimated to account for 13% of consumer sales data shows. It also results in 5x more sales than a paid media impression and people are 90% more likely to trust and buy from a brand recommended by a friend.
PR is a commercialised version of Word of Mouth marketing. Rather than paying for your advertisement, you are earning your place with crafted stories that journalists want to cover as they will be of interest to their readers. Consumers have established relationships with their favourite media and journalists and have a high level of trust. This is transferred to your brand when these titles and journalists recommend it.
A good brand to shop with
Brand trust isn’t just about trusting that the product will be of reliable quality. It’s a trust in the company behind it. Consumers want to trust they are a good brand to shop with. Your brand needs to be sharing its positive values with its target customers. PR needs to educate your audience and reinforce the values to showcase you as a brand to trust.
Overall brand trust can be the difference between a customer choosing your product over a competitor. If a customer is faced with two nearly identical products then they will choose the company they have a stronger positive relationship with. Brand trust even has the power to convince someone to pay more for the same product due to this established relationship.
How do you build this positive relationship?
You need to convey your message by positioning your brand as aligned with positive values. Your PR strategy needs to include sharing CSR initiatives. Moreover, it needs to be building this presence in the media continuously.
If you want to discover how your brand measures up and what you can do to improve it, you can book a free PR Strategy Audit with us. We’ll analyse your strategy and suggest how it could be optimised.
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