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Should Your Sales Team Invest Time in Content Marketing?
One of the most significant yet challenging tasks for any business is having its sales and marketing team aligned.
To understand the elements that will lead to conversion is essential to bridge the gap between marketing and sales. Businesses are in need to accept sales enablement; a process that helps staff by providing them with content, information, and tools to sell effectively.
Also, more and more businesses are eager to establish a connection between various departments. By doing so, they’ll have a clear idea regarding ROI from marketing activities, and whether a company has the right data to be prepared for sales.
With the increasing popularity and use of content marketing, and its benefits, businesses need to update their sales team regarding the value it offers. Marketers can get a lot of information from the sales team as they are the ones who are directly in communication with the prospects. Sales professionals know specific things better, for instance, the problems faced by the customers that can be solved by your business.
The alignment of sales and marketing is crucial so that information can be passed to the marketing department for producing content, whitepapers, blogs and more. The following paragraphs explain why the sales team should invest time in content marketing.
Statistics
Before making a purchase, a customer spends time on engaging with 11.4 pieces of content. About 89% of individuals prefer reading blogs and reviews before making any purchase decision. Not only this, about 70% of the customers prefer learning about a company through ads or articles published.
Content marketing is everywhere nowadays. It is considered to play an essential role in driving 85% of sales and lead generation. Besides, it plays an important part in creating engagement and customer loyalty.
Why Invest in Content Marketing?
Content marketing is vital for an effective sales strategy, considering that your end-goal is to reach a higher number of target audience. So if you’re planning on making a purchase, the first thing you do is grab your phone and search for the product, read blogs, reviews and do some research about the company.
If there is no content, it will be less likely that a consumer follows through on a purchase. Consumers are looking for transparency through the material, they wish to explore a brand beyond the product it sells. Content marketing enables consumers to connect with the brand and build relationships.
When customers connect with your brand on channels apart from your website, it results in creating familiarity and building credibility. All these facts serve as pieces of evidence of why customers prefer purchasing from a brand that they have experienced before.
It is important that both marketing and sales when combined form a content marketing strategy and a content vision statement. Because the end-goal is lead generation, both the teams are required to work on this strategy together.
When the sales team is in contact with the prospects, they can try to fill gaps (such as any missing information, or anything a consumer wants to know about the company) through pieces of content. If they initiate in providing this personalized experience, they’ll be able to get appreciation and positive feedback for their brand.
Additionally, the sales team can also use social media as a platform to share content and increase engagement. As per research, about 80% of the salespeople who utilize social media platforms as a part of their sales strategy have proven to perform better than the sales representatives who don’t. Some of the highly effective social platforms used to drive sales include Facebook (30%), LinkedIn (66%), Twitter (55%) and YouTube (51%). Furthermore, businesses need diversity in their content. They can use various content forms such as case studies, blog posts, white papers, online presentations and much more. You need to research your target audience thoroughly. You can view your previous posts and check which of them have received the highest engagement. To create a strong content strategy, companies can use a mixture of these content forms.
Your sales team is often in contact with prospects; it might be a possibility that your potential customers lack knowledge about your products or company. Provide them with a better understanding, with the sales team using content marketing collateral and personalize their methods.
Although content marketing holds immense significance, content distribution is most important of all. Content distribution relies solely upon the employees in your company. If you wish to create a good impression of how your brand is perceived in the consumers’ mind, then you can use your sales team as brand ambassadors. Putting this responsibility on the employees would help in making employees believe in the company’s successful future. They will see the company as a competitive place and be willing to stay for a longer period.
Therefore, if you wish to impose an effective content strategy, you need to assign people strategically the responsibility of it.
The marketing team can reach out to the sales team and ask them questions they may encounter daily. Note down these questions and see if the marketing team can provide them with content that will help fill the gaps. Hand in that content to the sales team. This is how, both sides will be working towards attaining the same objective, i.e. sales generation.
