Trust Signals in Marketing

1. Social Proof by way of Ratings and Reviews.
2. Display your guarantee, warranty, return policy, free return shipping, etc.
3. Clear and concise value proposition, ideally backed by credible and authentic customer reviews or testimonials.
4. Verifiable Security Seal.

To conserve time and energy, shoppers are always looking for mental shortcuts to make their buying decisions easier and faster. And during uncertain times, they are especially concerned about making the best and right decision. 

To facilitate this decision-making process, people turn to conscious and subconscious trust signals, proof points, evidence-based data, icons, awards, etc. that provide a sense of security, risk-mitigation, trust, and confidence. 

As marketers, it’s our job to facilitate this easy decision-making process, by identifying and removing or mitigating the real or perceived risk that shoppers may experience when on our website; this is properly marketing with trust signals. 

Addressing Consumer Questions

To facilitate easy decision-making, shoppers are often looking for the following trust signals, which should be easy to find and quick to analyze on your website. Addressing these questions with the right trust signals is even more important when consumers are feeling less secure about their economic outlook: 

Question 1: Is this vendor and/or product reputable and trustworthy? 

Trust Signal: Social Proof by way of Ratings and Reviews

Question 2: Do they back their product? 

Trust Signal: Display your guarantee, warranty, return policy, free return shipping, etc. 

Question 3: Do they offer a strong value and clear solution to solve my pain or meet my goal? 

Trust Signal: Clear and concise value proposition, ideally backed by credible and authentic customer reviews or testimonials

Question 4: Is this website and checkout process secure? Is my personal identity and payment info going to be stolen or compromised? You can learn more about website security seals here, and get a free website malware scan and security report. 

Trust Signal: Verifiable Security Seal. 

If you can nail these core trust signals early, your conversion funnel, your conversion rates your revenue will improve significantly. 

Learn about these core strategies and a whole lot more in our brand new Special Report we released this week titled How to Grow Your eCommerce Business in a Recession. In this report, we dive into over 100 years of research into down economies, recessions, and depressions, to show you the 4 most important things you should be doing right now to keep your online business running in the short term while positioning yourself in the best possible way for success once the economy picks back up.