Brand awareness is among the most important things in direct relation with revenue levels and traffic on your website. Raising awareness is the best and most proactive way to engage your audience in order to increase loyalty among the existing clients, as well as to attract new ones. But there are certain standards in our mindsets shaped by consumerism and behavior of large corporations, which you ought to avoid. Any sign of secrecy will have negative connotations and implications, even if your intention wasn’t wrong at all. For this reason, the largest percentage of the population will appreciate honesty and transparency in brands, and you should respond to these expectations.
Clarity above all
The whole point of building trust through transparency is showing your clients a clear image of benefits they’ll get by choosing your brand over your competitors. This is especially relevant for companies that offer an e-commerce option. You need to understand that customers will need to share their personal information to make a purchase, from their name and email address to the most delicate pieces of information regarding payment methods.
The era of the World Wide Web has allowed us the ability to get information about literally everything in just one click, so it feels frustrating if they can’t find the prices of your products or services on the official website or relevant social network. Their emotional response will dictate their trust levels, which is obviously directly linked with your conversion rate and loyalty of existing customers. If you are hiding information but require people to share information about themselves, you are creating a one-sided pattern and therefore are damaging your reputation.
Customer reviews
When designing sections for your website or any other internet page, most of the companies include only testimonials. Which is a perfectly fine solution, but still has several issues in the implication of your choice. The very fact you’ve chosen certain clients’ reviews means you don’t want to hear everyone’s opinion. Getting feedback is equally important for both sides, as you are creating a sense in people that their opinion matters and that it has value for your company. On the other hand, for a company, it is a means of communication and receiving input for guidelines of how to adapt to your target audience’s needs and expectations.
Even the ones in the form of constructive criticism can be beneficial for you, so learn to appreciate those as well. Openly showing customer reviews and comments about products or services will imply you are willing to improve. These improvements would fit in the category of technical optimization of a website, and you can find various companies offering services of SEO in Sydney, as digital marketing is taking over the traditional forms. Consultation with professionals in the field will point to many other aspects to consider in optimizing your website for better transparency.
You should even encourage people to post honest reviews on your website, Google and Facebook business profile, and any other platform people can find you on. Have a designer integrate those options as the first step of being transparent, and you will notice some changes in both traffic and reach, for sure.
Integrity
Most of the websites will use cookies and require of people to accept the terms and conditions, and let’s be realistic, not many will actually read those before they click on the “I agree” box. Getting the pop-ups and other call-to-actions out of their way will be the priority, and bear in mind that some visitors will leave the site if they can’t access it without confirming. For this reason, you should consult with a web designer to develop a system which will have several options. For example, you could integrate a box they can check if they want to protect the information about their data and IP address.
This brings out the question of your hosting provider as well, as the security of your and your visitors’ data will rely on the security of the server used. While we’re at this topic, try to choose a domain name that is obviously related to the name of your brand, in order to avoid doubt in people, related to various internet scams. A lot of hosting options involve several or many websites sharing a server, and the greater that number is, the possibility of a breach is higher. The damage on your reputation, loyalty and trust levels can be irreparable if any confidential information is leaked or even worse, taken advantage of.
Prices, other fees, and FAQ
Using the very appearance to establish a certain image is necessary, but you will need to adapt your content as well. Responses of your visitors will be more satisfying when the prices are listed, even in cases they find them too expensive. The very fact you are showing them implies the quality of the products or services you offer is appropriate to said prices. And some other cases where prices are unlisted lead to frustration even with the lowest of prices and the most amazing offers.
The explanation is quite simple, as it requires an additional step in the process, and your website is presented as not an informative resource, therefore for some visitors, not a credible one either. Explicitly state any other fees, such as for delivery or any extra features for the same reason. People will feel mistreated if the total amount is not the price they’ve seen and accepted to pay, even if that amount is only a couple of dollars.
Another important segment to integrate should be an obligatory one – frequently asked questions with precise and informative responses. Consult with your web designer if there is an option for people to comment on answers of that section, sharing their own experiences and providing additional details other visitors may find useful.
Conclusion
Letting people see behind the curtains is the best approach if you want your brand to be humanized, instead of appearing like another faceless corporation. If you are engaging visitors and clients with both presentation and content, you are strengthening the relationship and increasing trust on both conscious and subconscious level. Honesty and transparency are important because partly living in the virtual world already means not having full control over your data. This is a strategic approach which leads to the most recommendations, purchases from the same person, and it the best scenarios sharing and praising your brand on social networks and other virtual platforms.
