The Marketing of Credibility
Whether you are writing promotions, creating your marketing mission statement, or, creating a business plan, the key to success is the buying publics level of marketing credibility in your claims of benefits to them.
This is one of those “make you or break you” kind of things, for the long run. As stated before, in “Marketing for the Long Run”, not only do you need to eliminate all possible perceptions of deceit or unreliability, you need to establish two things.
1) You must establish proof or documentation of your claims. If you are selling on price only (God forbid), you need to compare your prices with the market average, or, somebody real big and very noticeable, particularly if they are known for good prices. If you are selling on selection, you need to say something stronger than “many brands to choose from”, everybody says that. You need to say “biggest selection in town” or “More hats than Harry”, or better yet, “nobody has more options to help you make the perfect choice”. This last one gives you an example of the description of the benefit to the customer derived from the feature of good selections.
2) You need to establish credibility as early as possible, it heightens the attention and response potential of customers. The earlier that you document your claims, the more believable will be everything else you say!
Credibility can be established by using testimonials, studies or tests by recognized sources. Testimonials can be tricky, you need to read “Proper Testimonials” to be sure to get them right. Studies need to either be documentable (findable) or else done by a 3rd party or acknowledged credible source. Tests fall into the same category; it isn’t enough to say “studies prove that……, you need to say “A 1998 study by the Boston Univ. School of Medicine says…….”.
It’s the marketing of credibility that gets leads and sales; “Marketing of Dependability” that gets you the ever important and lucrative referral business. Establish credibility early and establish it strong!
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