If you’ve been marketing your business for long enough, you know there are a million ways to get customers and channels you can broadcast your knowledge on. But everyone that chooses to come to you, will be because you’ve given them a reason to.

AI is here, and the Know, Like, Trust factor will be the differentiator

AI tools are everywhere, AI content is easy to spot, and AI Mode has arrived in Google search results. It’s starting to divide the internet into humans, and robotic derivatives of humans. It’s a bit meta, that humans are easier to trust than robots, but robots are the ones determining who to trust.

To get into AI results, for someone looking for a visual branding expert, for example, I’d want to the robots to know that I’m the right recommendation for a specific type of person looking for a specific type of service. How do I do that? Well, all of the places where I’ve been mentioned, or collaborated on an article, or quoted, or on a podcast, points back to me and my expertise.

The robots see that and say, “well this person is clearly an expert in visual branding, so I will recommend them in the cases where someone is looking for her style of work.” (DO robots think that way?)

The Know, Like, Trust factor

People need to be aware of who you are, like you enough to stick around, and trust you so that they feel confident buying from you once, and then again and again. It’s a journey that is led by psychology, that leads to a “confident yes” and hopefully, long term loyalty. It requires doing activities that expose you to new situations and people, being kind and generous to build real relationships, and confidently proving you’re the best expert for the job.

It’s a bit old school branding and business term for a sales strategy that basically just means “be kind and be yourself.”

I talked to Laura Rees, a brand strategist who works with small businesses to help them think about their brand as a sales tool instead of just a logo. She works with smart, fun, entrepreneurs and business owners. She helps them build brands that sell, so they can stop spending so much time hunting for customers and instead create a system that brings customers to them.

Let’s break down the know, like, and trust factor so you can have some easy steps to get started:

Boost the Know Factor

1. The first step is to get very, very clear about who you serve and how you serve them.
2. Then you can build stories and messages to communicate in a way that gets people interested. 

Laura recommends always telling stories that relate back to your business. Can you share a story of your own transformation? Can you share a story of a clients or customers’ transformation? If you’re somebody that has a product, how can you tell a story about how you use that product or how a customer uses that product?

Storytelling is a really easy way for you to create a lot of content because you have a lifetime of stories that you can draw from. Of course, we all have a ton of stories, but how can we relate those back to our business?

Laura recommends making sure that you have a set of key messages that you are repeating. Four or five messages that you know you’re always going to talk about. Then start brainstorming stories you have that can relate to those talking points. 

Getting really clear about who you serve and how you serve them means always having a touchpoint to come back to. Define your company values, relate everything back to those, and you’re golden.

Your Like Factor

So once you have people interested with that “know” factor, that’s where you bring in “like.”

On the surface, people can think of “like” as meaning, “I like you, we’re friends. Let’s hang out!” But it’s not just about that.

When we’re talking about business and marketing and branding, the “like factor” goes a little bit deeper than that. It’s about you, as a brand, forming a deeper connection with your potential customers.

You can form that deeper connection by:

1. Sharing your brand values, your mission, and your vision.
2. “Expressing your brand character.” For example, one of Laura’s clients has a restaurant group and they have a mission is all about “sheer joy and delicious food making us the most loved restaurant in the neighborhood.” 

They use that mission as a guide to increase their “like” factor. They empower their employees to give out free meals or to give free cookies on someone’s birthday. They show a lot of people smiling inside of their restaurants. Not necessarily specific food – but just showing happiness.

It’s not as complicated as it might sound. You’re just basically making your actions and your visuals match up with your values and mission. 

It allows you to just tell all your stories through that lens in a really specific way. So those are some kind of the ways that we can get customers to relate to us and just start having an emotional investment. We want them to feel something deeper than, “Oh, that’s a person that sells a product or a service (or ravioli).” We need to make that emotional connection with customers.

Boost your Trust Factor

We can agree: No one is going to buy from anyone that they don’t trust.

Right. You don’t say, “That guy looks super shady, but I still bought his stuff.” 

When you’re getting people to know you and sharing stories of your business that fit your values and mission it’s gonna give off an amazing energy that your audience can really pick up on. It puts you in a space where you feel really good about what you’re talking about. And it makes them feel really excited as well, because they can pick up that energy from you. 

In that case, you’re kind of selling without knowing that you’re selling. And that’s the place that I always recommend people try to come from.

When you’re giving your audience something that they really need your trust factor is going to take off. Providing a service that’s going to help them achieve their goals, or solve their problems, is going to show them that you have something that’s worth paying for. It doesn’t feel like selling. It feels more fun. 

What if people don’t like you?

When you think about that deeper level of “like”, and you’re sharing a distinct point of view on something that’s going to turn some people away. But, the flip side of that is that it’s going to attract a lot of the right people to you.

I talk a lot about attracting people and repelling people with your marketing, but Laura said,

“When you have raving fans, you’re going to have raving lunatics.”

Which I think is a hilarious way to put it!

Laura also stresses that we shouldn’t worry if you put out a real or a post and no one seems to get it or understand it, you don’t have any engagement. 

She reminds us that our stories and posts are gone so fast and no one is going to remember it. And if worse comes to worse, you can delete it. So just go for it!

Consistently show up

To build know like, and trust you have to be consistent. If you just put up one story, and maybe it’s even the greatest story ever… If I don’t follow that up with something else, they’re going to move on to something else. 

There are a million reasons we use to not be consistent. Life, kids, jobs, anything and everything can get in the way. But also sometimes, as we said above, your ego can get in the way. If you post something and get crickets you can get in your own head, and start feeling like it doesn’t matter and no one is even listening. 

I talked to Kate Herford about this too, and she mentioned that you never know who’s listening and not actually “engaging.” Keep going for that person! 

What you can control

1. Instead of focusing on what your engagement is, set a goal for actions that you can control. For example, I’m going to post three times this week.
2. Make sure it’s something you can sustainably keep up with.
3. Let the likes and the comments fade to the background.
4. Work on something else you can control, like your website, and think about ways you can add trust elements throughout your website.
5. Build your authorship that demonstrates your expertise in different places that are evergreen, to expand your digital footprint and network with likeminded sites.

When you just focus on the things that you can control, then you can feel more accomplished because those are goals you can actually meet. You know I’m all about process over product. If you get crickets on Monday, don’t let it derail you from your Wednesday post. 

Learn from the posts that are getting less engagement and see if there’s a common theme popping up that your audience is skipping over.

Tweak your messaging and your content to double down on the stuff that works, and you’ll find it easier to make better content over time.

Even SEO experts are starting to get turned back on to the Know, Like, Trust, factor, like a 90s meme making the rounds again.

To bring a little more KLT to your website, flip through your homepage, About page, and any other pages that summarize who you are. Have you linked to all those podcasts, newsletters, and conferences you’ve been in?

Your next step

Now you gotta grab Laura’s awesome worksheet so you can brainstorm those stories that will up your know, like, and trust factor with your audience.

Don’t forget to take some realistic goals for yourself around how much you can show up for your audience. Then make sure you show up regardless of the engagement your posts get. But, don’t be afraid to use any ups or downs in engagement to guide your future content.

Listen to the full podcast episode

More from Laura Rees…

We also talk about the time I was all hopped up on Nyquil and wrote a check for $150 to a complete stranger. He was obviously a total pro at know, like, and trust. Or maybe I’m a complete sucker…you be the judge.

And you’ll hear lots of great examples of how to demonstrate each of the three parts of the KLT factor. So push play on the episode to get the full scoop.