Trust, Not Tactics: 4 Steps Every SaaS Brand Needs to Get Right

Hello to Canada’s SaaS Community,

At SAAS NORTH, Nathan Yeung took the Stage with a message that hit home for marketers and founders alike: if your customers don’t trust you, your marketing isn’t working.

Nathan is the Founder of Find Your Audience, a fractional CMO firm with over a decade of B2B marketing experience. He’s worked with companies like Constellation Software and Pro and has even been called on by Shark Tank’s Robert Herjavec (meaning he’s no stranger to high expectations or higher stakes).

Now, in a landscape where SaaS buyers are moving fast and deciding faster, Nathan unpacked why trust, not tooling, tactics, or even tech, is what drives growth and why most companies overestimate just how much of it they’ve earned.

With insights drawn from consumer psychology and plenty of practical examples, Nathan made the case that trust isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s a measurable, buildable asset that directly impacts conversion, retention, and lifetime value.

Key takeaways:

• Customers rely on shortcuts (aka heuristics) to decide who they trust, smart marketing aligns to that reality
• There’s a 60% gap between how much trust executives think they’ve earned and what customers actually report
• Trust is built through authenticity, logic, and empathy. Not jargon, friction, or “get a quote” forms

Nathan Yeung reminded us at SAAS NORTH: trust drives everything in SaaS, from first clicks to long-term revenue. (So here’s your chance to build trust and save: Early Bird pricing won’t last.)

In this session, Nathan unpacks the psychology behind trust, the gap between perception and reality, and how SaaS companies can close it using a mix of empathy, clarity, and smart creative.

From pricing strategy and brand packaging to refund policies, this is a tactical blueprint for founders who want to build companies customers believe in.

1. The Trust Gap: What You Think vs. What’s True

Let’s get one thing out of the way. If your marketing isn’t rooted in trust, you’re wasting your budget.

As Nathan bluntly put it: “With no trust, there’s no marketing value.”

PwC’s 2024 Trust Survey echos this and makes the gap clear: while 90% of executives believe their customers trust them, only 30% of customers actually do.

This isn’t just a perception problem; it’s a missed opportunity. Especially when 95% of customers say they’re more likely to stay loyal to brands they trust.

Despite this, the go-to move for most marketing teams is to pump more budget into top-of-funnel tactics, when the real gap is trust.

2. The Framework: Trust = Authenticity + Logic + Empathy

Nathan referenced Harvard Business Review’s three-part trust framework. It’s simple, powerful, and too often ignored in SaaS:

• Authenticity: Be consistent and transparent (yes, even when things break)
• Logic: Show clear reasoning, desired outcomes, and proof points
• Empathy: Speak in the customer’s language, not your roadmap’s

Nathan’s practical examples hit home:

“Refunds: give it immediately. Downtime: communicate openly. Pricing: let legacy subscribers renew at the old rate.”

“Copywriting is the basis of how to demonstrate empathy. You have to speak in your customer’s voice, their pain points, their language.”

Your homepage isn’t just a pitch deck. It’s your first trust signal.

3. Trust Lives in the Four Ps (and Bad UX Kills It)

Nathan’s breakdown of the classic marketing Four Ps, Product, Price, Place, Promotion, shows how every element of your go-to-market strategy either builds trust or breaks it.

• Product = Your packaging. In SaaS, that’s your website. Outdated UI? Broken links? You’ve already lost trust.
• Price = Transparency. “Get a quote” screams “we’re hiding something.”
• Place = How your product is delivered. A 48-hour wait for a license key? Immediate red flag.
• Promotion = Clarity over cleverness. Don’t just get noticed, get understood.

One of the strongest messages?

“You’re either creative and it delivers a message, or you’re not and you’re not delivering a message.”

Nathan spotlighted viral examples like DHL’s heat-reactive boxes (delivered by competitors) and Wise’s frozen money stunt outside a FinTech event. Creative wins when it simplifies and amplifies trust.

4. Heuristics: Why Customers Trust Fast, Not Deep

Here’s the kicker: customers don’t have time to study your case studies or parse your roadmap.

They rely on mental shortcuts (heuristics) to decide whether they trust you enough to buy, renew, or recommend.

“We ultimately have to be forced into a decision. And what we do to make that decision is we use heuristics.”

That’s why design, UX, copy, and onboarding matter. Not because they look good, but because they help people feel like they’ve made a sound decision quickly.

Trust isn’t just earned; it’s designed.

Nathan’s talk wasn’t a “branding” session, it was a wake-up call for SaaS companies who think a clean pitch deck and a strong NRR are enough.

“You can increase your MRR and your ARR if you can build trust. And once they purchase from you, ideally you can keep them for longer. That’s your LTV.”

Trust isn’t optional in SaaS. It’s your edge in a crowded market.

SAAS NORTH is THE Canadian hub for rapidly-scaling SaaS founders and their teams. Learn, network, and grow with Canada’s largest in-person SaaS community at SAAS NORTH.