Mind the Trust Gap: Content Marketing Falls Flat with Majority of Decision-Makers

The appetite for content marketing is high, but current practices must be refined to realize maximum success with senior B2B technology buying decision-makers. That’s according to the inaugural Trust in Marketing Index from Informa Tech.

The Index, which reveals an overall score of 61 on a scale of 1 to 100, uncovers the disparity between existing content marketing practices and the preferences of senior business technology decision-makers. As the Index states, “While there are strong building blocks present, there is still significant work to be done.”

The 2023 Informa Tech Trust in Marketing Index was created from interviews with 150 senior executives, leaders and the C-suite across the business technology community in the U.S. and the U.K. The survey analyzes how trust is fostered through accuracy, clarity, expertise, personalization and timeliness. It included five baseline questions with assigned point values for each answer to create the Index score.

Informa Tech’s Emma Moorman

“The Informa Tech Trust in Marketing Index suggests there is more work to be done when it comes to maximizing the value of marketing content,” said Emma Moorman, Informa Tech’s marketing services product director. “It’s really interesting to see how valuable content is to senior decision-makers but how easily wrongly-timed, wrongly-targeted or badly-executed content can undermine trust.

“Trust is key to building long-term relationships, and we know from multiple studies that senior decision-makers are more likely to make decisions based on trust and relationships than less senior roles in an organization. With tech buying budgets expected to go up next year, it is crucial to understand the factors that will build or break trust in 2024 to create a fertile ground for sales.”

See the slideshow above for six insights on content marketing from Informa Tech’s Trust in Marketing Index.