There are many ways to incorporate content into your digital marketing strategies.

Whether you want to boost brand awareness, improve product understanding, or foster customer loyalty, high-quality content can help you reach your goals.

However, to accomplish these outcomes, you need to establish your brand's credibility and trustworthiness and build connections with your target audience.

So, how do you do this? Well, in addition to using the right communication tools to engage your customers, the best approach is to invest in relevant, trust-building resources your prospects will want to engage with.

Read on to learn effective tactics for leveraging content marketing to demonstrate expertise and grow your community. 

How does brand credibility impact consumer behavior, and how is it essential for community growth?

 Today's buyers — especially young consumers — are increasingly picky.

For one, they consider multiple complex factors before deciding what products and services to invest in.

A recent study from Edelman discovered that people prioritize three things when making shopping decisions. These include value for money and product quality. Most importantly, 88% of consumers decide whether to buy a solution based on whether they trust the business behind it.

Secondly, people's loyalty is hard to win, with fewer than 50% of Gen Z being loyal to the brands they like.

So, what does this mean for brands trying to build communities?

It shows that attracting new customers (and boosting sales, for that matter) requires a precise branding strategy that centers around trust and meaningful relationships.

One way to make this easier is to focus on demonstrating expertise. Why? Because competence is one of the three pillars of trust. Furthermore, it is often the brand characteristic consumers seek during the evaluation stage of the buyer's journey (along with brand warmth, i.e., likability).

What are the benefits of content marketing in building brand trust and connection?

The great thing about content marketing is that it can be an excellent branding and relationship-building tool.

• The right piece of content — especially that with an educational focus — can be a great way to demonstrate experience and expertise.
• Consistency — in your posting schedule, voice and tone, and quality of posts you publish — is another key aspect for demonstrating brand credibility.
• Directly addressing (and solving) your prospects' pain points demonstrates your brand's dedication to customer experience.
• Customer-centric resources — like case studies and testimonials — can back up your claims and value propositions with relevant examples and social proof.
• Investing in transparency-oriented content is also a great idea for brands looking to earn consumer trust, as most people want businesses to be more honest and authentic.
• Resources that include a dose of storytelling can build emotional connections with your prospects, which is a great way to grow your community.

Finally, a content marketing strategy that revolves around your brand's values can be another way to attract your ideal customers. Plus, it's a superb way to connect with leads, encourage sales, and even boost brand loyalty.

Strategies to use content marketing to demonstrate expertise and grow your community

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#1.Invest in high-value educational content

​One of the most effective ways to enhance your digital marketing strategy with content — at least for the purpose of establishing credibility and building positive relationships with your target audience — is to invest in high-quality resources that have educational value.

After all, if you look at the primary reason people go online in the first place, it's to research information (62.6% of people) and learn how to do things (50.6%).

With this in mind, unique and relevant educational resources can be a great addition to your content marketing plan.

They're an excellent way to show your industry experience and insights by providing your audience with in-depth coverage of relevant topics. Plus, they can help establish your brand's authority, which is an excellent first step toward encouraging your ideal customers to continue seeking out your brand's resources in the future.

If you look at businesses like Real Estate Skills, you'll see that they put a lot of emphasis on marketing free educational resources. For instance, this brand's homepage is filled with calls to action encouraging users to engage with one of its blog posts or free webinars.

#2. Align content with consumer pain points 

The second strategy for using content to demonstrate expertise and grow your community is to intentionally align your content marketing strategy with your target audience's pain points.

After all, people want to buy from brands that understand their needs, wants, and priorities.

By filling your content calendar with resources that address specific pain points — and offer unique value to your readers — you can demonstrate your brand's dedication to helping customers.

Furthermore, this content marketing tactic is a great investment if you want to reach your target audience. With the right SEO techniques, you can transform any resource into a brand awareness powerhouse, especially if you target the right long-form informational keywords your ideal customers are searching for.

Check out how NerdWallet does it in its 28 Proven Ways to Save Money article. This brand provides prospects with great resources on everything related to finance, but that's not all. Its dedication to giving readers genuinely helpful guidance does a splendid job of positioning NerdWallet as a trustworthy organization people will want to turn to for advice.

 Another huge benefit of this strategy is that it can be a superb way to show your audience that you're willing to put their needs above profits.

By producing resources that deliver immense value without sales pressure — like the free applet on the AI Humanize website — you can attract prospects, immediately solve their pain points, and earn their trust within a single interaction.

#3. Leverage real-life results to prove credibility 

​Failing to demonstrate a positive track record of solving consumer pain points is one of the biggest conversion obstacles out there.

Research shows that 99.75% of consumers rely on social proof when making buying decisions. And 45% of people won't even consider buying a solution unless there are available reviews for it.

With this in mind, one of the key tactics for establishing your brand's expertise and boosting conversion rates is to leverage real-life results.

What's great is that you can utilize any type of social proof you have available.

Something as simple as highlighting relevant customer testimonials can be enough to convince prospects to consider your offer. That's what Somewhere does in the example below.

Or, if you're trying to impress a more analytical audience — like B2B buyers, for instance — then you can employ more elaborate formats like customer stories and case studies to demonstrate your brand's ability to solve user needs.

If you check out Transitions Elite, you'll see that it dedicates a good portion of its homepage real estate to case studies, which don't just exemplify what the brand does. These pieces of content also describe the outcomes Transitions Elite managed to secure for its clients, transforming these traditional social proof into a powerful branding and conversion-inspiring webpage element.

#4. Collaborate with established industry voices  

One of the potential obstacles to using content to grow your community is that people have become "banner blind."

Consumer research shows that people have developed unconscious behavior patterns where they ignore anything that resembles branded content. Plus, recent survey data shows that approximately one-third of internet users employ ad blockers to avoid seeing too many ads.

For a long time, the most effective digital marketing strategy for overcoming these obstacles was to collaborate with influencers. Nonetheless, these spokespeople may not always be the best choice, depending on your target audience or industry.

With this in mind, explore ways to collaborate with established industry voices in a way that will:

●Expand your brand's reach

●Support your authority

●Create meaningful incentives for your potential customers to interact with your brand

For example, Thorne publishes a monthly issue of Research Extracts, an online publication aiming to keep medical professionals and consumers up on the latest research on nutrition and lifestyle. The series is written and edited by NDs, MDs, and PhDs, making it a trustworthy source of information in an otherwise low-trust industry. It's also a great way for Thorne's potential customers to learn new health hacks that are supported by science.

#5. Optimize distribution channels 

Producing and publishing great content is an excellent way to attract web visitors, build brand trust, and encourage conversions.

However, growing your community can't always wait for your audience to seek you out.

Instead, the best way to reach new prospects and get them to enter the buyer's journey is to optimize your distribution channels in a way that aligns with their content consumption behaviors.

For example, knowing that people spend 2+ hours per day browsing social media, producing content for social networks — or repurposing blog content, like Tasty did on Instagram — can be a great way to create brand awareness and delight your target audience with high-quality resources they enjoy. It's also a marvelous opportunity to drive organic traffic to your website.

Don't limit yourself to socials. If there are any distribution channels — online or offline — you know your audience trusts, explore guest posting or brand mention opportunities that could help build brand awareness.

This is what SopranoVillas does. This brand regularly collaborates with journalists and travel bloggers. Moreover, to get the most out of these media mentions, it links to articles in well-known magazines like Vogue, Forbes, Condé Nast Traveler, and The Economist on its homepage, where they directly contribute to brand authority.

#6. Use existing content as a way to connect with your audience  

Finally, as you explore methods to use content marketing to demonstrate expertise and grow your community, don't forget that consumers rarely choose large corporations over businesses that genuinely care about them.

So, don't pass up easy opportunities to build connections with your audience.

Optimize your content pages to encourage shares and feedback. For example, Leesa includes social share buttons at the top of its blog posts. Furthermore, it includes an always-visible Live Chat widget on its website, which makes it really easy for web visitors to ask their questions and interact with the brand's sales team.

Also, reply to the comments on your social media posts in a meaningful way, as Blume does on Instagram. This is a great way to build relationships with potential customers. Moreover, it can help provide your audience with relevant product information, improve your existing clients' customer experience, and even serve as a place to monitor consumer sentiment or perform audience research.

Wrapping up

High-quality, relevant content that genuinely benefits your target audience can be an exceptionally powerful tool. Use it to attract new leads, boost sales, build brand trust, and grow your community.

Of course, for any of these outcomes to have a real impact on your brand's success, you'll need to back them up with solid business practices.

So, don't just focus on marketing, but explore additional ways to create outstanding customer experiences. That can mean something as simple as improving internal communication among team members, or it can be about using private digital customer channels with tools like AgilityPortal to keep your clients happy at all times.