Maxim Baeten
The Content Struggle
Today, one of the biggest pain points between marketing and sales in B2B companies is what we refer to as the “content struggle”. Content marketing is a tactic widely used today, and marketers are now producing more content than ever before. Marketers are constantly pushing out content, but tactfully enabling sales teams to utilize this content poses quite the challenge. Why might this be?
To start, you’ll find it helpful to ask your team the following questions: Is your sales team receiving the right content from your marketing team? Are they using the collateral that’s most relevant to the buyer? Are your sales teams actively providing marketing with feedback about what’s happening during their sales conversations? Is your marketing curated content relevant to the sales conversation you’re having? In an attempt to answer these questions, it’s likely you’ll become more aware of why the content marketing issue between marketing and sales persists at your company
Frequently, we find that the overarching problem lies in the disconnect between what marketers believe to be sales-driving content, and what sales reps actually find effective in their sales conversations. Because of such varying opinions sales reps often decide to fend for themselves, using content outside of marketing’s scope.
In fact, Forrester research indicates that 85% of marketers fail to correlate content activity to business value. Further, our research with Demand Metric revealed that sales doesn’t find the marketing curated content relevant to the actual conversations they are having in the field. Both of these studies clearly indicate the imminent disconnect between the content that marketing is creating, and the content that sales reps find useful and informative in the field.
Improve Communication & Drive Deals Forward
Ultimately, sales reps need content that will drive deals forward. Clearly, marketing and sales need to come to a conclusion of exactly what defines an effective piece of content. Then, marketing can better allocate their time and resources towards effective content curation. When marketing and sales work together with a common understanding and goal, more deals will surely close. So, how can you improve the communication between marketing and sales to achieve this goal?
For sales and marketing to continually be working together, the conversation must be both on-going and based on actionable insights. When using a mobile sales enablement tool like Showpad, marketing and sales are able to engage in a continuous feedback loop, understanding which content is working, and which is not.
With Showpad, all marketing curated content is available anywhere and on any device regardless of access to internet. Sales can easily access this content during their meeting and present in a very dynamic manner to their customers. Post-meeting, a rep can leave their prospect with a customized leave-behind called a “Showcase”. With this Showcase, reps can track their prospect’s interaction with the content and gauge their prospect’s interest level. Further, these analytics provide quick feedback for marketing on which content was the most effective in the sales conversation.
In closing, equipping marketing and sales with a solution that aligns marketing and sales will significantly improve communication and sales performance. For more tips, check out our E-Book “How to Make Marketing Easier with Tablets and Mobile Sales Enablement Technology”.
This article originally appeared on the Showpad blog.
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