Content marketing is an excellent means for developing and growing a brand. Sales and marketing teams need to understand that by working together and paying close attention to the pain points of both the internal sales team as well as the customer, the content marketing can be even more effective.
Did You Know This About Your Content?
The content on your website, your social media or anywhere else it is carefully placed is yet another means sales teams have to bring their prospective customer one step closer to making a decision. Every piece of content the marketing team is creating is designed to answer a customer question, address their problems and even nurture them deeper into the funnel. It’s also designed to educate and motivate the customer, not “sell” them (That’s your job sales team). If I was a sales person and I knew that I could use something in particular that would help close the deal… I would do it right? – Content marketing just may be that thing!
Sales And Marketing Relationship
Here are a few compelling thoughts about the relationship between sales and content marketing. What exactly is a sales rep’s role in using that content anyway?
“As the best-selling book The Challenger Sale notes, the sales rep who pushes buyers to think differently, educates buyers with new insights, and tailors conversations to their needs consistently outperforms the others.” – Kapost – Connecting With Content
“A smart salesperson understands the power of content marketing, but still might be underutilizing content as a sales tool.” – Brafton
Content Marketing Is Not Designed To “Sell”
Contrary to what some sales teams think, content marketing is not design to “sell”, it’s designed to earn trust in the mind of the consumer, educate them, inform them of information they want to know and attract them to your brand. For sales teams that have sales cycles longer than an instantaneous online sale, use your content marketing to accomplish all four of those while you are communicating with prospects. Here are a few ways I would use it if I were prospecting on a daily basis.
Sales Reps – Think About The Ways You Communicate To Prospects:
- Email: At the bottom of your email, add links to blogs, eBooks and videos that are applicable to your prospect.
- Social media: Include links to your website, landing pages and blogs.
- Phone: Mention to your prospects that you have some new information they may want to know about – then share it with them.
- Webex / demos: Inform prospects during the demo of current research findings like eBooks and white papers.
- In-person: (trade shows, events, meetings): Smartphones, Tablets and Laptops can be great tools to use to instantly show and share information to your prospects.
Every method of communication your company uses is yet another way to distribute the content marketing that already exists. All the ways above are perfect examples to either electronically share or mention something that may be very important to help you to earn trust in the minds of the prospect and bring them closer to a potential sale. Don’t be afraid to send them an eBook or video that was just produced or share a blog that was written about an important topic that would be helpful for your customer. All of this combined with your additional sales efforts play an important role in closing the deal even faster.
YourBrandExposed is designed to look at digital with an eye into the future using a creative, innovative marketing perspective. We’re a consultative and tactical resource for companies looking to leverage the power of digital, web, social and content marketing strategies. Contact us if you’re feeling the digital squeeze on how to best market your company.
Scott MacFarland
Linkedin | Huffington Post | Twitter: @scmacfarland
Email: Yourbrandexposed@yahoo.com
Photo Credits: UnSplash – Lou Eletu | HubSpot
Sources:
Kapost
Brafton
http://www.brafton.com/blog/content-marketing/3-ways-content-marketing-can-be-used-as-a-sales-tool/
Kapost