In the wild, wild, west of CBD marketing, many consumers have come up frustrated and disillusioned. They ordered a product hopeful it would help them only to have it backfire. Their trust was broken.
One such young lady reached out to me.
Caitlin had ordered a CBD infused cleanser and lotion. It had all the latest ingredients and maybe it could get her blemish-free for homecoming.
“I was so excited,” she sobbed. “I really wanted Jack to see how pretty I was. But in a week I thought I noticed more pimples. I’d heard that sometimes happens so I kept using it.
“Now look at me, my face is a mess. It’s awful.” Tears rolled down her cheeks.
I got her sat down and we talked. “Did you bring the products with you so I could see them?”
Catlin nodded digging into her backpack and pulling out the offending products.
A quick scan of the ingredient lists revealed full-spectrum CBD and some antioxidants…but it was in a base of coconut oil.
Darn.
Coconut oil is a wildly popular tropical oil. It can also be very comedogenic causing breakouts to those sensitive to it. Clearly, Caitlin was.
Think Caitlin will ever buy from that company again? I doubt it. Do I think she’ll tell her friends? I’m sure of it. Two of them were sitting out in the reception area waiting for her.
Her trust in that brand was gone. Along with it went her trust or hopes that CBD would help her.
If prospective clients feel nervous they won’t buy. When they are apprehensive or afraid they don't move forward. If they don’t trust you or your product ingredients, you lose the sale.
It’s entirely different from the way I felt the very first time my online-pal who had evolved into much more, put his arms around me. Warmth, glowing certainty. I had finally found my soul mate.
When we are marketing CBD we are introducing people to something new. Something they may have heard about but never experienced.
In order for them to step across the line and place an order, we have to help them get to know us and to like us.
Only then, will they feel safe enough to press the “buy” button.
In e-commerce, it’s rather like online dating. Hard to get their attention, hard to build trust to get the sale…and we must not disappoint when the package arrives. We need them to feel like I did when I met that guy of mine in person.
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If we want to connect with them, we have to help them feel we are safe to interact with and do business with.
They have to feel we have something they need. They have to feel we will stand behind our words, our promises and have their best interests at heart.
We have milliseconds to make this happen.
Share your story. People don’t really buy from websites. They buy from the person behind the products sold there.
It’s easiest to connect with someone who is like us. So look for something that will connect you with your prospects.
To do this you really have to dig and get to know your prospects. Not just anyone 27-75 with an ouch or problems sleeping. What about them makes them like you?
You will always reach a broader scope than you designate. But it’s much easier to focus on a specific persona, a specific segment that most closely matches some connection you can make with them.
You want to stand out as a safe haven for your prospects. In every way you interact with them, you need to first… make all messages match. Congruity of style and content is crucial to creating that feeling of safety with you.
Make your business easy to find. If prospects can’t find your web page… how can they buy?
Make it easy for them to communicate with you. Nothing puts people off quicker than a website, social media post or email that doesn’t let them contact you EASILY!
Put contact information out there so they see you are a “real” company. It’s amazing how many companies don’t offer a phone number or even a general location.
They are on your email list – they have taken the first step and shared that private information with you.
You send them an email on a Thursday evening with a great offer that runs for 48 hours only. Urgency and a great deal.
They want to take advantage of the offer, but the code in the email doesn’t work. They hunt and finally find a phone number. The offices close at 3 PM CST and the client happens to be PST. That means there is no one to answer their questions on weekends or even normal Friday business hours in your prospect’s time zone.
I had this happen. I went ahead and placed the order and messaged them. I never got a contact back nor any offer of helping me out. They probably won’t get a second chance because my trust factor plummeted.
Educate them about your product and how it can help them. “Infotainment,” is easy to read, friendly, informal, but backed up with good solid proof so they feel validated in a buying decision.
Introduce your team and let them build confidence in your brand. People really want to connect with people. They want to know who is there to take care of them.
Share success stories and real customer testimonials. People believe what other people share far more than anything you say.
Offer viewers something in a way they see real value for taking their time to consider it.
The more you educate and share value, the more they build trust with you. The more they trust you, the more they will open up and want to buy.
Small successes can lead to validation. Validation leads to more purchases. That’s customer lifetime value. It’s far less expensive to take care of a customer than to keep finding new ones.
Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, your website, sales letters, blogs, articles, or email…They should all project the same tone and feeling. Focus on trustworthiness.
Think of it this way. You meet a nice guy and enjoyed time with them over coffee. Just your type. You both love to hike and go to concerts. But he also knew how to clean up and look good in the fitted black crew-neck shirt and jeans. Just the right blend of muscle and clean-cut.
By the end of the coffee, you found yourself accepting his invitation to the local football game Saturday afternoon.
Waiting near the ticket gate, your heart lurches into your throat when you see a guy swaggering toward you. There's a broad smile on his black and yellow wildly painted face. A huge clown yellow wig hides his dark precision-cut hair. The team shirt has been slashed to new standards of keeping cool…and those raggy jeans barely cling to his butt.
It just wasn’t possible. Couldn’t be. Warning bells echo like Big Ben and you start glancing about for a way to escape.
It’s the same thing in our relationships with customers and prospects. We need to present consistency to build our credibility with them in order to help them know like and above all trust us.
Customers need to feel we aren’t going to change from Jekyll to Hyde. They need to feel when they come back again they will get valued customer care.
Disney has built know, like and trust factors into every conceivable connection. Every person, every contact sends the same message, friendly, warm, inviting, genuine. You know them, like them and trust them to deliver.
Every new touchpoint we create with the prospects needs to carry on the same feeling. I help clients build the aspects of "know, like and trust my message". Something that says, “I can help you and I will stand behind what I say.”
How good are the trust factors you put out there?
Not sure how you stand? Message me and we can take a quick look and evaluate. If necessary, tweak your messages to enhance your trust factors.
Judith Culp Pearson receives three top honors
at the annual Society of Permanent Cosmetic Professionals in
Ft. Worth, Texas - October 7-9, 2023
