You may do all the right things in planning your marketing strategy - segment the market, develop a position, establish a balanced marketing mix - with the reasonable expectation that you'll succeed.

But have you built trust into your marketing plan?

Trust is one of the fundamental motivators for customers. Very often it is what keeps customers with you in the face of adversity. It sometimes convinces customers to try one of your newer, riskier products. And trust can mean the difference between a consumer choosing your product over a competitor's - even if that competing product is better.

In this article we define trust in a marketing context. Next, we briefly discuss the benefits of building trust with your customers. Finally, we cover ways in which you can build the kind of trust that may help propel your business.

WHAT EXACTLY IS TRUST?

Trust has myriad definitions. In a marketing context, we can think of trust as a firm belief or confidence in the honesty, integrity, and reliability of a product, service, brand, or person. In business, trust can take two forms, explicit trust and implicit trust.

Explicit Trust: Sometimes trust takes a very explicit form. For instance, most of us trust that the pilot of any reputable airline has been screened, tested and qualified to fly the plane. Or, we explicitly trust that our stockbroker will find the best price for our market order.

In these and many other cases of explicit trust, the customer is acutely aware that if the honesty, integrity or reliability of the agent is compromised, then the product or service purchased will fall apart.

Implicit Trust: Trust also takes an implicit form. For instance, every time we pick up a Diet Coke, we implicitly trust that it will taste as we expect. Or, when we log on to Yahoo, the web's biggest search engine, we implicitly trust that the site will load fast and function properly.

In these cases, trust is an unconscious point of reference from which the customer judges the quality of the service. In other words, he or she doesn't consciously question the reliability of the product unless that product fails to meet the customer's standards.

THE BENEFITS OF BUILDING TRUST

Building trust with your customers has at least three primary benefits:

Benefit 1: Customers that trust a brand are much more willing to try and adopt brand extensions.

Brand extensions allow a marketer to take a well-known brand with well-known quality perceptions and associations and put it on a brand in a new category. Consumers who trust a parent brand are more willing to try and adopt the brand extension than an unfamiliar brand in the same category. In this way, trust enables the brand extensions that make new product introductions less expensive.

Benefit 2: Companies that have the trust of their customers have the freedom to take more risks because they are not on such delicate ground with those customers.

A customer's trust is easy to lose, no doubt about it. No matter how trustworthy the firm, an unsavory action or a faulty product can extinguish any high regard customers had to begin with.

With that said, a strong bond of trust between the customer and the company allows the firm to take marketing risks where other, lets trustworthy firms cannot.

For instance, Coca-Cola had spent years building trust with its customers. With this as foundation, the firm in the early 1980s took a risk and produced a new flavor of drink. The product failed miserably - but the firm recovered nonetheless. How? In large part thanks to the bond of trust it had with its customers. In this way, Coke is once again the top soda maker in the world.

Benefit 3: In a new market with new products and new brands, the firm that builds implicit trust first has a significant competitive advantage.

Imagine a new word processing program created and marketed by two firms. Both may start on equal footing with similar funds, similar know-how, and the same customers.

In this early stage, both firms are working to establish explicit trust with customers. In other words, the firms' trustworthiness is on the top of the customers' minds. But over time, one of these firms will establish implicit trust first. That is, one of these companies will build a brand that customers automatically trust without even thinking about it.

At this stage the firm can more easily expand its product base, build value-added services, and broach new markets. The firm still mired in the explicit trust stage, however, may work to catch up, and in process burn through its resources.

HOW DO YOU GAIN THE TRUST OF YOUR CUSTOMERS?

While we can easily recognize the importance of trust, it is much more difficult to build that bond. Below are some tips that may help you in your business.

• Demonstrate a commitment to your customers: When customers know that you are committed to them, they will begin to trust you. Ideally you want to demonstrate your commitment by listening and responding to what your customers are saying.

Coca-Cola, for instance, turned what could have been a marketing disaster into a brand-building opportunity with the introduction of New Coke in the 1980's. Customers clearly did not respond positively to the new formula, but instead of trying to convince those customers that New Coke was a better product, Coca Cola quickly brought back a re-branded Coca Cola Classic. By listening to its customers, and building on the trust it had already developed, Coca Cola became a stronger, more trusted brand than ever before.

• Be consistent- If your brand is trying to say that you do something, do it and do it well. Repeat this process over and over. McDonalds provides the same tasting food and clean bathrooms all over the world. While few people may claim that McDonalds serves the best food or the cleanest bathrooms, the level of service provided, and therefore the expectation of customers, has been consistent over many years. People trust McDonalds. And while being the most consistent food service provider may not be the most glamorous market positioning, it has provided McDonalds with a starting-off point from which to successfully market to consumers.
  
  
• Honesty is the best policy - You cannot deceive your customers and expect to be successful in the long term. How your company responds to legitimate customer concerns can make or break you.

Tylenol is universally applauded for the way they handled the tampering scare of the 1980's. Tylenol responded quickly and appropriately to the crisis by publicly addressing the problem, pulling 264,000 bottles off of store shelves, and later reintroducing a safer, more tamper proof package for their product.

The Tylenol brand is stronger today because of the way this crisis was handled. The Ford/Firestone tire recall is a case study in how not to deal with a crisis. Ford has publicly blamed the tires, Firestone has publicly blamed the tire pressure recommendations used by Ford, and both companies have been accused of keeping lawsuits and worrisome test data private. In the meantime less than half of the recalled tires have actually been replaced, leaving millions of consumers at risk for injury or death. Ford may be a strong enough company to survive this crisis, but Firestone may not be so lucky.

It is important to remember that customers want great brands. With so many decisions to make on a daily basis, finding a brand that is known and trusted makes a consumer's life easier. One of the best ways to build a brand is by building a trusting relationship with your customers.