It’s a scenario that must play out thousands of times a day, possibly thousands of times per hour. You need to know something, you type your query into Mr Google, and no matter how obscure or vague your request Mr Google diligently returns thousands of possible answers for you to view.
Now this is where it gets interesting, scanning down the snippets of possible answers in the excitement of having your knowledge expanded, you click what you think is going to be the best answer – as the page begins to load a pop up box asks you for your email address!?! This box is blocking the crucial information you wanted and you can’t escape it.
Hang on! I don’t know who they are, I don’t even know if they can help me at this stage yet they expect me to part with my email address. No doubt so they can send me more unsolicited email I neither need or want.
All I wanted to know is how many egg whites do I need to make a Pavlova that ends up 40cm in diameter?
This brings me to my point, there is no way I can possibly trust a company with my email address when I don’t even know if they can help me at this stage.
I know Mr Google is very good, but he’s not infallible and certainly not beyond being tricked. Trust has to be earned, and more often than not in our increasingly digital age it is earned through digital touch points. Often without the advantage of a face to face meeting, where you can look the provider of the answer to your questions in the eyes, and see if they keep a straight face.
Trust is built up over time, very rarely is it instant and businesses need to understand this and take measures to foster the trust of their audience. Personally I think the internet would be a much better place if more of the content was focused on building the trust of its users rather than trying to monetise them at every turn. Make your content useful, factual and provided in good faith and slowly but surely your customers will build trust in you and your business.
What do you have to lose? an email address from a potentially unrelated web search.
What do you have to gain? Brand recognition, a new customer and an online community of brand loyal customers who will not only buy your products but recommend them to others (free, credible marketing!).
In case you are wondering I couldn’t find an exact answer, but it looks like I’d need about 10 egg whites to make my Pav.
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