How to protect your brand and grow customer trust

Keep it real. Stay transparent. And make sure you give customers all the information they need to make the purchasing decisions that are right for them. 

To protect and strengthen your brand in 2021, these are the principles you need to follow. So how do you put all of this into practice? Here are some key trust-building tips for all CPG brands to take on board.

Trust is earned - not bought 

As you probably know already, word of mouth from friends and family, and recommendations from peers top the list of most trustworthy sources of brand information for consumers. 7 in 10 consumers now use some form of ad-avoidance strategy, with ad-blockers up 10% in two years. 

There’s still an important place for paid advertising in your strategy, but it shouldn’t be the whole story. To build trust and strengthen your brand, user generated content needs to be central to your campaigns.

The golden rule for growing trust: be authentic 

86% of consumers say that authenticity is a key factor when deciding which brands and products to choose. It seems clear that “fake news” is bad for business. By way of illustration, here are a couple of common authenticity traps that grocery brands should be careful to avoid: 

Getting online reviews: make sure they are genuine 

The vast majority (81%) of consumers say that they have to be able to trust a brand before they buy from it. And, as we’ve seen, reviews are the single most trusted form of brand information. But at the same time, the quality and authenticity of those reviews is vital. 

If you have lots of online reviews for a new product and they all happen to be 5-star, as many 95% of shoppers will suspect them to be fake. Increasingly, consumers have a good nose for inauthenticity. If the same phrases are used across multiple posts, or if the comments don’t seem to tally with the specific product, trust can quickly become eroded. 

So, if you are sourcing online reviews for your new or existing products, make sure they are genuine opinions from real shoppers who visited the store and bought the product for themselves and were not gifted it for free. If it’s poor quality generic content, you’ll quickly get found out!

Also, avoid the temptation of screening out all negative content. In fact, if you can publicly respond to them, these negative reviews can actually increase trust in your brand by enabling you to demonstrate your willingness to engage and take action from customer feedback.