As a marketer, one of your main jobs is likely developing content that is useful to your customers, especially if you have a strong online presence. From compelling web content that first draws a prospect in, to highly-targeted email campaigns meant to close the deal, content is a vital component to the overall marketing strategy for many businesses.
Unfortunately, many marketers find that they struggle getting their sales team to use the content they created. Why? It often boils down to a lack of alignment between the two teams and a lack of communication about the type of content and messaging needed.
To get sales to use your content, you have to be on the same page about content development. Here’s how:
Powwow With Sales
One of the easiest and most effective ways to get on the same page as your sales team is to meet with them on a regular basis. At minimum, get together monthly; more often for larger companies producing a lot of content. The goal is to get feedback as quickly as possible about what’s working and what’s not. The more often you meet, the more quickly you can change gears and adjust your content strategy to provide sales with the content they need – and will actually use.
Understand Your Brand’s Sales Cycle
How a consumer goes from a lead to a prospect to a buyer is different for every brand. Making sure both your sales and marketing teams understand the sales cycle each person goes through is vital to creating appropriate content at each touch point.
Be Helpful, Not Promotional
Obviously your content should promote your brand to some degree, but content that is deemed as too “salesy” is a turnoff to buyers. Instead, work with your sales team to understand your buyers’ needs and concerns and create content that addresses those in a helpful way.
Make Your Content Easy To Find
Your content should be easily accessible and organized so that your sales team can quickly find what they’re looking for. Cloud or server storage is ideal so that the digital content for a trade show is updated in real-time and everyone has access to the most recent files.
Be Sure Your Content Meets Its Goal
If a free eBook download is supposed to result in 50 new leads per month but your email list is only growing by 20, you need to figure out what the problem is. It could be you’re not promoting it enough and an extra email campaign may provide the boost you need. If not, the issue could be with the content itself. This goes back to the importance of regular meetings to provide feedback on the effectiveness of content.
Meet Customers Where They Are
Not all of your content will be in the form of an email or PDF. Brands looking to boost their online presence and authority will use various platforms for publishing content and connecting with customers. One of the most effective is LinkedIn. With more than 400 million users in various niche industries, it’s one of the best places to find customers who are already interested in the type of solution you provide. The key is to ensure your LinkedIn profile is well-optimized so that your brand and content receive good exposure and traffic.
Design & Promote Can Evaluate Your Content Marketing Strategy
If you’re struggling to align your sales and marketing teams around content, a content marketing firm like Design & Promote can help evaluate and update your Chicago business’s strategy. Call 630-995-7109 to learn how we can help you create content that your sales team will actually want to use!