Building trust and establishing credibility needs to be the cornerstone of any Internet marketing strategy. The post-modern consumer is, as Dr Flint McGlaughlin quotes 'armed and dangerous' - he or she can in a single click, terminate your attempt to build a relationship with them.

More than ever before, on-line shoppers are wary of hype and highly sceptical of any marketing message. We are faced with an uphill battle to distinguish our offer from those of our competitors and to prove to a weary and twitchy audience that what we are promoting is genuine.

Dr Flint McGlaughlin has coined (and even trade marked) the term Transparent Marketing [TM]. I have great respect for his work with Marketing Experiments Journal and in his commitment to bringing greater integrity to Internet Marketing. I participated in a recent tele-class with him in which he spoke out against the 'low trust' tactics used by marketers such as the late Corey Rudl, whose Internet marketing courses have sold by the thousand and influenced literally hundreds of thousands of website strategies.

McGlaughlin sets out a case for communicating more honestly and openly with our audience with the motive of winning their trust.

But why is it that most of the focus in ethical marketing circles seems to be centred around presentation rather than substance? Afterall, any marketer worth his salt will work skilfully to convey a company's offer in a way that can make almost any pitch at least appear to be credible. Just look at the way petroleum companies such as BP and Shell have re-branded themselves as 'green' companies.

Whilst creative, trust-building communication strategies and re-branding will certainly help, I would argue however that we need to go deeper than this if we are to truly win over our audience.

We need to BE credible, not just appear to be so.

As more and more companies wake up to the realisation that trust is key there is a danger of this back-firing as marketers focus upon changing the wrapping paper rather than looking at what's in the box.

Building trust is not simply an exercise in communication or presentation. It is about being what you want your audience to believe that you are. This is the essence of ethical Internet marketing and it requires examining your company's values and practices right to the core.

An ethical marketing approach involves the following attitude to the process of trust building:

• If you don't have sufficient testimonials from clients - focus upon serving your clients better so that they will be happy to write you a glowing reference.

• If your credibility is undermined by your lack of awards, qualifications and certification make it part of your business plan to re-train and to achieve award-winning standards.

• If your offer is less than 100% genuine, improve your product or service until it is.

• If you cannot prove that your product or service works, get proof. Run your own poll or survey and consider hiring a market research team. Don't just view this a marketing exercise. Learn from the research results about how you can make improvements.

• If you lack credibility as a serious player in your market area you need to earn respect. This may mean publishing articles or a book, speaking at conferences and appearing in the press and media.

• If your values are compromised by the way you do business put things right. This could mean treating your staff better, adopting more environmentally sound office practices or donating to charity.

By adopting what I call the 'Just Be It' attitude to business, you will find that the substance of your company - the values that it actually embodies - will speak volumes to your audience.

Simon Bowen, fluidstate.com