Being a content marketeer is not always easy. You make and spread content about an array of topics to enhance the online presence of your brand – and to connect new leads. Those leads are passed on to sales representatives, and it’s up to them to score. Like in many cases, it’s way better when content marketeers and sales representatives collaborate more intensively.
Easier said than done, but far from impossible. When you transfer the content of this article to your working environment you’ll see that mutual benefits (for sales and content marketing) are numerous.
1. Content is part of your storytelling
Content marketing is often mistaken for sharing the story of your brand or business. Not without any reason – content is often the most obvious way in which a company can express itself. For a better cooperation between marketeers and sales representatives it’s important to realize that content is part of your story. The content that is supplied by marketeers adds to the story that sales representatives try to convey to potential customers. Note: don’t forget content that’s produced by influencers! This content is straightforward and feeds imagination – two things that are important in a sales-meeting.
Make sure this works both ways: the sales representatives need to let marketeers know which content they find important in order to use it effectively. This can be the case for many different kinds of content, including video’s, blogposts and testimonials by previous customers. Every piece of content can be crucial during a sales-meeting. Marketing Profs investigated this phenomenon and found that businesses where sales- and marketing-departments collaborate intensively get up to 208% of revenue from marketing-efforts. Seems like it’s worth a shot.
2. Content marketing generates leads
And leads generate more deals for sales-representatives. Insightful articles and whitepapers concerning specific branches of marketing are usually read by marketeers that are looking for a solution – perhaps the solution that your B2B company has to offer. For this matter a good collaboration is, once again, crucial. For content marketeers this includes that they should always have a proper call-to-action integrated into the content they produce. This may seem self-evident, but is now usually only applied to articles that are published. Don’t forget your video’s, blogposts and columns!
For people working in sales it’s important to recycle sales leads to the marketing department. Whenever a lead is doubting or decides not to buy your product or service, content marketing can give them just the push they need. Clients want to be helped out, and they can with content: 95% of buyers in this research chose to buy the product that supplied them with relevant and informative content.
3. Specify your content
So far it has turned out that both marketeers and sales-representatives can step up their game if they cooperate more intensively. If you’re a content marketeer you produce content about a wide array of topics and sub-topics. You can, however, make more specific and relevant content to help out your sales-colleagues. When you stay up to date on leads, prospects and content you can help each other out. Content marketeers can make relevant and specific content for the leads that sales-representatives are working on. Write an article on a certain product, a certain branch or even a certain brand! A research by CSO insights showed that businesses where sales- and marketing-departments are dynamic and flexibel manage to reach 10% more sales-quota. That should please everyone.
Conclusion
In short, some take-aways for a better cooperation between content marketeers and sales-representatives:
- Content is part of your story. Use it.
- Brief content marketeers on the leads you’re working on.
- Integrate calls to action in all relevant content.
- Recycle your sales-leads back to the marketing-department.
- Specify your content for leads your colleagues are working on.
- Have lunch together.
As expected it turns out that both parties have mutual benefits from collaborating more intesively. Content is specified and more valuable and revenues improve. Apart from that, a dynamic and flexible collaboration between departments is healthy for any company – and a good time as well. You’ll notice during lunch.
