Posted by “I’m sick and tired of hearing about ‘Know, Like and Trust.’ I don’t get it. Exactly HOW am I supposed to get people on the internet to know me, like me and trust me?”
I understand the frustration of this new marketer. It’s so easy for marketing teachers to tell you to build Know, Like and Trust into your marketing. But how often do they tell you exactly HOW to do it?
1: How to Become Known
Build your personal or business brand and infuse it in everything that you do.
To do this, determine who your ideal customer is. Create an avatar of that person so that you know exactly who you are speaking to.
Next, build your brand to suit that ideal client. You are the ideal information provider or service provider for this ideal customer.
Finally, stay consistent to your customer avatar and your brand. Your goal is to become known as THE expert or THE go-to person for your exact audience.
This will make you known on a professional level, but you can do better.
Instead of people just knowing about you or knowing of you, how about if they KNOW YOU?
To achieve this, you’ll want to share some personal stuff. Real stuff. Maybe even painful stuff. Mistakes. Dumb moves. Naïve stunts gone bad.
And share the good stuff. ‘Your beautiful, noisy, messy kids have watched Little Mermaid 143 times and you’ve evacuated the house to write your readers this email’ kind of thing.
Strong relationships are deep relationships. Years ago I shared a few personal details with customers about how I was working late into the night, getting up late and my general routine.
To my surprise for weeks afterwards people were commenting back to me about these things because they could relate. That’s when I learned the power of sharing my life with my readers. When I do, I’m not just a wooden puppet, I’m a ‘real boy,’ to paraphrase Pinocchio.
From there I was able to go deeper, speaking about my fears, my stumbles and my comebacks. The more I shared, the more people knew me, and the more they liked me.
2: How to Be Liked
Mind you, not everyone will like you. That’s okay because you only want your avatar to like you. Think of anyone – ANYONE – in history, real or mythical, and there is someone who doesn’t like them. Once you stop trying to get everyone to like you, it is much easier to relax, be yourself and better relate to your ideal customer.
Make a list of every place your avatar commonly hangs out online and make it a point to be there, whether that’s on social media, guest blogging, guest podcasting, advertising to your audience on Facebook and so forth.
Go where your audience is and make yourself known in a nice, helpful, non-obnoxious manner by posting content your ideal client enjoys reading or watching.
Make your content relevant, genuine and personal.
Infuse your own personality into it and speak directly to your avatar of one.
If you can, do live events where people can interact with you directly and ask you questions.
Use an engaging picture of yourself.
Tell your own story in a captivating way.
Be nice. Be real. Be authentic.
Be you – or if necessary, be a better version of you.
3: How to Become Trusted
Repeat steps 1 and 2 consistently.
Promote only products that you believe in.
Promote only ideas and people you believe in.
If you make a mistake, say so.
Use real testimonials from real people.
Share stories of how you’ve helped others to achieve results.
Be transparent and genuine – not fake.
Give people the whole truth, even when it’s not in your best interest to do so.
If you are similar to your avatar, by all means point this out. People like and trust people who remind them of themselves.
Think of the people you trust and emulate them.
If you get a complaint about your product or service, take 30 minutes to walk around the block to completely calm down and THEN write your answer. Do not get into an argument – even if you win, you will lose.
Make your customers feel safe. Offer a no-questions money-back guarantee.
Be accessible. Place your contact details on every page of your website in the sidebar or footer.
Give away some of your best stuff.
Don’t disappoint. Don’t lie. Don’t stretch the truth.
Be consistently good. Or great.
Wow, that sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it?
Maybe it is. Or maybe it just boils down to…
- being yourself
- being seen, helpful and accessible
- targeting your ideal prospects
and doing your best to make them happy.