The 5 C’s of Brand Trust – How to Turn Prospects into Customers

January 20, 2021 Marketing Strategy

Introduction

In our previous blog on "Brand Trust", we established why brand trust is so important in today’s digital world, let’s discuss how to build it. At WIZ Advisors, we have learned that building brand trust comes down to exhibiting five specific characteristics. We call them the “5 C’s of Brand Trust”. Back in September 2017, LinkedIn published their own 5 C’s of Brand Trust: Content, Communicate, Community, Constant, Context. Their goal was to illustrate how their platform can help brands build trust.

Our 5 C’s are different. WIZ Advisors’ 5 C’s of Brand Trust are a checklist for you and your teams to use EVERY TIME you deliver a sales or marketing message. With every post, upload, launch or email, the 5 C’s ensure that you are building brand trust with your buyers, an essential prerequisite for success in this “new world”.

Click here to print the WIZ Advisors’ 5 C’s graphic.

Credible

Am I highlighting my company’s unique knowledge and expertise?

This is where it all starts. In every stage of the buyer’s journey, you need to highlight your company’s differentiation. Why should your audience engage, purchase, remain loyal to or advocate for your brand? If you are not credible, the other C’s don’t matter. Credibility is number one.

What are the best ways to build credibility for your brand? The most common ways are through thoughtful, research-driven white papers, e-books (like the one you are reading), interviews, case studies, and webinars.

The below Edelman chart highlights the specific people that hold the most credibility when it comes to brand marketing. Of course, industry experts are first, but a close second is “someone just like you” – a person with your buyer’s same pain points and goals. In short – your current customers. Customer reviews have become so important because they provide that objective third party validation. You are not telling your prospects that your products and services are amazing. It is coming from “someone just like me”.

As the chart also illustrates, Founders have more credibility than CEO’s. Why? They have built their companies from scratch and have the passion that drives connection. Less credible are CEO’s, Influencers with Large Followings, and Celebrities. If you remember from the Deloitte chart (page 8), Millennial buyers think most companies today are in it purely for the profits. CEO’s, Influencers and Celebrities are perceived as less trustworthy because they will profit from a company’s success.

Candid

Am I being honest and authentic?

This characteristic has become increasingly important in marketing, given the lack of trust and divisiveness in our society. As we stated earlier, authenticity is also a major reason why live webinars work. During live events, the audience gets to see you and hear you talk about what you know best – your industry and products and services. Even more importantly, they get to see you or your executives being real people.

Prospects want to do business with people they like. Whether a live webinar, a static piece of content, or a sales conversation, ask yourself these questions:

Did I make them laugh?
Did I make them think?
Did I share a personal story?
Did I teach them something new?
Did I use a conversational tone?
Did I admit when I did something wrong?

All these actions build connection and relationships – especially the last one. Human beings make mistakes. Human beings have technology issues and cats jumping on their laps and jackhammers going off during a Zoom event. Human beings miss deadlines and make incorrect assumptions. Be human. Admit being wrong. Being candid instills trust.

Caring

Am I showing empathy for my audience?

With everything we have been through in 2020, it is essential for brands to be thoughtful with their marketing communications. In a world where people are losing jobs and worse, loved ones, we must be more emotionally aware. We must show more empathy. What is empathy? There are many definitions but at its core, empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings and thoughts of another. It means trying to understand where another person is coming from.

There are three types of empathy – cognitive, emotional, and compassionate. Below is a chart we took from a recent Inc. magazine article that defines the three types of empathy. We have taken it a step further and provided current marketing examples.

Three Types of Empathy	Definition	Relevant Marketing Example
Cognitive Empathy	Ability to understand how a person feels and what they might be thinking. It may be influenced by past experiences and unconscious biases, so do not to make assumptions. Take the time to learn about the other person.	Before launching any major marketing initiative, create or update your Buyer’s Persona (or “Ideal Customer Profile”). Document everything you know about your customers’ goals, motivations, beliefs, challenges, and hobbies. Importantly, have they changed because of COVID? This step will ensure your marketing messages hit home with your target audience.
Emotional Empathy	Ability to share the feelings of another person and build an emotional connection.	Emotional empathy goes beyond the cognitive and forces you to answer the questions: Why are my customers having these feelings? And how can I make them feel like I understand? Sharing a personal story is a great way to show emotional empathy. It can be your own story, your Founder’s story, or a customer’s story. The goal is to show that you understand, and you care.
Compassionate Empathy	Going beyond understanding and taking action to help.	In marketing today, compassionate empathy has sprung from the most surprising places. Companies are helping address their community’s concerns over COVID-19 and coming up with solutions. For example, Glossier, a makeup company, planned to launch its new hand cream in April 2020. Fashionista.com magazine wrote: “Glossier has aimed to be tactful and thoughtful as it brings it (its hand cream) to market amidst the global health crisis surrounding Covid-19… The company committed to donating the first 10,000 units available to healthcare professionals in the U.S. working on the front lines at hospitals, many of whom have been documenting skin irritation from frequent hand washing and long hours spent wearing PPE.”

In addition to helping employees and communities during the pandemic, businesses have been changing their messaging to be more thoughtful and relevant. Geico – one the biggest advertisers in the world – decided to change its slogan in May 2020. “Fifteen minutes or more could save you 15% on car insurance” was replaced with “Geico: 75 Years of Real Service and Real Savings”. Geico understands that in a world of fear, anxiety and economic uncertainty, consumers want stability. They want their insurance company to be there for them – and at a lower price point than competitors. Geico’s new slogan is a great example of empathetic marketing.

Consistent

Am I delivering a consistent message across all channels?

In building a brand, but especially during times of uncertainty, consistency is crucial. Every interaction that a buyer has with your brand should serve to strengthen trust. First, develop a brand guide. Distribute it to internal sales and marketing teams (and anyone else that might touch a buyer or customer), as well as your external agencies. Brand guidelines ensure that every communication has the same colors, look and feel, logo, tagline, voice, and tone.

In addition to the brand guide, your marketing team should create a content playbook. The playbook should include the most relevant content to use at each stage of the buyer’s journey. On the following page is WIZ Advisors’ Content Marketing Framework to help you in developing your own playbook. Your Content Playbook – which should exist on a shared drive – will ensure that sales/marketing communications are consistent and coordinated across the buyer’s journey (spoiler alert - “coordinated” is our last C).Consistency in internal communications is just as necessary as external communications. If you have not already, you should start discussing your brand vision, mission, and values often with your employees. Once you gain their buy-in on your brand positioning, they will become your biggest advocates. They will share product launches, webinar invitations, blog articles, etc. with their social media followers and spread the word to family, friends, and peers. They may also leave positive reviews on sites like Glassdoor. Buyers look at both customer reviews and employee reviews when conducting research, so positive reviews from employees have a direct impact on brand trust.

Coordinated

Are your Marketing and Sales activities aligned?

Last, but certainly not least, marketing and sales activities must be part of a seamless, coordinated process. We live in a buyer-centric world. They control how they want to be contacted and how/if/when they will respond. With a coordinated process and armed with information on your prospects, sales and marketing teams can deliver higher win rates, while also building brand trust.

According to Marketo, sales and marketing alignment drives:

38% higher win rates,
36% higher retention rates, and
67% higher lead-to-client conversion rates.

How do you create a coordinated process? The chart below from Hubspot illustrates how Marketing, Sales and Service teams can work together from the very beginning of the buyer’s journey (stranger) to the very end (promoter) to build brand trust.

Let’s look at an example of a coordinated process, using the Hubspot platform (www.hubspot.com). Suppose you are an SVP of Sales and have an upcoming virtual conference where you and your senior executives will be speaking. It is one of your biggest lead generators of the year, but you’ve recently had to move it online given COVID. Your marketing team has created a landing page on your website to promote it. They are advertising the conference through email and LinkedIn and have written an e-book describing current challenges in the industry and how your services help solve them. Visitors to your website can download the e-book in exchange for their contact information, as well as register for the conference.

Your goal is to have your top 20 prospects attend the conference. You sign into Hubspot and pull up their contact records. You can see which prospects have opened their marketing emails, gone to the landing page, downloaded the e-book and/or signed up for the conference. Did they download the e-book but not yet register for the conference? Did they open the email but not click to visit the landing page? You send personalized, follow up emails depending on the activities they performed. The Hubspot app on your phone notifies you when a prospect opens the email you sent so you know if/when they have engaged. Those are the ones you reach out to with a phone call. And you do it just after they open your email, knowing that they will be more likely to answer the phone given they just read your note. Now that is a coordinated process!

Conclusion

You can download and print out the 5 C’s graphic here, to use as a checklist for your own sales and marketing efforts.

Do you have an automated platform like Hubspot to coordinate your sales and marketing activities? You can learn more about WIZ Advisor’s Hubspot Services here, as we are a Certified Hubspot Partner Agency.

Brand Trust – The Key for B2B Success in 2021

January 20, 2021 Marketing Strategy

Three Reasons Why Brand Trust is So Important NOW

Reason #1: Buyers see a bigger need for brand trust today than in the past - and are much more skeptical.

Brand trust has become extremely important to buyers. In Edelman’s Brand Trust Study 2020 – COVID Update, 70% of buyers say that trust is more important now than in the past. Why? In Edelman’s previous brand report last September, U.S. respondents shared the following:

Brands now have my personal information in their databases (43%).
There is so much fake news and false information on the Internet (42%)
I am facing financial struggles and when I do spend, I need to make sure I am making the best decisions (33%).
The pace of product innovation makes it more important to choose the right provider (27%).

When asked about factors that are MOST important in choosing one brand over another, 80% of respondents said, “trusting a brand to do what is right.”

Trust is more important to Millennials and Gen Z than other generations. Four statistics from the Deloitte’s 2018 Millennial Survey , pictured below, accurately reflect these generations’ diminishing trust in businesses. Of note are their beliefs that businesses (a) are not “committed to helping to improve wider society” and (b) have “no ambition beyond making money.”

Reason #2: Prospects will not talk to you until they trust you.

B2B marketers know that building trust with prospects and customers is key to success. However, what we sometimes forget is that data on most aspects of our businesses are readily available online, with a quick and easy Google search.

In GE Retail Banks’s Major Purchase Study in 2019, they found that 80% of consumers go online to conduct research before a purchase – up 20% from 2018. They also found that consumers on average spend 79 days conducting research before purchasing a major product or service. When researching a brand, they may ask peers about you, go to your website, read an analyst report, check out your social media posts, search for customer reviews, watch a product video or webinar. They will take time to build their own level of trust in your brand before reaching out to you or responding to your calls and emails.

The latest Hubspot Sales 2020 Statistics validate that buyers prefer to wait until the Consideration Stage before connecting with a salesperson.

Reason #3: The importance of building brand trust boils down to the rewards.

With trust such a vital prerequisite to purchase, the rewards are well worth the effort. As this below chart from the Edelman’s 2020 study illustrates, brand trust leads to higher sales, loyalty and advocacy.

Buyers will even go out of their way to defend your brand if/when needed.

So how do you build brand trust? Read WIZ Advisors' 5 C's of Brand Trust.

LinkedIn for Lead Generation – A Guide for B2B Companies

December 1, 2019 Marketing Strategy

Introduction: Why LinkedIn for Lead Generation?

With over 600 million users, LinkedIn has become the ideal place for social selling. It has the right mix of professional and personal that allows businesses to sell to potential clients in a channel where they will be most receptive. That is why reaching out to people on LinkedIn is much more effective: response rate (inbox messages, connection requests, content engagement) is an impressive 30-40%. Social selling is the future of sales.

If you’re a B2B marketer, your customers are undoubtedly doing research online before they buy. In fact, the average decision maker reads 10 pieces of content before finalizing their purchase decision. Great content on LinkedIn can lead B2B decision makers back to your site as well. On average, 46% percent of social media traffic coming to B2B company sites is from LinkedIn. With LinkedIn’s advanced audience targeting capabilities, you can ensure that increased traffic is qualified, meaning it contains those most likely to convert into leads. Fully 93% of B2B Marketers consider LinkedIn the most effective site for generating leads.

Some additional reasons why LinkedIn is ideal for B2B lead generation:

LinkedIn adds 2 new members every second — so you are likely to find the right person, or people, you are looking for.
There are 2 billion member updates per week — which makes it easy to find what potential targets are talking about, interested in, and sharing.
You can stay in touch with your network of potential leads at scale through your own content and content you engage with, e.g. commenting on posts.
LinkedIn users are using the platform to network, so outreach naturally becomes warmer versus sending out a cold email that you didn’t have permission to solicit.
LinkedIn is a platform that enables you to forge meaningful relationships by revealing connection paths between your company and your target account that you can leverage for a warm introduction.
And finally, LinkedIn allows you to build a network of potential customers, followers, brand enthusiasts, etc. that will engage with your content and help you establish and scale your brand.

5 Tips to Get Started

If you are not already using LinkedIn for lead generation (shame on you), here are five quick and easy tips to get started:

Define Your Niche– Determining your target buyer(s) is probably the single most important prerequisite. This step is not directly related to your LinkedIn account, but is essential to drive high quality prospects.
Optimize Your Profile - Before connecting on LinkedIn, make sure you have a strong and clear profile. This is your online business card and the first thing people see when they find you.
Post Weekly (Daily if Possible) Status Updates -You should aim to publish at least once a week on LinkedIn to keep your name synonymous with industry expertise and news.
Get Recommendations – Ask coworkers or happy clients to write a recommendation that appears in your profile. This validates your ability to solve industry pain points.
Leverage Your Marketing Team - Your company’s marketing department should be generating new content and collateral to help you earn trust with leads and close deals. Check in with marketing frequently to see what new content or campaigns they have on their calendars, and how you can frame it on LinkedIn to drive sales conversations.

9 Steps to Generate High Quality Leads

Once your profile has been optimized, you are ready to find your ideal customer.

Build Your Search Query – Your search query starts with your buyer personas. A buyer persona is “a semi-fictional representation of your ideal buyer, which typically includes customer demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, and goals.” If you have a buyers persona, use your ideal buyer’s attributes to define your search criteria. If you don’t have one – or access to one – just think through these three elements: industry, company size and job role. From search results in Sales Navigator or LinkedIn’s general search, open only profiles that match your segmentation criteria. (The next section “6 Sales Navigator Best Practices” will walk you through that tool.)
Request a Connection - Once you've created your search query and built a list of prospects, it’s time to connect. This is probably the most demotivating part, as you'll need to make 100 connection requests per day if you want to drive results. (Note: If you are utilizing Account-Based Marketing techniques, quality not quantity is important. Determine the right decision makers at your target accounts and utilize LinkedIn requests to reach them.) Some of them may ignore the request and the ones who do connect may never engage in a conversation. But over time, this process yields results (see #8). The connect request should be accompanied with a message that, listen carefully, does not sell ANYTHING. “People like to buy, but they don't like to be sold to”. This introductory message will start your “drip sequence”, and should say something like:

“Hi [first name], I came across your profile and I decided to reach out because… [share something you have in common or how you liked something they posted]. – Your Name, Your Company, Your Tagline.”

IIMPORTANT: Why put your company’s tagline at the end of your messages? You want people to associate you and your company with what you can do for them.

Say Thank You - Once someone has accepted your request, send them a “thank you for connecting” message. Don't forget to add your tagline at the end - and again, don't sell anything.
Send something useful -If you haven’t received a response from your prospects; provide them with something of value. Take a look at the prospect’s profile and look for an interesting article you think they might find useful. The more you engage in a casual, human way, the more they will trust you. No one will respond to you if you try to sell them your product or service right away. Don’t forget to end it with your name, company and tagline.
Ask for a call -In the last step of the drip sequence, message your potential prospect and ask them to jump on a call. Explain why you want the call. Stay casual and friendly and emphasize the benefits of a quick chat. Again, don't forget to put your tagline after your name.
View profiles – This is a great tactic that doesn’t involve sending your prospects anything. If you’ve been on the platform for any length of time, you know that LinkedIn sends notifications every time someone views your profile. One of your prospects might be curious and click your profile from the alert they receive, and if they need a product or service like yours at that particular moment, they might contact you. We’ve seen it happen– a lot!
Post Content – This step is crucial. Why? There are 9 billion content impressions in the LinkedIn feed every week. And, out of 250 million monthly active users on LinkedIn, only 3 million share content weekly. That means 3 million users are getting 9 billion impressions every week – or 3,000 impressions per post. Think about that for a millisecond - and get posting!
Keep engaging -Don’t sell - just talk to prospects, build a relationship, and see how you can help each other. This is a slow process and might not bring any quick leads but you're in this for the long run. Even if your prospects don't need your services right away, they are going to think about you in the future. Or they might recommend you to someone in their network.
Don’t Use Automation Tools- This is HUGE. Your account can get permanently blocked if LinkedIn detects non-human activity from your account. Sure - automation tools save you a lot of time but they can also derail your entire effort. If you don’t have the time to build a LinkedIn pipeline (which is understandable), hire a contractor or outside firm to help (like WIZ Advisors – shameless plug).

6 Sales Navigator Best Practices

LinkedIn is a treasure trove of detailed knowledge on potential buyers – and Sales Navigator makes that knowledge actionable with automated tools.

Here are six best practices we’ve collected from utilizing the platform to generate leads for our B2B clients.

Use Premium Search Filters to build a target prospect list based on personal or organizational parameters. You can sort by a number of factors — including geography, sector and company size — and scope the size of each opportunity by filtering by company revenue. Look for names on accounts where you have a 1^st or 2nd-degree connection for a warm introduction opportunity.
Load the list into Lead Builder and filter further by titles to identify the right decision-makers. Use the In Common panel in their Profile to determine what you may have in common with that LinkedIn member. You can also learn more about the prospect by checking out these sections: Following, Groups and Volunteer Experience & Causes. “Endorsements” in the Skills & Expertise section provides an understanding of what each prospect does well. Use this information in your introductions.
Use Lead Recommendations to receive leads based on presets and saved searches. It will allow you to: see similar decision-makers and influencers at other companies, have new leads automatically flow into your email, look at the recommended decision-makers and influencers within your target accounts that Navigator sends, and identify new leads. Open the lead’s profile by clicking on his/her name, or save the lead in Contacts for follow-up later.
Save your TeamLink Searches to keep you updated on your targeted leads’ professional lives. Set up a notification to know when your prospects move to other companies, and follow the same steps as above to start a conversation.
Use Sales Navigator’s Out-of-Network Profile Unlocks to help you uncover hidden leads. Profile Unlocks provides access to all LinkedIn member profiles — even those outside of your network. Users can unlock profiles from search results to gain visibility into sales prospects beyond third- degree connections.
Sync Sales Navigator with Your CRM to keep track of your conversations with all prospects. This will save you from jumping back and forth between two different sites, and provide powerful insights in your reporting.

Learn more about WIZ Advisors B2B Content Marketing Services here.

I hope this LinkedIn article has given you some valuable information to start using the platform for your own lead generation. If you have any questions about LinkedIn or would like to learn more about our LinkedIn Lead Generation Services, feel free to reach out to me directly: Stacey Wisniewski, Founder and Chief Marketing Strategist of WIZ Advisors, at (615) 934-1817 or stacey@wizadvisors.com.

How to Write a Compelling White Paper that People Want to Read

September 3, 2019 Marketing Strategy

Introduction – What is a white paper?

People sometimes confuse research reports and white papers. Research reports are typically the results of months – sometimes years – worth of research, conducted by a particular company, institute or government entity. These reports are not produced for commercial value. Instead, they are meant to be shared with, delivered to, or consumed by a like-minded audience.

White papers, on the other hand, are marketing tools that are produced by companies or individuals who have insight into a particular subject. While white papers could (should) include research, their primary objectives are different. White papers are written to:

Educate a B2B target audience on a certain topic
Showcase an individual’s or company’s knowledge on a particular subject
Build brand equity and strengthen perceived value
Convince prospects to take a desired action (e.g. visit your website, provide contact information in exchange for the white paper, schedule a demo of your products, or call you to learn more about your services).

Do people actually read white papers?

White papers are now the #1 most valuable piece of content in the B2B buyer’s journey. Statistics from a recent Forbes article confirm it.

89% of B2B buyers use the Internet in their research process.
75% of B2B buyers said that a winning vendor’s content had a significant impact on their choice.
82% of B2B buyers rely heavily on white papers (#1) in making their purchasing decisions. Other content includes:
- Webinars (78%)
- Case studies (73%)
- E-books (67%)
- Infographics and blog posts (66%)

Here are 10 Best Practices for writing successful white papers.

Set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, Time-Sensitive) goals for the white paper. Do you want your audience to visit your website, learn more about your solutions, schedule a demo, join a webinar, call you for a quote? Whatever the action is that you want them to take, determine it - and tell them to do it at the end of the white paper (see #8 – “Have a clear call to action”).
Start with an outline. It seems simple, but writing an outline is the best way to organize your thoughts and ensure that you are telling a compelling, thoughtful story.
Determine key words (to drive search engine results). Whenever you develop content, you should think about it from the audience’s perspective. What words would they use when they are performing an Internet search on this subject? If possible, use those keywords in your title, subtitle, and body of the white paper.
Address your target audience’s pain points in the introduction. Some people will not have time to read the entire white paper (or want to). It is important to write an introduction that captures their interest. Discuss your prospects’ pain points and how the white paper will provide solutions.
Include unique, research-driven content. B2B buyers are reading your white paper to become better educated. Teach them something new. Whether you have primary research from customers, secondary research from a number of public/private sources, or best practices from years of experience, share them. Your audience will see you and your company as experts they can trust.

Don’t be salesy. Your audience is in research-mode – they want to learn. Win them over by providing valuable insights and a solution to their problem. Introduce your capabilities in a short overview about your company – AT THE END - but not before (see #9 – Add a short overview about your company at the end).

Insert visuals to break up the text. Your content is always the most important part, but you don’t want your readers to get bored. Use relevant images and add charts and graphs to show statistics and trends. Create a graphic in PowerPoint and upload it as a JPG. Add a quote in a text box with a colored background.

Put your logo and website URL in the footer. You are not making a sales pitch in your white paper, but you can – and should - promote your company in subtle ways.

Have a clear call-to-action (CTA). Whether you want the audience to visit your website, schedule a demo, or call you for more information, specify it at the end – in bold. For example:

“To learn more about our solutions, go to www.mycompany.com/solutions or call us anytime at 1-800-244-5500.”

Add a short paragraph on your company at the end. After the call to action, write a short summary of your business, including capabilities that address the pain points in the white paper (see below for WIZ’s example).