Nielsen recently completed a new consumer study focusing on the effectiveness of different content marketing strategies. Specifically it was looking to see which types of content had the biggest effects on building product familiarity, affinity and purchase consideration. The types of content that were looked at in the study were user generated reviews, branded content (content written by or for the product brand itself) and third party expert content.
The results of the study found that when it comes to building brand familiarity, expert content is by far the best type of content, beating out branded content by 88% and user reviews by more than 50%. Building familiarity with the brand is, of course, essential for any business. Helping to ensure people are aware of what the brand is, and why they should buy it is one of the most important first steps.
As you can see in this chart, expert content was actually the most effective for all three measured categories:
The study looked at nine different products across several categories, including smart phones, electric toothbrushes, new vehicles, dryers and car seats. The type of product being sold did have some impact on how effective each type of content would be. For video games, for example, user reviews helped build customer affinity better than expert content, and branded content had almost no impact at all. Branded content tended to be the least influential across the board, which is not surprising since most people look at branded content to be little more than an advertisement.
Regardless of what type of product you’re marketing, it is important to learn what type of content is the most effective. In many cases, you can build your brand much more quickly, and more effectively by publishing the right type of content.
