The end of the hard sell: content marketing for salespeople

Used car salesman – content marketing for salespeople

People hate being sold to. And the fact that there is a thriving market of products and software designed to sidestep and block ads shows just how ineffective traditional methods are.

But that doesn’t means selling is dead. It’s just changed.

Rebirth of a salesman

Nearly 60 percent of the traditional sales process has gone out of the window, according to research by Google and CEB. Customers are not waiting for companies to tell them what they need to know; they’re doing the legwork and seeking out the information themselves online, stealing the sales department’s thunder.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. It’s just about shifting from the hasty hard sell to the intelligent long game by investing in a solid content marketing strategy.

Content marketing, far from its ‘arts and crafts’ image, is the next generation of selling.

Trust me, I’m a content marketer

The basic content marketing is composed of three-steps:

Consistently creating high quality, engaging, educational content that solves your personas‘ problems. If the content is targeted right, your ideal leads will find this content through search engines or social media and therefore visit your website.
Converting those visitors into leads by asking them to fill in a contact form in return for free content. If the content is high enough quality, they will be satisfied with this exchange, and will look to answer more of their questions on your website.
Nurturing those leads into more qualified leads via email and social media. Once a good deal of trust has been established between the lead and the business, they will be far more likely to be interested in your product when they call or receive a call from your salespeople.

This process allows you to not only outflank your competition by positioning yourself as a thought leader in your industry, but also take control of your customers’ research and evaluation process. You attract more traffic, create more leads and build trust between you and your audience, which is crucial. After all, when’s the last time you bought something from someone you didn’t trust?

Quality, not quantity

This means spending the time to give your audience content that they want to read/listen to/watch free before asking them to buy.

But you can’t crank the reel too quick – you’ll lose them and they won’t come back. If a visitor downloads their first eBook or white paper, don’t immediately bombard them with emails about how they should contact your sales department and what products of yours they should buy; suggest another piece of useful content.

It’s about nurturing the relationship before and after the sale to build trust, delight your customers and encourage repeat business, so consistent, high-quality content that maps to each stage of the sales cycle – awareness, evaluation, purchase, post-purchase – is key.

This isn’t a one-off sale; it’s a long-term relationship.

Compound interest with content marketing

And it’s a long-term relationship that pays dividends.

While not necessarily cheaper, content marketing is fully measurable so you can constantly sharpen your tactics as you go on. It’s about focussing on the stuff that works and giving you more control over your sales and marketing spend.

But, more than that, it has a cumulative effect that makes it more cost effective over time.

A study by Kapost and Eloqua found that content marketing delivered over three times more leads than paid search over 36 months. Additionally, the cost-per-lead reduced from $111.11 for paid search to $32.25 for content marketing.

Create the content it’s yours and it’s there forever. It gives you a back catalogue of useful content for your audience to read and share and a growing keyword footprint that boosts your search rankings. You’ll get a steady trickle of sales-ready leads rather than a flurry of unsuspecting strangers.

Create great content and you’ll be patching up the leaky funnel and nurturing a more receptive audience that’s ready to talk. Done right, it creates a smoother sales process and a big boost to business growth.