The Psychology of Trust: How to Build Trust and Credibility with Your Audience Using Psychology

We all know that quickly building trust and credibility with your audience is essential to gain new customers, but with all the false advertising and empty promises out there, it’s becoming harder to gain people’s trust… and dollars. Luckily, we’ve got some tricks up our sleeves, and it all starts with understanding behavioral psychology!

First, let’s talk about the five cognitive heuristics or “triggers” that can be applied to your marketing strategy today to start the trust-building process: social proof, authority, similarity, consistency, and empathy. These triggers are like the secret sauce to gaining psychological trust with your audience. Highlight customer reviews and testimonials to use social proof, showcase certifications and affiliations for authority, share your story and experiences to establish similarity, deliver on your promises for consistency, and demonstrate empathy to show that you understand your customer’s pain points.  Mixing these triggers into your marketing messages can create an immediate emotional connection, and psychological trust, with your prospects.

But we can’t stop there. Aligning your brand with your customer’s aspirational goals can create even deeper emotional connections and build stronger trust. For example, if I’m running the marketing strategy for a tennis racket brand, I want to do everything that I can align my brand messaging with my customer’s aspirational goals to “dominate their competition through more intimidating power”, so that they can be promoted to the next level at their tennis club and feel more respected by other members (aspirational goals).  When I speak directly to this aspirational goal of being respected, it’s like we’re both on the same team!

Last but not least, let’s talk about subconscious mind-states. We all know that our minds make decisions in the blink of an eye, and understanding your customer’s mental state at that moment of making brand decisions can help you design marketing strategies that align with their subconscious. Using language and images that link your mission to their subconscious mind-state can create an emotional connection that influences their feelings of trust for you.

Building trust isn’t easy, but by using psychology, you can establish a strong foundation for your brand and create a lasting relationship with your customers. Want to learn more? Check out the video below for some extra insight. Trust us; it’s worth it!