Content Marketing: A B2B Sales Person’s New Secret Weapon

Content Marketing: A B2B Sales Person’s New Secret WeaponIn today’s B2B sales environment, it is getting hard to get a hold of people whether it’s by phone or email.

Prospects at every level are inundated with electronic messages of every sort. They barely have enough time to get their day to day job completed, let alone look at a new solution or product despite its benefits.

So, what is a B2B sales person to do? Well, it’s not a shiny piece of software, nor is it a large piece of equipment, rather it is….drumroll please… content marketing.

At VA Partners, we decided to be our own guinea pig a few years ago and embark upon a proactive content marketing strategy with the goal of driving inbound leads. Well three years later, it has been a tremendous success, which is mainly due to our dedicated team who have and continue to invest time to make it successful. We are now driving over 70 leads per month from our website, this up from 4 leads per month when we initiated the program. To be honest, I was a non-believer at first, but since those early days I have been fully converted and now recognize and respect the power of content marketing.

Content marketing is not the holy grail either. Rather, it is a plank in your sales and marketing strategy, just like cold calling and other traditional sales activities. To be really successful at marketing overall, you need to manage an integrated program that incorporates all the different elements.

A number of items to consider when building out a content marketing strategy for your B2B sales operation include:

  • Who are we targeting our information to? Is our target contact responsible for marketing, financials or operations?
  • What makes good content for our prospects? What sort of information would they be searching for? Do topics like ROI, Total Cost of Ownership or software integration matter?
  • Where are our prospects and clients getting their information? Are they utilizing social media platforms such as Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook or other sources such as online forums and associations?
  • What variety of content can we publish? Content ideas include blog posts, newsletters, whitepapers and guest author pieces in specialty magazines. Items like whitepapers can be excellent tools to collect a prospect’s information and the sales person can follow up directly.
  • Have a plan. Content marketing can only be effective when it’s carried out with a proper plan and structure. You must be consistent and focused in your efforts.
  • Be patient. A solid web presence and market mindshare are not built overnight. You will need to invest over months and years to see success.
  • It is an investment, not a cost. Developing a proactive and focused content marketing plan is an investment in your business. One of its primary goals is to generate revenue for you.

Good luck with your content marketing strategy. If you need help getting started or if you are simply looking for a source of excellent sales and marketing information, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

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Content Marketing: A B2B Sales Person’s New Secret Weapon