Top Reasons Why Content Marketing Is Vital for Salespeople

It can be discouraging when an enthusiastic salesperson approaches a potential client only to discover that they have never even heard of the company and have no familiarity with its products or services. This means now the salesperson not only has to convince the customer of the superiority of the product or service but also to convince them that the company itself is reliable and competent.

It is exactly in this situation that the importance of content marketing can be appreciated, yet regrettably most salespeople do not even know how content can affect their sales success.

What Is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a marketing strategy that focuses on the creation and distribution of valuable, consistent and relevant content to attract and maintain a specific audience and help drive customer action.  The aim of content marketing is to consistently communicate with potential customers without seeming to hard sell the product. Hence, instead of touting the values of the products or services, content marketing concentrates on delivering information that is intended to educate customers for earning both brand value and loyalty.

Are you starting to see how this can be valuable to sales?

With the intention of audience education, lead generation, brand awareness expansion and brand perception enhancement, all these objectives are of prime importance to salespeople.

Lead Generation

Content of very high quality can be uploaded on to the company’s website in the form of white papers, ebooks, blogs etc and can serve as excellent assets that can be downloaded by customers or marketed through an email campaign.

Responses and feedback from people who have read the contents help salespersons to build a list of qualified contacts that can be tapped for sales.

Education

A content strategy aimed at educating potential customers regarding the uses and features of your company’s products and services does some of the selling for you. This helps a salesperson focus more on closing a sale rather than having to explain everything from scratch. This type of content can be placed on your company’s websites, through blogs, and even offsite in guest articles that are appropriately focused.

Brand Awareness

Guest posting is an effective content marketing strategy to get your ideas read by a larger audience. Publishing content of high-quality on blogs and websites that are frequented by a large business audience can give your company more influence. Plus, if readers share your post on social media your business gets even more exposure and educates even more people to the benefits of your business in a subtle way.

Brand Perception

Effective content marketing is a tool that can easily even out the playing field irrespective of the size of the business when it comes to establishing brand credibility among the target audience and prospects. Content that is authoritative not only makes a lasting  impression but helps salespeople to presentation the brand and resonate with prospects more. For example, if salespersons incorporate content like case studies into their presentations, they automatically create a better impression with prospects and are able to conclude the sale with less effort.

In a nutshell, the more good quality content you have out there, the easier it is for your sales team convince prospects that they’re right to work with you.