Few blogs ago we looked at how you can increase your conversion record by knowing and understanding your prospects. Eliminating poor-fit prospects allows you to focus on qualified leads, saving you time and increasing the level of service to your customers.
We learned that knowledge is power in Sales.
In this blog, we look at the other side of the same coin: what happens when your market knows and understands you and your offer.
Sales Content is the King
The idea of Inbound Sales is to educate prospects and let them drive the discussion. Your role as a salesperson is to be the expert they can always reach out to. Sales-driven content will help you to educate leads and then increase the probability of winning the Client.
So, what are the steps to sales-driven content?
- Build a library of highly personalised sales templates that will reflect your Clients’ Buyer’s Journeys, E.g.
Template to respond when someone books an appointment with you from the web, template for when you met someone at a virtual event who asked you for help, follow-up conversation template, etc. - Build Knowledge-based blog posts to talk about your expertise: tell your prospects what will happen when they become your Client, tell stories - case studies, record videos, show how you work internally to produce value for your Clients
- Invite your Clients to help you create content, e.g. podcast interviews, eBook comments, etc
- Use data to create sales-driven content. Have a look at your CRM to see where traffic comes from. If you use Google Analytics you can track keywords that your website is searched for. In addition, analyse feedback surveys. You will generate tons of great content ideas
- Have a system in place to create ideas and inspiration for future content. You can use a Trello board for example, to save interesting links from social media
- You can also use tools like HubSpot Blog idea generator: https://www.hubspot.com/blog-topic-generator.
Better-educated prospects will contact you when they are ready to, and they are more likely to recommend you to others.
Research on consumer decision journeys shows that 70% of purchases are from brands that were in the initial consideration set: nearly ¾ of sales went to the brand the prospect was already familiar with or at least had heard of.
Inbound Sales ensures you are top of mind when your prospects make their purchasing decision.
This underlines the importance of brand awareness and relevance among your most valuable audiences.
Another quick-fire statistic: 65% of salespeople who use social selling fill their pipeline, compared to 47% of reps who do not. Content also will influence the way you talk to prospects and help you to collaborate with marketing. Investing in great content is always win-win.
Remember: Sales-driven does NOT mean boasting about how amazing your business is or your services are.
It DOES mean sharing valuable content, educating your prospects, positioning yourself as an expert in the field.
This is how your prospects begin to see you as the right person to solve their problems. Think of inbound marketing: with this type of content, customers will seek you out themselves.
