How do you leverage content to support your sales team and enable them to close more deals?

Many people overlook the potential of their content distribution. After all the effort put into creating a valuable piece like a webinar or ebook, simply sharing it by email or on social media isn't enough. You can multiply your impact by repurposing the content. For instance, from a webinar, you can create clips for social media, turn the content into podcast episodes, and write blogs based on the main points. There are countless ways to expand a single piece of content and reach a wider audience.

We leverage targeted content throughout the buyer's journey to support our sales team and enable them to close more deals. We create detailed buyer personas to tailor content that addresses specific pain points and solutions. This includes case studies, whitepapers, and blog posts that showcase our success and industry expertise. We also develop sales enablement materials like product sheets, comparison guides, and ROI calculators to facilitate informed decision-making. Regularly updated, data-driven insights and market trends further empower our sales team, ensuring they have the latest information to engage prospects effectively and close deals efficiently.

In leveraging content we create through our Account-Based Marketing (ABM) supported revenue campaigns, we focus on crafting highly personalized messages that zero in on the customer’s specific problem, not just our solution. This approach ensures that our content resonates deeply and empathetically with our highest-value prospects, demonstrating our understanding of their unique business challenges. By aligning this content with Lant's Rule of 7—and acknowledging that today’s complex sales require closer to 15 points of contact—we systematically build trust and confidence. This empowers our sales and business development teams with the tailored insights they need to engage meaningfully and close more deals effectively.

To support our sales team and enable them to close more deals, we leverage content strategically across the buyer's journey. We provide them with tailored assets like case studies, whitepapers, and industry-specific guides that address pain points and demonstrate our solutions' value. We also create sales enablement tools, including product one-pagers, competitive comparisons, and objection-handling scripts. By aligning content with sales goals, we ensure they have the right materials at the right time, empowering them to engage prospects more effectively and close deals faster. Additionally, we use feedback from sales to continuously refine and optimize our content.

La retroalimentación entre el departamento de marketing y el de ventas debe de ser constante para optimizar recursos y mejorar el rendimiento semana a semana. El departamento de marketing y generación de demanda debe de crear contenido que fomente a que los leads lleguen más cualificados a las llamadas que realiza el departamento comercial. Ya que, el 85% de los leads que llegan a una marca no se encuentran en momento de compra. Por ello, para no desgastar al equipo de ventas dedicando tiempo a leads que no se encuentran en momento de compra, el equipo de marketing y contenidos debe de allanarle el camino.

Fresh client, tired sales content cycle? Sound familiar. My new tech client (yes, another sales-first organization) instantly requested new materials. But I dug deeper. Why the constant content churn? Turns out, the sales team never found it useful. Shocker, right? So, I did the unthinkable: I talked to them. Asked what sucked, what worked, what made their ideal deals sing. Client jaws dropped. Apparently, no marketer (internal or external) had ever actually engaged them. No wonder communication was static. Fast forward: Collaborating with the frontline, I built content that spoke directly to buyers, and guess what? Sales loved it, deals closed, and the content cycle finally breathed. Moral of the story? Talk to your frontline.

Picture creating an amazing sales brochure, only to hide it away. That’s the fate of unoptimized content. Enhance your content with essential keywords to attract potential customers. Don’t underestimate platforms like LinkedIn; they’re treasure troves for reaching the right audience. Involve your sales team in sharing valuable insights and engaging with prospects. By making your content easily discoverable, you set the stage for a steady flow of interested leads. Give your content a chance to shine and connect with those who matter most!

Nobody enjoys a one-sided conversation. Understanding your ideal customer - their background, challenges, and buying habits - is crucial. Offer ebooks with solutions to their specific challenges or create engaging social media posts that pique their interest. When prospects discover your content, they should feel it was written just for them. This builds trust and positions you as their go-to problem solver.

Creating content that resonates with your buyer personas involves deep research and understanding of your target audience. Develop detailed personas that include demographic information, interests, pain points, and buying behaviors. Tailor your content to address these specific characteristics and needs. Use storytelling and personalized messaging to make your content more engaging and relevant. Continuously update your personas based on new data and feedback to keep your content strategy aligned with evolving customer preferences.

This is the most important step in leveraging content for your sales team. If the resources you are giving them are not helpful in their outreach, something is not working. You need to make sure to give sales fresh and relevant content they can share with their leads. I have also found integrated campaigns to be very useful in this capacity, so creating a webinar, ebook, and one-pager on a certain topic can help sales tailor their approach to each lead. If they have a top-of-funnel lead, they can send them the one-pager for a quick grab, but if they have been working a lead for a while and want to bring them in, a personalized webinar invite would work really well.

Imagine crafting the best sales brochure, only to lock it away. That's what happens when your content isn't optimized for search engines and social media. Sprinkle your content with relevant keywords, guiding potential customers to you. Leverage platforms like LinkedIn - social media gold mines for reaching relevant communities. Get your sales team involved in sharing insightful content and sparking conversations with potential buyers. By making your content discoverable, you ensure a constant stream of warmed-up leads.

Optimizing your content for both search engines and social media involves several key strategies. Use relevant keywords in your titles, descriptions, and throughout your content to improve search engine ranking. Incorporate hashtags and keywords in social media posts to enhance discoverability. Ensure your content is shareable and engaging to encourage social interactions. Utilize SEO best practices like backlinking, alt-text for images, and mobile optimization to boost visibility and reach across all platforms.

SEO is king, but the queen is content that captivates. Focused on human connection. Ditch keyword robots for emotional hooks – client wins, customer journeys, data-driven surprises, humor! We optimized, yes, but for readability, relevance, and emotional resonance. Guess what? SEO soared, social buzzed, and leads flowed. Turns out, humans love stories, not jargon; and captivating content is the ultimate SEO hack. Shhh, don't tell the robots!

By optimizing content for both search engines and social media platforms, you significantly increase the visibility and reach of your content. This expanded presence ensures that your sales team has a wealth of resources to draw from when engaging with prospects, further establishing your brand's authority and expertise in the field. Remember, the more easily accessible and relevant your content is, the more effectively it can be used by sales to nurture leads.

Optimize for Search and Social. Ensure your content is easily discoverable by optimizing it for search engines and sharing it across social media platforms where your potential customers are most active.

Most people are missing out when it comes to content distribution, they create a great piece like a webinar or an ebook, and they deliver it via email or social and consider the job done. You've spent all this time making it, you need to multiply your reach, impact, and opportunities by resurfacing the content and repurposing it. Take the webinar example, you can deliver the recording immediately via email and host it on your website, but why not grab 5 great clips from it and put those on social media, or use them in your ads. Grab the audio from the webinar and turn it into a podcast episode, and create audio ads. Write a blog or two from the main points of the webinar. There are so many ways a single piece of content can expand.

Don't limit your content to just one platform. Distribute it through various channels such as email, social media, blogs, and your website to increase its reach and effectiveness.

Repurpose your content for every channel platform and it will make your life easier. You will also be able to see what channels you probably need to narrow down on or throw money at. You may think your ICP is on Linkedin (and they are) but they are not in a buying state while on Linkedin. They have significantly more cynicism because everyone is trying to sell them things. But it turns out that on Twitter or Instagram they are more open to conversation and relaxed enough to make a buying decision. So test out the channels!

Easy way to repurpose content is to take long form content and repackage it over several shorter articles or videos. Content with great hooks/short attention span should be used on socials and more detailed content for owned and earned in this case.

Starting with new client, I found the sales team rarely used any existing content. So, I asked them why. They said the existing content missed the mark - sterile, generic, zero buyer connection. I dug deeper. Turns out sales was never involved in the process. Never asked what they needed during kickoff, never offered the chance to provide input or feedback when being created, and never followed-up with after it was completed and given to them to use. Working with the sales team, we crafted content that landed with the prospects, they loved and used, and helped closed deals. Moral of the story. Talk to your front line. They know what lands with buyers. If you give them something that doesn't it'll just collect dust.

Marketers create content for all stages of the buying process, but Sales usually needs only one stage: product-aware (your prospect knows what you sell, but isn’t sure it’s right for them). In the Sales cycle, prospects are deciding between products. Focus on the content that shows how you crush competition. (And remember that the status quo is often your largest competitor.) Work with your reps to identify the most common objections in the selling process. Create content that smashes those objections. Deliver that content in a format that makes it easy for a rep to add value to the conversation. It's not "here's a case study." It needs to be "I worked with this other client, here's the results they found in the first X months."

I think that this level of collaboration is definitely needed between sales and marketing, and, unfortunately, far too rare. Each department far too often serve two different masters in pursuit of overlapping goals. Seems like a waste when a solid collaborative strategy could yield 10x results if executed properly!

Equipping your sales team with the right content is crucial for enhancing their interactions with prospects. By implementing tools like content management systems or CRM platforms, you can ensure they have immediate access to relevant materials. Additionally, training your team to customize this content for individual prospect scenarios can significantly improve engagement and conversion rates, while continuous performance analysis helps refine content effectiveness over time.

You need to be attaching revenue to content articles: What cornerstone content is driving the most revenue? What white space do you have to replicate this in other formats or other topics your brand has authority in?

Link your content metrics, such as engagement and conversion rates, with sales outcomes to understand how your content is contributing to sales success and where adjustments may be needed.

I'll suggest a different approach here. The purpose of your content (if you're in B2B) should be to generate MQLs/SQLs but it cannot be tied to revenue directly. It will simply be too difficult to track and you'll spend more money on tools trying figure out how to track it than you'll making actually producing it. With that said, you should still be tracking KPIs but only marketing KPIs. I don't have enough character length to explain why that is but I promise you'll save yourself a big headache if you keep those things seperate.

Utilize data to continuously enhance the effectiveness of our content strategy. This will involve analyzing which pieces are most utilized by the sales team and which ones generate the highest engagement from prospects. By harnessing the power of tools such as HubSpot and Google Analytics, we will meticulously track key metrics such as views, downloads, and interactions to pinpoint high-performing content. With these valuable insights, we can refine existing materials and rejuvenate underperforming assets to ensure that our content remains pertinent, valuable, and influential in assisting the sales team in securing more deals. This data-driven approach ensures that sales representatives and prospects meet their needs.

Ask sales what they want / need. What you don't want to do is assume X piece of content is exactly what sales needs, go and waste resources creating it, take time training on it, just to have it sit in the content folder and never gets used because sales doesn't find value in it.

Create a detail form to get inputs and expectations from your sales team for each campaign. Use GenAI and internal assets to create different version of the content and deliver to sales. Get feedback on regular basis, to deliver improved and more meaningful content in future.

I ensure our sales and marketing teams are always on the same page by getting regular feedback from the sales reps. This helps me figure out what's working well and what needs improvement in our content. With this input, I can tweak our existing materials and come up with new resources that really help the sales process. By working closely together, we make sure our content meets the specific needs of potential customers at every step of their buying journey. This way, the sales team can have more effective conversations and close deals more efficiently.

Consider creating a sales toolbox with battle cards, case studies and micro pieces of content categorized (e.g. using tags) into: 1. Target ICP (verticals) 2. Target IBP within the DUM 3. Stage in the customer journey 4. Pain point. So, for instance, you can have searchable table in which you can find a piece of content for a CDO of a large company in the energy sector experiencing X problem currently comparing solutions. Considering the role and stage, this piece of content might be a comparison table of competing solutions or substitutes. Categorizing content in combination with digital sales rooms helps both sales managers and prospects organically go through the customer journey while involving other stakeholders.