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The shift from traditional methods of marketing to a more subtle inbound approach has left many organizations searching for entirely new strategies in order to capture a customer’s attention. As part of this new approach, marketing teams are being re-oriented to think more like content creators. Their job is not to sell directly to potential customers, but rather to create content that their customers find helpful and will seek out naturally. This leaves questions for modern content marketers: In an era where direct selling is no longer the norm, where does this leave the sales team and what is the best way to engage them?
A Two-Way Street
In a recent Forrester article, Mediafly was mentioned alongside a handful of emerging companies who are helping content marketers empower their sales teams through mobile content distribution. Specifically, what makes these companies stand out is not just the technology they offer, it’s the connectivity they encourage between marketing and sales teams.
In his post, Peter O’Neill emphasizes this point with a number of jarring questions: Now that you have created valuable content, how do you know it is valuable, and is it being used properly? Quality content that is not being presented properly has very little reason to exist. Therefore, marketing teams must put into place systems for measuring how customers and salespeople respond to their content, establishing a “feedback mechanism” for marketers to react accordingly. This reinforces what’s working and allows marketing to change what doesn’t.
The Modern Salesperson
The traditional role of the salesperson has evolved to become helpful to potential customers, even if they aren’t interested in making a purchase. The newly defined role of the salesperson resembles more of an instructor or industry-expert who uses their knowledge about a product or service to help the customer solve a problem, rather than just selling them a product. This role requires content that is as adaptive as a salesperson is in their selling approach.
In the information age, customers are taking an increasingly active role in the media they consume. Now, they shape a previously one-way relationship with brands and businesses. Marketers have found success by engaging with customers on a personal level, and their relationship with sales should be no different. Marketing and sales teams must be aligned every step of the way in order to ensure that the message they are creating and the message they are delivering have the same end goals.
At Mediafly, we recognize the importance of creating an environment where sales collateral can be as reactive and dynamic as the people using it. The first step towards this alignment between marketing and sales is to clearly define what the ultimate goal of the content is. Who is the target audience for this piece of collateral, and what are we encouraging them to do with it? This goal must be kept in mind at every step of the buyer’s journey to ensure success.
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