(5 minute read)
What is the Know, Like, Trust Concept?
The “Know, Like, Trust” (KLT) concept is a marketing principle that emphasises the importance of building a relationship with your audience before they are likely to purchase from you. It suggests that people are more likely to do business with those they know, like, and trust. This concept is often presented as a pyramid or funnel, with “know” being the broadest foundation, followed by “like” and then “trust”.
- Know: Customers initially need to be aware of your brand, product, or service.ย This can be achieved through various marketing efforts, such as online advertising, social media, content marketing, and public relations.
- Like: Once customers know about your brand, they need to feel a connection with it.ย This involves understanding your values, personality, and how you approach your business.ย This can be achieved through consistent and engaging content, such as blog posts, social media updates, and videos.
- Trust: Building trust is crucial for encouraging purchases.ย It involves demonstrating reliability, honesty, and transparency in your interactions with customers.ย This can be achieved through providing excellent customer service, fulfilling promises, and showcasing positive reviews and testimonials.
Today we are going to take that journey together, to better understand what we are asking our customers to experience, think about, and decide with us on the way to,
Letโs say you sit down tomorrow to do some research and add some new prospects to your pipeline. You identify 5 new opportunities that you are pretty sure would make great customers for you based on what you can offer them and how you have helped similar type of customers in the past.
Your goal is to turn as many of those prospects into clients as quickly as possible. There are 3 things that need to be activated in the buyerโs experience to make the leap to agreeing to do work with you.
KNOW.ย
The prospect needs to be able to have heard your name, know your company, or have some sense that they know who you are, both individually and as a company. Arguably this is the job of marketing, social media, your website, and you and your sales process.ย In a perfect world, all these elements would be working together to create awareness and make your job oh so much easier.
But absent a marketing department and a kick-ass website, the rest is up to you. Regularly engaging with your community on social media, and consistently growing that community, is within your control. It is making attempts to converse with the prospect across and through all the channels available to you. If you are the best-kept secret in your area, your job is to remedy that. With calls. And emails, and visits and sending stuff through the good ole USPs.
LIKE
Once they know who you are and what you do and how you can help, it is time to turn on the charm. Now they need to LIKE you and your company.ย How do you make this magic happen? Through your blog. And other social media content that you post. And your newsletter. And through talking to your customer when they have a question. Customer testimonials, case studies, and related stories specific to how you have helped other companies solve their problems all take a person down the road to LIKING you.
TRUST.
Finally, they need to feel confident and solid enough so you can do what you said you can do. Because donโt forget, trusting you requires faith, and it represents work on their part. Getting to know you, your team, and how you do things can be an all-new and scary experience. You can offer a demo, a sample, or access to others who are willing to give you a reference. All these things build trust and confidence and make it easier for someone to say YES to you.
A sales funnel is a crucial tool to helping you make sure you have enough opportunity in your pipeline to reach and exceed your goals. Understanding the KNOW LIKE TRUST journey that a potential customer goes on BEFORE they become your customer should help you and your team make sure that all your bases are covered, and you are making that decision as easy on someone as possible.
Any questions, please do let us know, we would be happy to talk through this article and others we have shared in our articles.