High-performing marketing departments churn out quality content with the precision of artful scientists. When an interested prospect hits the sales team only to find a half-baked PowerPoint, they halt mid-pipeline.
High quality content is not just for the marketing team to use at beginning of the pipeline. Marketing content should see the prospect all the way through to the sale. The sales team can play content catch-up by taking a few pages from the marketing team’s working playbook.
Let's take a look at the 3 ways to harness content for sales enablement.
1. Value Content
Traditional marketing venues like radio advertisements, print advertisements or television spots talked at prospects rather than talking with them. The marketing department of today is thrilled to engage customers in a two-way conversation on multiple platforms. The right content placed in the right place and sent at the right time yields click-throughs like clockwork.
Sales teams should be equally excited about the new technologies of content sharing, because great content always builds trust, credibility and back-and-forth with customers. Content isn’t just supportive anymore- it can change the sale entirely.
2. Choose Content
The marketing team knows that different content performs differently, depending on platform and context. White papers don’t belong on Twitter, for example, and viral videos shouldn’t be shared directly on the company website.
Each sales rep must become adept at recognizing what type of content a customer may benefit from, and when. Sales reps can typically identify a customer’s pain points in a heartbeat. Now, they need to learn how to speak to those pain points by sharing relevant content.
3. Rate Content
Marketing teams keep up with the metrics that track click-throughs, shares, “likes” and more. If the marketing team doesn’t see the results they want, they know it immediately, and they change course without major investment of resources.
Sales reps can also track the efficacy of content by tracking what messages help them advance their prospects through the pipeline. They should likewise cut out what doesn’t work, and keep what does.
Is there a content chasm between your marketing and sales teams?
