Richardson_ContentMarketing_Article_Digital

Content Marketing: Part IHow The Marketing Team Should Work With Sales

Copyright © 2015 Richardson. All rights reserved.

eBOOK

Written By, Jim Brodo SVP Marketing

eBOOK 1 | CONTENT MARKETING: PART I — HOW THE MARKETING TEAM SHOULD WORK WITH SALES

2

CONTENT-BASED MARKETING — IT’S ALL THE RAGE...

A reported 93% of B2B marketing teams in

North America are using a content-marketing

approach, according to B2B Content Marketing

2014 research. While that’s an impressive

number, only 9% of survey respondents felt

it was “very effective,” while 33% said

“effective.” That tells me people are jumping

on the bandwagon without clear strategies,

tactics, or implementation.

So that we’re all on the same page, let’s start with defi ning what we mean by content marketing. Or, more appropriately, how Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute, which publishes the annual B2B survey, defi nes it:



“CONTENT MARKETING IS THE

STRATEGIC MARKETING APPROACH

OF CREATING AND DISTRIBUTING

VALUABLE, RELEVANT, AND

CONSISTENT CONTENT TO ATTRACT

AND ACQUIRE A CLEARLY DEFINED

AUDIENCE — WITH THE OBJECTIVE

OF DRIVING PROFITABLE

CUSTOMER ACTION.”

JOE PULIZZI

CONTENT MARKETING

INSTITUTE

eBOOK 1 | CONTENT MARKETING: PART I — HOW THE MARKETING TEAM SHOULD WORK WITH SALES

3

This content can take any number of forms: blog posts, videos, white papers, printed or electronic books, infographics, case studies, emails, newsletters, articles, and so on.

Even though it plays a valuable and critical role in today’s marketing mix, content marketing is often misunderstood by those in sales. I would be rich if I had a nickel for every time a sales rep has said: “That’s just a download; what am I supposed to do with it?” Given all of the investment and focus being spent on content-based marketing, the only way to make an impact — to drive profi table customer action — is for marketing and sales to be in sync and supporting each other.

Here are a few tips to better align marketing and sales to optimize a content-based marketing approach.

MARKETING SHOULD:

Survey the sales team to get input on what support materials they would like to see from marketing and to glean insights from their daily experiences with clients, prospects, the market, and even competitors in the fi eld. Not only will you get more buy-in and alleviate a “throw-it-over-the-wall” approach, but the marketing team also will benefi t from greater exposure to the overall business environment, enabling them to create more relevant content.

Communicate the content strategy and publish an editorial calendar. Sharing your strategy is a critical step for successful alignment with sales. Give them a copy of the editorial calendar so they can plan related activities around the launch of specifi c content.

Create relevant content. Make sure to feature content that is relevant to your company, products, and services. Don’t make it hard for the sales team to relate the value of marketing content to their targets; even the best content can distract from the sale if it’s not relevant to what the company offers.

Make sure sales can fi nd the content. If the materials are just thrown into a folder on a network, no one will know where it is or what a specifi c piece is about. At Richardson, we use SAVO’s Sales Content Pro to house and manage all of our content. This is a great tool to tag and provide information about the content, which is linked to the appropriate stage in the selling process, which brings me to the next point.

Have a strategy that creates content that is appropriate for each stage of the selling process. Content should be different for each stage of the sales process: Qualifi cation, discovery, proposal, presentation, and close. What’s relevant for prospecting is not the same when sales is presenting or expanding a relationship. Make sure that marketing fully understands the buying and selling process to ensure the content will support the acquisition of new customers and growing value with existing ones.



eBOOK 2 | CONTENT MARKETING: PART II — HOW THE MARKETING TEAM SHOULD WORK WITH SALES

4

CONTENT-BASED MARKETING — IT’S ALL THE RAGE...

In Part I of this series, we talked about the

rising popularity of content-based marketing.

A reported 93% of B2B marketing teams in

North America are using a content-marketing

approach, according to B2B Content Marketing

2014 research. While that’s an impressive

number, only 9% of survey respondents felt

it was “very effective,” while 33% said

“effective.” That tells me people are jumping

on the bandwagon without clear strategies,

tactics, or implementation.

I shared a defi nition used by Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute, which publishes the annual B2B survey:


Content Marketing: Part IIHow The Marketing Team Should Work With Sales

“CONTENT MARKETING IS THE

STRATEGIC MARKETING APPROACH

OF CREATING AND DISTRIBUTING

VALUABLE, RELEVANT, AND

CONSISTENT CONTENT TO ATTRACT

AND ACQUIRE A CLEARLY DEFINED

AUDIENCE — WITH THE OBJECTIVE

OF DRIVING PROFITABLE

CUSTOMER ACTION.”

JOE PULIZZI

CONTENT MARKETING

INSTITUTE


eBOOK 2 | CONTENT MARKETING: PART II — HOW THE MARKETING TEAM SHOULD WORK WITH SALES

5

While Part I focused on tips for how marketing could become better aligned with sales, let’s now turn to what sales can do to align with marketing in order to optimize a content-marketing approach.

SALES SHOULD:

Share content broadly. Salespeople who share good content add to their credibility and position themselves as trusted advisors or go-to resources. Such sharing takes the form of regularly posting content on LinkedIn, tweeting about it, emailing it, snail-mailing it, using it as a post-meeting take-away — whatever method works to get content in front of the client.

Communicate with the content development team. Don’t wait for marketing surveys or the editorial calendar; take an active role in helping the marketing team deliver the content that sales reps need to engage prospects and clients. If one rep is thinking about a certain topic that would be helpful for a blog post or other marketing material, other reps are surely thinking the same thing. But, marketing will never know unless someone in sales tells them.

Follow up, and then follow up some more. Effective follow-up and nurturing of a lead who has downloaded a piece of content is vital to the success of that particular marketing campaign. Even if the prospect doesn’t have an identifi ed need or isn’t a hot lead, it’s likely there is some interest in the company’s products or services related to the downloaded content. Use the content as a way to connect and build credibility. It may take time, but the only way anything will happen is if sales reps reach out, follow up, and nurture the lead. While it may be tempting to give up and move on to the next lead if there’s no immediate callback or response, slow and steady wins the race — especially with content-based marketing.

Content marketing is here to stay. A projected 35% of every company’s marketing budget will be spent on content-based marketing development and campaigns.

But Marketing just can’t develop good pieces and send them out. And Sales just can’t discount the longer-term effects of a good content-marketing strategy. Both must be aligned with the strategy and implementation.

Together, marketing and sales can drive much higher returns on marketing investments and, ultimately, achieve business outcomes.



Contact the Richardson Team at 215.940.9255Visit us on the web at www.richardson.com

RICHARDSON | 1818 Market Street | Suite 2800 | Philadelphia, PA 19103 Copyright © 2015 Richardson. All rights reserved. EB-374-001-215

RICHARDSON: SALES TRAINING AND EFFECTIVENESS SOLUTIONSRichardson is a global sales training and sales

force effectiveness company. We offer customized

solutions delivered to the highest standards by

authentic, passionate and experienced people.

Our approach is highly collaborative, with a focus

on enabling the right sales activity and effective

customer dialogues. We bring proven content,

deep customization, and expert perspective to

help you defi ne and develop solutions that meet

your exact needs and drive expected outcomes.

RICHARDSON URL

RICHARDSON CONNECTIONS

Blog: Sales Excellence Review: http://blogs.richardson.com/

Twitter: @RichardsonSales

Facebook: Richardsonsalestraining

LinkedIn Group: RichardsonConnect

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/xsell1

Google+: +Richardson Group


Documents

Richardson_ContentMarketing_Article_Digital