By Alistair Norman

The ties that bind us: content marketing proven to foster trust and comfort with customers

When content marketing is done well, successful companies will build trust and comfort with an audience — without the hard-sell treatment. This infographic puts in the numbers, but successful marketers agree it’s all about the relationship.

As any successful sales executive knows, selling isn’t about the sale.

In today’s competitive world, where the customer has a thousand choices and a million sources of information, the hardest part of the customer journey is simply persuading the customer to get started. And a hard-sell advertising message straight off the bat doesn’t work.

Why? Because hard-sell is designed to close. Content marketing is designed to engage. To catch the eye. Attract the interest. Build the relationship. Only when a customer feels you deserve their trust are they ready to hit the purchase button. (Or whatever action your channel needs.)

So isn’t it odd that some claim content marketing isn’t “salesmanship”? In fact, content marketers do what all the best salespeople have been doing for decades.

With recent research findings from the Content Marketing Institute, this infographic shows how content marketing builds those ties of trust — building up capital with your audience, ready to supercharge your sales ledger when the time is right. Here’s an infographic with the details.

The ties that bind us - content marketing proven to foster trust and comfort with customers

This content marketing research shows how it really works — and our thanks go to the Content Marketing Institute for producing the report.

Just as the greatest salesman is an honest dealer who genuinely wants to do the best for you, the greatest content marketing looks to answer the customer’s need for information without asking for too much, too soon. The result? Closing each sale — when the time’s right — becomes far easier.