How do you build trust and credibility with your leads through content marketing?

In "Selling With Authority" (Drew McLellan and Stephen Woessner), the authors refer to anchor content as "cornerstones" and selective content, as "cobblestones" presented in a variety of formats: infographics, quote cards, blog posts, tweets, your podcast or being a guest on another podcast. You want to be where the target audience is seeking information and in a format they prefer to consume at various stages of the buyer journey. In a B2B context they emphasize all content should be some form of education to help a prospect do their job better. To distinguish yourself, elevating above "thought leadership", they advise being extremely narrow and deep in a particular area of expertise. Work toward a distinct authority postion.

Educating and building trust is essential to successfully marketing and selling to today’s buyers. We can build trust by being unbiased, honest, and transparent in answering our buyers’ questions and giving them all the information they need to make the right choice for them, even if that isn’t our product or service. To do this right, we need to put ourselves in the role of a guide or a teacher. It requires us to be willing to walk away from a potential sale if we aren’t a good fit for the buyer.

Apply new trends in optimizing SEO. On a a recent podcast, Ross Raffin of LeadG2, an inbound marketing agency and HubSpot partner, noted: "The big one, which has actually been rising in popularity because, in a way, it takes advantage of AI and these large language models, is semantic SEO. “Semantic SEO isn't just about answering a single question about a subject. It's about becoming a knowledge base such that Google and the AI programs will use you as their resource for informing people...and this builds topical authority.” “Also, automation of smaller tasks, for instance, the creation of meta descriptions. “Using automation, you can basically push out meta descriptions and article titles automatically (as a time saver)."

Dare to answer the questions your buyers obsess over but no one in your niche is willing to touch, like pricing or comparisons. By answering those questions truthfully and in an unbiased way, you not only educate your buyers but become the Voice of Trust.