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Dan's Blog Archive
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Send the Right Message with Your Online Advertising and Know Who You Are Targeting Credibility on the Web: How to Build Trust What You Say Determines Who You Get Can You Really Judge Website Pages by Their Titles? Seach Engines do
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Credibility on the Web: How to Build
Trust
Credibility has long been affected by “word
of mouth”. If customers are pleased with
their treatment at your business, they
spread the word. Conversely if they are
disappointed they spread the word faster.
With the internet helping to create viral
marketing campaigns, and bloggers sharing
their victories and defeats in the world of
options, the word is spread with lightening
speed. It has spawned a new profession of
“Reputation Repair” because it is so
powerful. With your website acting as a
lasting first impression to your potential
customers, it’s important that your site
help establish and maintain credibility and
trust, for the sake of your business.
Credibility is a perceived quality, and
scholars agree that credibility perceptions
come from evaluating multiple dimensions
simultaneously. Whether we know that or not,
as business people, we work hard to put
forth what we feel is important to our
potential clientele. Two key components of
credibility are trustworthiness and
expertise.
As an RV
Dealer, customer service and satisfaction is
of prime importance. Making sure your staff
is friendly, knowledgeable, well trained and
professional is important. So are the bright
shiny floors of the showroom, the
cleanliness of the parking lot and the
confidence inspired by displaying
certificates and credentials on the office
walls. Your award plaques are lined up in a
row and crystal, acrylic and golden customer
satisfaction clocks, statues and paper
weights adorn the general manager or owner’s
office. Just reading the walls tells a
visitor that your service technicians are
RVIA certified, your staff receives ongoing
factory training, you are a member of the
Better Business Bureau, Family Motor
Coaching and the RVDA. All of this is done
in an effort to put your best foot forward
and build trust with your potential
customer, so they will have confidence in
buying an RV from your dealership.
Your
website is a virtual showroom. The design
should be professional, easy to navigate and
contain information about not only your
products and services, but about your
company and how you interact with your
customers. Here is a checklist of items you
should review with your web development team
to make sure they are included on your
website. You might want to print them as the
list is quite lengthy. To download the Word
document:
http://www.dpballadvertising.com/downloads/credibility-on-the-web.doc
1. Provide
Contact Information.
Your telephone number should be displayed
near the top of every page of your website.
On your contact page place your mailing
address, your physical lot address, a map to
your location as well as a contact form AND
an email address. Email addresses are often
substituted by a contact form to integrate
leads into a lead management system. Trust
is built by being able to contact the
dealership by simpler means. Just the
presence of an email address as an option
promotes trust. Make sure your web designer
places your email address in text form
without a link to avoid spam coming to that
address. In this way the customer can
contact you, and even better if they can
contact department managers, without
allowing spammers to mine your addresses.
Make sure a “captcha” method is used on
forms to make sure the information comes
from a human visitor.
2. Provide
a Privacy Policy.
Be sure your privacy policy is up to date.
Place a link to your privacy policy in any
area where you ask for information from a
potential customer. Be sure to specify that
their information will not be provided to
any third party beyond the scope of
answering their specific request. Any time
you have a need for capturing a user's email
address, it is necessary to provide full
disclosure of what will the address be used
for. It is also necessary to give users the
ability to control how much email they will
be getting. For example, it should be
possible for a user to place an order and be
assured that the only email he or she will
receive would be clarifications or
confirmations of the order.
3. Provide
an About Us Page.
Let your customer know all about your
dealership. Include information about the
history of your dealership. Include photos
of staff, facilities, an old location or
dated showroom photo helps to establish that
your business has a history and won’t be
going anywhere soon. In short, the more you
can establish a personal bond with your
potential buyer, the greater your chances of
success.
4. Provide
Photos.
Photos of the service staff in action,
department heads, transactions in your parts
and accessories department and the like help
to establish credibility. This allows the
customer to see themselves interacting with
your dealership.
5.
Customer Testimonials.
RVers trust people that are like themselves.
Reading what another RVer has to say about
your dealership is powerful. Contact a few
of your customers and simply request a
statement about their experience with your
dealership. Tell them you would like to post
their photo, their first names and their
hometown along with the statement on your
website. You will most likely get a positive
response. To make sure you have permission
to post their photo and statement, send
along an “Authorization to Reproduce” form
for them to sign. If you don’t have one, or
don’t know what one is, you can download the
PDF form from the DP Ball Advertising
website here:
http://www.dpballadvertising.com/downloads/authorization-to-reproduce.pdf
Add your dealership name and logo at the
top, and copy these to include with your
request.
6. Third
Party Support.
You strive hard to win awards from
manufacturers. Make sure you display photos
of them, or at the very least mention them
on your website. BBB credentials and
industry organization memberships as well as
local business associations are all a part
of building trust. Don’t neglect to include
them on your website.
7. Social
Media and Blogging.
Social interaction from social media
networks such as Twitter and MySpace to
blogging about something RV related that you
are passionate about, are great ways to
establish customer relationships. 56% of
social media users feel a company is
providing a better product or service if
they interact with them online. The more
transparent, active, and visual you are in
social spaces, the more credible you become.
A professional blog can do wonders for
building trust, especially if the topics you
write about are related to your products and
services. This is an opportunity for your
personality to come forth in the language
you use and the opinions you hold. Visitors
get to know you by reading your
conversations.
8. Expert
Articles.
Article writing goes a long way to
establishing your authority within the
industry. Consumers like to know that you
interact with other professionals in the RV
industry and that you are considered a
teacher, philosopher, overseer in many ways
to others who are purchasing, maintaining,
servicing and selling RVs. Providing source
material, references and even linking to the
source builds even more credibility into
what you are saying
9. Media
Coverage.
Has the local television station come by to
take footage of your selection of RVs on
your lot while asking you questions about
fuel prices, recession sales tactics, or RV
tailgating now that football season is in
full swing? Most people assume that if
you’ve enjoyed media coverage, you’re not
only legitimate but outstanding in your
field. When you do have prestigious media
coverage, make sure that information is not
buried among your press release archives.
(You do archive your press releases on your
website, right?) Make sure you create a
graphic or makes a statement on your home
page that links to the information, copy of
the newspaper article, or even the actual
video coverage for the greatest impact.
10.
Mention Credentials.
If you or your staff have degrees,
credentials, certifications, ongoing
training, CEUs --- say so. No one will know
if you don’t tell them. They don’t see the
framed certificates on your walls, so you
must build virtual walls by including this
information when you tell the story of your
dealership.
12.
Provide a Guarantee.
Guarantees are the best way to place a
customer’s mind at ease. If you provide a
guarantee for any product or service make
sure you place it online. Placing a
reference to the manufacturer’s guarantee
and warranty will also boost confidence.
13.
Explain Your Policies.
If you have rental guidelines and policies,
product return policies or delivery
policies, make sure you post them on your
website. This information assures the
customer that you have an established plan
for every situation. You also clarify most
of the issues prior to the transaction and
your customer knows what to expect.
14. Use
current technologies.
The use of
video and motion graphics on Web sites has
grown tremendously. By utilizing these
technologies to explain complex processes or
to tell your story, you are demonstrating to
your visitors that keeping up to date with
technology is important to your business
which is viewed as a highly credible trait.
15. Make
Your Site Useful and Easy to Use.
Make sure your website meets the needs of
your visitor. Provide useful information
that is correct and accurate. Provide
information about your products and
services. Offer information that will make
visiting your site a resource in order to
gain user loyalty. Of course, ease of use is
a big issue. If the visitor can’t find what
they need, or have to wait an unusually long
time for pages to load, chances are they
won’t be back, and will form a negative
opinion of your company in just a few
seconds.
16. Use
Secure Transactions.
When obtaining sensitive information on
credit applications or accepting credit
cards for payment online, you must make sure
you are using e-commerce secure
transactions. Your site, or the site you
interface with for credit apps or payments,
must have a SSL Certificate. A secure page
can be recognized by the https: instead of
http: in the URL. In most browsers a padlock
icon will appear.
17. Fix
Your Broken Links.
Sending a visitor off to information lost in
cyberspace does nothing to help develop
trust. If you can't be trusted to provide
information they are seeking on your own
website, how can they trust you to meet
their needs if they purchase from you?
Occasionally your best efforts to make sure
links are good, are affected by server time
outs, increased traffic or a bad connection
at the customer's end. Custom error pages
should be developed to direct the visitor
back to your site. If they are not provided,
chances are, they won't be back.
Credibility is one of those things in life
that can take years to build and only
moments to destroy. There are a lot of items
in this list that will help to build trust
with your customers. I am sure most dealers
have covered many of them. But each one goes
a long way in building a foundation of trust
to conduct commerce online, as well as
offline. The customer’s research about your
company should never leave them wondering
whether they should do business with you.
Eliminate the risk element and increase the
foot traffic.
Deb
Finnell
Web/SEO/SEM DP Ball Advertising 440-285-8164 419-305-4165 www.dpballadvertising.com Deborah@dpballadvertising.com Follow me on Twitter
Statistics
derived from “Stanford Guidelines for Web
Credibility” A research summary from the
Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab.
Copyright ©2011 Deborah Finnell
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Internet Advertising vs Traditional Advertising Direct Mail Advertising - What it Teaches Isolate the Components in Your Ads and Determine What works for Your Dealership How Advertising Laws Are Established What is Your Unique Selling Proposition? Content Remains King - Internet or No Internet
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::: direct response :::
message from
dan ::: representation :::
integrity in marketing :::
pay-off now advertising ::: |
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Providing RV dealerships with basic knowledge of search engine and
internet marketing to help them increase purchase ready traffic to
their websites through the use of on page and off page methods.
Building websites since 1995 and performing organic search engine
optimization for RV dealers since 2002, Deborah Finnell of DP Ball
Advertising, will share ideas here that are easy to implement, yet
create a large impact.