Marketing and Sales: Why Your Content Strategy Should Support Your Sales Team
Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2025 4:03 am
A problem that more and more companies of all sizes are facing is a lack of communication and unity between their marketing and sales teams .
An easy way to check if this is happening in your company is to visit your marketing department and ask them to describe their ideal buyer profile. Ask them about customer demographics, interests, and pain points.
Then ask your sales team those same questions and see how their answers differ.
Chances are they differ quite a bit, and this is a problem.
Marketing and sales
We shouldn't blame either department, as each of them spends years working in their respective areas. But it's clear that it's time for a change, because when these two teams collaborate and work together, the benefits are huge.
In fact, according to a LinkedIn study, 58% of marketing and sales professionals say that collaboration improved customer retention. In addition to retention, 54% said that having both teams working together had a positive impact on the bottom line.
But how can you get both teams aligned?
Start by aligning your content. If you're not currently using content to support elements of your sales process and help your sales team, you're missing out on a huge opportunity. Here's why:
1. Sales Marketing: Quality Content Generates Leads
Lead generation is the cornerstone of any effective sales and marketing collaboration . Content plays a very important role in inbound marketing as it helps drive traffic to your company’s website. However, once a potential customer takes an action that indicates they are interested in your content or product, such as signing up for your mailing list, you need to follow up.
If your company encourages cooperation between sales and marketing teams , your sales reps should be able to manage leads much more easily. When a prospect has already shown interest in your content, they are classified as a “warm lead,” meaning they are already further along in the purchasing funnel than they would be if you made a first cold call to that prospect.
Aligning your content strategy can help you properly identify leads and streamline sales prospecting. For example, if a user subscribes to your blog to stay up to date, they may be in the discovery phase and not yet a confirmed lead. However, if they sign up for specific webinars or request a demo, you can include them already in the consideration phase as a lead.
2. Sales and marketing: content helps increase future sales
If done right, content marketing can jumpstart the sales process, build trust with customers, and make them more likely to close a deal in the future. A good content alignment strategy is to use case studies as blog posts to simultaneously showcase your product’s features and benefits with real customer testimonials.
The key points to create a good case study are:
Write about someone your target audience relates to.
Tell the story from beginning to end including details.
Include real data to give more value to the story.
Include direct quotes from the client to increase credibility.
To make known specific characteristics and strategies used in that case.
A good case study becomes a guide or an instruction book on how to use the product purchasing directors email database or service and also a way to promote what your product can achieve. This strategy, among others, helps move prospects through the different stages of the sales funnel, and at the same time, helps the sales team.
3. Content can answer frequently asked questions
Having a list of the right FAQs is key to having a sales funnel with a high conversion rate.
According to a Google study, 53% of buyers always do research before buying to ensure they are making the best decision. Users are browsing your website, and probably your competitors' as well, and you can help them make a purchasing decision by answering frequently asked questions.
FAQ content not only benefits consumers, but it can also help your sales reps. For starters, FAQ content allows your sales reps to answer common questions and provide detailed information during the sales process. The right content can also help sales reps overcome common sales pain points prospects may have.
4. Marketing or sales: maintain contact with prospects
If your company has created a content repository with blog posts, eBooks, and other materials that explain and answer questions about the industry, it will be much easier for you to reconnect with prospects. You can simply share this type of content with them.
Storytelling through case studies is especially useful in prospecting, as after a presentation, 63% of prospects remember the stories, while only 5% remember the statistics.
For cold leads, a constant stream of high-quality content can get them interested. This interest will be reflected in email open rates and link click-through rates (CTR).
An easy way to check if this is happening in your company is to visit your marketing department and ask them to describe their ideal buyer profile. Ask them about customer demographics, interests, and pain points.
Then ask your sales team those same questions and see how their answers differ.
Chances are they differ quite a bit, and this is a problem.
Marketing and sales
We shouldn't blame either department, as each of them spends years working in their respective areas. But it's clear that it's time for a change, because when these two teams collaborate and work together, the benefits are huge.
In fact, according to a LinkedIn study, 58% of marketing and sales professionals say that collaboration improved customer retention. In addition to retention, 54% said that having both teams working together had a positive impact on the bottom line.
But how can you get both teams aligned?
Start by aligning your content. If you're not currently using content to support elements of your sales process and help your sales team, you're missing out on a huge opportunity. Here's why:
1. Sales Marketing: Quality Content Generates Leads
Lead generation is the cornerstone of any effective sales and marketing collaboration . Content plays a very important role in inbound marketing as it helps drive traffic to your company’s website. However, once a potential customer takes an action that indicates they are interested in your content or product, such as signing up for your mailing list, you need to follow up.
If your company encourages cooperation between sales and marketing teams , your sales reps should be able to manage leads much more easily. When a prospect has already shown interest in your content, they are classified as a “warm lead,” meaning they are already further along in the purchasing funnel than they would be if you made a first cold call to that prospect.
Aligning your content strategy can help you properly identify leads and streamline sales prospecting. For example, if a user subscribes to your blog to stay up to date, they may be in the discovery phase and not yet a confirmed lead. However, if they sign up for specific webinars or request a demo, you can include them already in the consideration phase as a lead.
2. Sales and marketing: content helps increase future sales
If done right, content marketing can jumpstart the sales process, build trust with customers, and make them more likely to close a deal in the future. A good content alignment strategy is to use case studies as blog posts to simultaneously showcase your product’s features and benefits with real customer testimonials.
The key points to create a good case study are:
Write about someone your target audience relates to.
Tell the story from beginning to end including details.
Include real data to give more value to the story.
Include direct quotes from the client to increase credibility.
To make known specific characteristics and strategies used in that case.
A good case study becomes a guide or an instruction book on how to use the product purchasing directors email database or service and also a way to promote what your product can achieve. This strategy, among others, helps move prospects through the different stages of the sales funnel, and at the same time, helps the sales team.
3. Content can answer frequently asked questions
Having a list of the right FAQs is key to having a sales funnel with a high conversion rate.
According to a Google study, 53% of buyers always do research before buying to ensure they are making the best decision. Users are browsing your website, and probably your competitors' as well, and you can help them make a purchasing decision by answering frequently asked questions.
FAQ content not only benefits consumers, but it can also help your sales reps. For starters, FAQ content allows your sales reps to answer common questions and provide detailed information during the sales process. The right content can also help sales reps overcome common sales pain points prospects may have.
4. Marketing or sales: maintain contact with prospects
If your company has created a content repository with blog posts, eBooks, and other materials that explain and answer questions about the industry, it will be much easier for you to reconnect with prospects. You can simply share this type of content with them.
Storytelling through case studies is especially useful in prospecting, as after a presentation, 63% of prospects remember the stories, while only 5% remember the statistics.
For cold leads, a constant stream of high-quality content can get them interested. This interest will be reflected in email open rates and link click-through rates (CTR).