Strategically Align Your Sales & Marketing Teams for Success

The evolution of buying processes and consumer behavior have shifted the way marketing and sales teams’ function.

Strategically aligning both your sales and marketing teams to reach company objectives is critical to success in today’s business environment.

Quality content that marketing supports sales with is a key element for alignment.  Giving your team relevant tools that focus on educating and engaging prospects through the sales funnel.

Note that 65% of sales reps say they can not find content to send to prospects.

Empowering your sales team with content that crafts a compelling reason to buy is where marketing can bridge the gap.  Here are six assets you should be including in your content strategy to support sales in closing more deals.

• Buyer Personas:  Buyer personas are representations of your ideal customers based on data and research.  Developing detailed personas requires in-depth analysis of your target audience demographics, psychographics, purchasing behavior, motivations, pain-points, and decision-making process.  The result provides a better understanding of your customers while ensuring consistent messaging and targeting.

• Case Studies:  A great case study begins with a compelling customer story that is authentic and convincing.  They share your company’s value proposition and expertise without being pushy.  Best suited for the consideration stage of the sales funnel, case studies act as social proof.  They work well to both nurture and convert leads.

• Sales Presentations: Support your sales team with a powerful sales presentation. Tell your company story, what is has to offer, showcase successes, and present tailored solutions to build credibility and trust with your potential customers.  Make sure your presentations are both visually appealing and engaging.

• Product Overview:  Knowledge is power! Sales representatives do not sell what they do not understand. Reciprocally, customers do not purchase what they do not understand.  Whether it is internal or customer-shared content, provide a one-page document that highlights features, benefits, uses and pricing.

• Sales Scripts: Your sales team is your company’s frontline. Provide them with key talking points that can assist them with conversion.  Be sure to draft responses for some commonly asked questions as well to ensure consistent messaging.  This content is meant for guidance rather than memorization. This is not a recording!

• Email Templates: Email is still the preferred method of communication, especially during our current climate of remote work and social distancing.  Save valuable time for your sales team by providing templates for prospecting various situations.  Once outbound email templates are created, it’s all about marketing automation to accelerate conversions. Templates and automation save time, ensure consistent messaging, track performance, and optimize your prospecting strategy.

Effective marketing does not begin and end with lead generation.  Targeted content that delivers a personalized and engaging experience to potential customers will yield increased sales and ROI.