How does content help build trust? | Stephanie Yoder, Director of Content, Rebrandly

Every brand says they want trust, but few realize how quickly the wrong content can break it.

In this episode of Straight to Voicemail, Rachel Downey talks with Stephanie Yoder, Director of Content at Rebrandly. Stephanie shares how thoughtful content earns trust, why salesy messaging breaks it, and how brands can use every touchpoint to prove credibility. She also explains how branded links drive 39% higher clicks by showing audiences exactly where they’re headed.

You’ll learn:

• How to write content that educates before it sells
• Why understanding your audience builds long-term trust
• How branded links strengthen credibility and increase engagement
  
  

Jump into the conversation:
(00:00) Why we wanted to hear from Stephanie
(00:27) Why content is a brand’s best trust-building tool
(01:00) How marketing language can break audience trust
(01:20) What people-first content looks like
(01:40) How helpful content drives stronger relationships
(02:00) The importance of giving value before promoting products
(02:20) Why branded links create trust through transparency
(02:40) How Rebrandly connects content and credibility
(02:47) Closing thoughts from Stephanie Yoder

Straight to Voicemail is for CMOs, CEOs, and Heads of Marketing in B2B tech who want insights from the people who’ve been there. Each episode centers on one big question answered like a voicemail you’ll want to play again.

Don’t miss this conversation! Follow Straight to Voicemail and explore Genius Cuts for more B2B content strategy insights.

What is Straight To Voicemail?

What are the best brands doing to stay relevant, build trust, and create content smarter?

At Share Your Genius, we have the same questions, so we're tapping the best in the space for their answers—one voicemail at a time.

Join us each week for quick hits of insights from b2b marketers and leaders.

[00:00:00]

[00:00:09] Rachel Elsts Downey: In the attention economy trust is the only currency that matters. Every brand, every person is desperately trying to connect. But here's the cold hard truth. Your content can destroy trust just as easy as it can build it. If you're publishing anything that feels generic, self-serving, dishonest, or like a robot wrote it, you're not just wasting your time.

[00:00:34] You're actively damaging your credibility. So how do you make sure you're on the right side of that equation? Stephanie Yoder? She's got an opinion on that. Her philosophy is simple. Know your audience. Prioritize helping over selling, and back it up. When content is honest and relatable, trust becomes the automatic result. Knowing how fragile brand trust is right now, I had to ask her, how does content help build trust for brands? Here's her answer.

[00:01:14] Stephanie Yoder: Hey Rachel. Thanks for calling. Sorry I missed you. I really liked your question. It made me think a lot. I think that content is a really important tool for brands to build trust because it's your chance to speak directly to people and meet them where they are. And that can be kind of a double-edged sword because it also means it's really easy to break that trust with people through content.

[00:01:41] And the way you can do that is making claims that you can't back up or being really salesy in your content and slipping into generic marketing speak. I think that when people hear that, their brains automatically turn off and they don't trust you. And once you lose that trust, it's really hard to get it back. But if you can approach content thoughtfully, you can really build that trust. And the way you do that is by actually knowing your audience and understanding them, their wants and their needs, and the information that's actually helpful to them.

[00:02:19] I talk a lot about being people first in your content. That means understanding major concerns and information, and really meeting people where they are. So creating social posts that are thought provoking or provide useful nuggets of information and blog posts that show people how to actually solve a problem can go really, really far. I think that if you give that information willingly first before pushing your product, that really helps build that trust. On that note, the company that I work for, Rebrandly, is a product that actually helps create that trust through your content.

[00:02:55] We create branded links that you can use. Branded links actually get clicked 39% more than generic ones, and the reason for that is people trust them. They can see where that link is going to take them, versus a generic link that could be going anywhere.

[00:03:10] That could be spam, it could be a trick. But if your link is an extension of your brand, that helps build that trust and push people forward to the next stage of your funnel. Hope that helps. Feel free to gimme a call if you wanna chat about this more. Thanks so much.