In a competitive world, sales professionals have to fight tooth and nail to close the deals. With the help of social media platforms and automation technology, salespeople can offer their point of views to their prospects. They can craft purposeful content to generate awareness, push conversions, and ultimately make the sale.
This targeted content can fit anywhere along the customer journey. This makes it an integral part of the overall sales process. Fact is, content marketing can be leveraged as a terrific source for lead generation keeping a steady line of qualified prospects. All you need to do is to map content at each stage of your prospect’s buying journey. When you offer appropriate value, it becomes a competitive advantage, making content a secret weapon for sales.
In an intriguing webinar, Sujan Patel, CoFounder – WebProfits shares his experience and tactics to increase opportunities to close deals by using content as an integral part of the selling process. Partnering with Jack Kosakowski, Global head of social sales at Creation Agency, the session is packed with game-changing stuff you don’t want to miss. Here are a few takeaways…
Why is content the key factor in critical buying decisions?
Creating and sharing targeted content with your prospects can drive a buying decision in your favor. It creates value and value creates conversation. Unlike an unplanned cold phone conversation, which is a traditional sales model, a planned content strategy keeps you in the game by offering massive one to one value to a substantial targeted audience.
Fact is, giving value has a compounding effect, and you’ll observe an eventual uptick in your sales numbers. As they say, you can have everything that you want in life, if you help get others what they want.
Is there a difference between marketing and sales content?
Marketing content helps you broadcast your message to build awareness and exposure at the top of the funnel. Likewise, sales content can help you drive conversation at the consideration stage so your prospects can make a buying decision at the bottom of the funnel. Generally, marketing content is one-to-many. Sales content, on the other hand, is typically one-to-one. Since the central messaging remains almost the same, either type should be personalized as per your prospect and where they are in the funnel.
How should salespeople create their content strategy?
First, you need to understand the nature of people you’re talking to i.e., your prospects. Find what they read and relate to. Know what they find impactful. Second, look within your organization to explore what your marketing and sales team are creating for their processes. This is how you generate ammunition for your overall content strategy.
You don’t need any tricks. Just know what the pain points are and how can you become more valuable than your competition. For example, if your prospect is a CEO, they’re not going to visit Facebook in their free time. They’re likely to visit the industry-leading channels like CMO.com. Then plan your content strategy as to how can you be one of the five choices that CEO’s go daily for their top content in their industry. That’s how they find you and create meaningful relationships.
You would be surprised how quickly you can be an authority just by consistently sharing out value. Just wrap it up with social automation, and that’s how you create magic. That’s the only secret sauce for a solid content strategy.
Where does a sales rep find the right content for their strategy?
The best places to go is to look for newsletters from the thought leaders in your industry. Also, when you’re going through the newsletter, visit the actual links and read it first (for the authenticity). Utilize bookmarking, or a tool like Feedly and share valuable content. As a useful tip, only share what your audience wants. The content strategy should be based entirely on what your buyer wants. Plus, the sharing pattern is got to be consistent – more like a long-term commitment.
How to create the content strategy for a cold email?
If you combine cold email with relevant content, you can create a brand that your rivals can’t compete with. With cold emails, you should never get into the numbers game. Instead, play the value game. Inform and offer value to a limited set, rather than sending it out to 5000 potential prospects.
Figure out the pain point of your prospect and drip the value-added content to get your audience attention. If your research is sharp, some of these prospects will start having the conversation back. Then start marketing your advertisements, hoping they remember the value. Now the friction point is low, and the value is high. This effectively means the process might lead to high response rates.
When you consistently give them good stuff, they would start noticing you, and that’s how you get your foot in the door. With time, they start seeing your solution as a potential. That’s how you get buy-in.
Concluding thoughts
HubSpot is an excellent example of a brand where they put in a tremendous effort to build much credibility before they try to make a sale. Taking cues from a top brand like HubSpot, you should make high-quality content a part of your sales process. Train yourself, even before the industry wakes up to the change.
Honestly, this was just a tiny glimpse of what’s there in the webinar. Sujan and Jack also shared a few actionable strategies on how you should be leveraging content in your sales process. You will also learn how to use content in your email communication with practical examples.
…and guess what! You still have the option to watch the complete webinar on demand and sharpen your sales content strategy.
