According to the Content Marketing Institute, 28% of enterprise marketers report their content marketing and sales are not very or not at all aligned.
Tensions between content marketing and sales teams are common in enterprise environments. It can sometimes be good tension, fueling innovation.
But in this article, we are going to talk about when it becomes unhealthy. When fingers get pointed, blame is cast, and revenue is lost.
Stick around to learn our top four tips for aligning your content marketing and sales.
You are saying “Our content marketing is generating too many leads for the sales team to handle.”
The sales team quips back “The leads you're generating aren't worth our time.”
The key issue causing this problem is often that you are not aligned on who your ideal customer is.
To get everyone on the same page, you need to create a buyer persona for both marketing and sales to refer to.
Collaborate together on creating the document. Both marketing and sales will have unique insights into what challenges customers face and what type of person your product or services is aimed at.
One of the biggest challenges in aligning your content marketing and sales is that you measure success differently.
Sales is often a numbers-focused area of business that looks at metrics such as new accounts, contract renewals etc.
Content marketing is measured a little differently. Leady quality, brand awareness and other content marketing goals require more in-depth analysis of various metrics to establish.
To sync up your marketing and sales departments it is time to find a common KPI.
Working together towards a clear goal will help you detect areas of weakness in your customer acquisition and retention processes and encourage collaboration and communication between departments.
Content marketing is highly effective at nurturing leads. However, your marketing team may not always be in control of when leads see what content.
You have likely created content for all stages of your sales funnel. But have you shared your strategy with your sales team?
According to Modus, almost two-thirds (65%) of sales reps report struggling to find content to send to prospects.
Your content needs to be used strategically to have the greatest impact.
Host regular meetings with your sales teams to advise them on which content marketing assets to share at which stage of your sales funnel – and where they can find them.
It is not only during customer acquisition that your content marketing and sales need to align. Your teams should be joining forces on retention as well.
According to Outbound Engine, acquiring a new customer can cost five times more than retaining an existing customer.
Both your sales and marketing teams benefit from putting a higher focus on customer retention.
You want to work together to increase the lifetime value of your customers.
For example, once a lead has been converted into a customer, your marketing team needs to switch up the communications.
Shift from attraction to retention. Focus on areas such as product upgrades, trying new products, adding more licenses etc. Then have your sales team ready and waiting to step in, advise, and close the sale.
Content marketing and sales are two areas of your business that when synced up and can exponentially improve results for both teams.
These are departments that often have conflicts but by aligning goals and creating buyer personas with inputs from both teams you will create an environment where communication and collaboration are encouraged and conversions are increased.
See inspirations here:
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