TLDR: A new study found that 8 in 10 consumers consider expert content more effective in lifting purchase considerations than user reviews.
Businesses will use a lot of tools to help convince a potential customer that their products or services are superior to what the competition can offer. For example, one of the most popular techniques used by businesses is to advertise the positive reviews of past customers to help demonstrate to prospective buyers that a company’s offerings do in fact deliver what is promised and result in satisfaction for the purchaser. However, new research from Nielsen found that consumers actually prefer content from experts over satisfactory reviews from past customers. Specifically, 83 percent of surveyed consumers felt that “expert content”, product reviews and articles from third-party websites and blogs, was more effective at convincing them to make a purchase than branded content and user reviews. Marketing Land explains, “Not only were consumers more likely to be influenced by expert content when making purchases, the study found expert content from third-party sources also had a greater impact on product affinity and familiarity: On average, expert content lifted familiarity 88 percent more than branded content and 50 percent more than user reviews; they lifted affinity 50 percent more than branded content and 20 percent more than user reviews. While expert content had a greater influence overall, the study discovered branded content had the most impact in categories where product specs were a critical component of the evaluation process, like cameras. Users reviews were most valuable for products where users were considered to have a “higher degree” of product expertise: “We found for car seats that, even though expert content was most effective at increasing familiarity and affinity, user content provided the strongest lift to purchase intent.” Here’s a breakdown of how expert content, user reviews and branded content impacted the different stages of the buying process for all nine product categories…”
