According to HubSpots 2016 Top B2B Sales & Marketing Trends, “buyer-aligned content marketers achieve 58% lower average cost-per-lead than best-in-class by being hyper-focused on the moments and opportunities that matter most to their buyers.”
Of course, it’s no surprise if you’ve followed any of Sirius Decisions stats that around 70% of B2B marketing content goes unused. Does anyone else see the gap here?
An awesome quote from Ken Krogue at Sales Stack 2015 couldn’t have been more on point to this issue:
It’s not just on Sales or just on Marketing, however. It’s on both teams to become a single unit that drives revenue for the entire organization. Easier said than done.
Splitting Inbound with Hyper-Focused Content
In the long run, SEO is still the most financially viable acquisition channel for B2B lead generation as it can potentially drive leads for years.
On the other hand, this content is typically designed for top of the funnel lead generation. If we look at middle or bottom of the funnel content, it’s often longer-form content that’s in some way aligned to the buyers decision.
But what happens when there’s no content that speaks directly to your buyers challenge? Some of the best content ideas can come from speaking with your prospects and finding out exactly where they’re blocked.
Crafting Content Driven from Buyer Interactions
I’ve worked on marketing teams where we spent a hell of a lot of time on creating the most beautiful looking guides which were hardly touched by the sales team.
I also worked directly with the sales team in creating scrappy, vertical-based newsletters where the head of each vertical would provide weekly insight into the latest trends impacting their prospects.
It was relevant insight and commentary that saved their potential buyers time every week and helped them stay on track with the latest news in their world. These newsletters always, always, always generated new business and positive responses.
Get Scrappy, Personal and Put a Trusted Face on it
Source: http://worldartsme.com/scrappy-scooby-doo-clipart.html
So what does all of this mean? Having been on both sides of the table, I strongly believe that sales teams can produce content that builds a new layer of trust with their buyers.
It doesn’t have to be long or pretty, as long as it speaks directly to the challenges or opportunities facing potential buyers. Nobody knows this better than sales reps who interact with them on a daily basis.
We’re already seeing top social selling professionals leverage this technique into their own personal brand across company blogs and LinkedIn posts. Top sales professionals are becoming consultants of their industry, with content being a key driver in building trusted relationships.
It’s a lot to manage, which is why there are many tools being developed to help modern sales professionals filter out the noise so they can share relevant content with potential buyers - faster.
Do you have any insight to share from the sales and/or marketing POV of this topic? Let me know in the comments below!
