Day 4 of 30 — Marketing Builds the Trust That Distribution Converts
Because familiarity is a distribution advantage.
So, it’s day four of this 30-day experiment.
Yesterday, we talked about how marketing supports distribution — how the noise you make out there helps people find and use what you’ve built. But I kept thinking about something deeper: trust.
Because distribution without trust doesn’t convert.
Sometimes, people don’t even go looking for a brand. They pick it because it already feels safe.
Think about walking into a supermarket. You see Peak, Loya, and Dano lined up beside three milk brands you’ve never heard of. Even if those new ones are cheaper or better, you’ll likely reach for what you recognise.
That’s not logic. That’s psychology.
It’s called familiarity bias, our brain’s way of saving cognitive energy. When faced with too many choices, we default to the known.
And that’s what great marketing does for distribution: it preloads trust into the places your product shows up.
If you open ChatGPT’s app store, you’ll probably notice Canva, Shopify, or KAYAK sitting there. You’ll likely click on one of them, not because they’re necessarily the best integrations, but because you already know them.
That’s marketing setting the stage for distribution. By the time these brands show up in a new channel, your brain has already done the work:
“Oh, I know them. They’re safe. Let’s try it.”
Marketing primes the user. Distribution delivers the payoff.
And when they don’t work together, it shows. If your marketing is great but your product isn’t available where intent happens, you’ve built awareness with nowhere to send it.
If your distribution is great but your marketing hasn’t built trust, people will scroll past you because recognition drives action.
It’s like Indomie running all those “Mama do good” jingles, but not being on the shelf when hunger strikes.
I like to think of it this way:
Marketing shapes perception.
Distribution tests availability.
Trust is the bridge between the two.
When someone finally encounters your product on a shelf, in an app store, or embedded in another platform, they’re not starting from zero. Your marketing has already done half the persuasion.
That’s the compounding magic of good marketing: it makes every distribution channel work harder.
So yes, yesterday was about how marketing drives people to find you.
Today is about how marketing builds the trust that makes them choose you when they find you.
See you Tomorrow!