Why Online Content is a Highly Effective Sales Strategy, Part 1

Salespeople will do just about anything to close a sale.  They will brave cold calls to hardened gatekeepers.  They will send email after email after email to prospects hoping to elicit a response.  They’ll attend networking events and social functions trolling for clients.  They’ll schlep displays, banners and premiums to trade shows to engage attendees.  They’ll offer gifts and enticements hoping to cut through the noise.  And, they will schedule Zoom meetings, teach seminars and deliver webinars to provide value and build rapport.  It can be a daunting task to do all that work just to receive 99 “No, thank you” in the hopes of getting one “Yes.”

The worst part is that those prospects are often being solicited when they are busy or distracted, and just don’t have the bandwidth to give their full attention.  And the shelf life of those time-consuming sales efforts is short.  Staying top-of-mind with prospects long-term beyond the call, conference or class is very challenging.  Those warm leads turn cold again quickly.

Online Content is Marketing

Traditionally, salespeople have turned to the marketing department for help in mining leads.  And, in turn, marketing has increasingly turned to content marketing to generate prospects.  In fact, these days, content marketing is marketing. It is the go-to for many companies because they know that modern buyers know an advertisement when they see one.  Too often prospective clients are not interested in hearing a sales pitch.  Online content solves this problem by creating value for buyers before they make a purchase… sometimes before they’ve even thought about making a purchase.  Online content answers questions, addresses pain points or provides relevant information that buyers want to read.  Brands that provide helpful and insightful content are more likely to attract prospects who are ready to make a purchase.

Smart companies are using online content to:

1. bring relevant buyers to the company’s website;
2. nurture leads by providing important information in an engaging, visually-impactful way;
3. improve brand awareness and recall;
4. establish thought leadership and authority for the brand;
5. increase buyer engagement with the brand; and
6. create personalized buyer experiences.

Considering these benefits, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that companies are increasing how much of their promotion budget is spent on content creation.  Many small and mid-sized businesses spend up to 40% of their annual marketing budget on content strategy because it generates such solid results.  But, that’s the key.  Content is viewed as an effort created by, conducted by, paid by and sustained by the marketing department’s efforts and budget. 

Online Content is also Sales

The primary purpose of content is to drive traffic to a website and generate leads, but that’s not its only purpose.  Content created as a part of the organization’s promotional strategy can and should be a part of what salespeople do to connect with prospects.  It is actually a great way to kickstart the sales process.

By creating and sharing online material — such as podcasts, videos, blogs, and social media posts — that stimulates interest in products or services without explicitly promoting the brand, it allows salespeople to do the very things that are valuable to the sales process.  Namely, online content generated by salespeople can:

1. bring relevant buyers to specific landing pages of the company’s website;
2. increase prospect’s engagement with the brand which helps develop relationships,
3. nurture leads by providing important information in an engaging, visually-impactful way;
4. answer a potential customer’s questions;
5. establish thought leadership and authority for the salesperson as well as the brand;
6. build trust;
7. improve brand awareness;
8. create a personalized buyer experience;
9. improve conversions; and
10. generates leads. 

And that online content has a much longer shelf life than typical salesperson efforts such as email or cold calls.  Online content lives for days, weeks, months or even years.  While marketing content can build awareness of a company and its products and services, sales content is used by prospects later in the Buyer Journey to make a decision.

Developing an Online Sales Content Strategy

But, sales content without a strategy behind it is no better at driving sales than a flier stapled to a telephone pole or a random call to an office to sell them staplers.  To be effective, salespeople need to think through how their content will satisfy their audience’s interests, and systematize a way to appeal to that audience to move them closer to a transaction.

Content as a Tool for Sales Enablement

It helps to consider some of the potential goals of a sales online content strategy.  It helps to think backwards from the point of sale. A salesperson should think about what needed to happen for their most recent sale to close? What questions needed to be answered? Which pain points was the client most concerned with? How many conversations did it take? What could have sped up the process?

Then consider what some of the salesperson’s goals might be.  For example:

• Spread brand awareness.  Allow prospects to learn about the company brand through the content they encounter organically through search, on social media or by clicking on paid advertisements.
• Generate qualified leads.  Since not everyone on the Internet is relevant to a salesperson’s sales goals, content qualifies leads by providing a way to gauge visitor interest in your company’s solutions.
• Establish authority.   In a competitive market, content demonstrates thought leadership and helps prospects decide who they want to do business with and trust.
• Build audience engagement and rapport.   The sales process can take months to close.  It’s important not to lose the interest of your leads along the way.  Interesting content helps jumpstart engagement, keeps the conversation moving forward and builds genuine rapport between the salesperson and prospects.
• Increase conversion rates.  The final sale often requires many smaller conversions along the way. Content can benefit a salesperson by bringing in more podcast subscribers, blog post downloads, inbound sales inquiries, etc.  These small conversions pave the way to a sale.

Sales Online Content Options

1. Blog

Blog posts are the classic online content asset because they are a valuable source of site traffic when constructed properly.  People read blogs daily, often without realizing they’re doing so.  People have questions.  They type their questions into a search engine and get an answer, which is typically found in an article.  In the process of getting the answer to the question, they also learn about the brand providing the answer. 

Today’s readers are interested in long-form content that thoroughly answers their questions.  Studies have found that readers in the areas of technology and real estate prefer blog articles that are between 1,500 and 2,000 words in length.  To generate brand awareness and become a known authority in an industry, in-depth content is better.  One option is to experiment with articles of varying length to see what gets the most engagement. 

2. eBooks

eBooks contain valuable content that appeal to readers who already have some familiarity with the brand and its offerings. An eBook won’t make a great first impression, but it can make a second impression more impactful, as long as the book is well-written.

As a piece of gated content, where readers have to input their contact information to download the asset – eBooks tend to perform well. Compared to emails and blogs, they are much more polished and can provide more in-depth insights into a particular topic.

It’s also a great way to repurpose content from a webinar, blog or website.  A thought leader that hosted a seminar could condense that information into a short eBook or compile a blog series into a graphic-rich eBook.

Next week, we’ll look at other ways to create online sales content as a sales tool.  Stay tuned.

Quote of the Week

“What differentiates sellers today is their ability to bring fresh ideas.” Jill Konrath

© 2022, Keren Peters-Atkinson. All rights reserved.

The post Why Online Content is a Highly Effective Sales Strategy, Part 1 first appeared on Monday Mornings with Madison.