1. Trust in Advertising is Terrible

A recent report from market research giant Nielsen shows consumer trust in traditional media advertising has plummeted. Users don’t like, nor trust the sales messages 

The survey found whopping 90% of OECD consumers said they trusted brand recommendations from friends or users they trusted online, while only 10% said they trusted messages from display advertising.

Content Marketing represents a form of word-of-mouth marketing, whereby users consumer, engage and share your useful brand content. A strong content marketing strategy hits closer to the 90% trust level than any paid banner ad at the other end of the consumer trust scale.

2. Content Marketing Delivers Quality Lead Generation 

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half,” said John Wanamaker. This problem may be solved with content marketing.

In fact, Content marketing can convert 30% more organic traffic into high quality sales leads (source: MarketingSherpa). Great content marketing will attract potentially high value customers, and these customers will come back for more.

This compares to more traditional advertising methods, where media planners will buy an audience assuming that an ad message will be received by a target audience, and this also assumes the paid message will compel users to act.

Content Marketing delivers on the strategy of ‘narrowcasting’ where brands focus on a smaller, core group of potential, high quality consumers.