In a word – Yes! People are a lot more resistant to direct marketing these days. They just filter out those ads and reject cold callers. Those methods just don’t work as well as they used to. Content marketing is the new marketing strategy that will effectively drive your sales.
Does that mean that you don’t need salespeople to close orders for you? No, it doesn’t. If your product or service has always required a salesperson to sit in front of a prospective client and close them, then you will most likely still need to do that. It is tough to sell executive cars online, for example.
But what you can do is to use smart content marketing to drive those leads for your salespeople to follow up on. Imagine being in the position where your website and all of your outbound content marketing is providing you with a plethora of leads.
Well, you don’t need to just imagine it, you can achieve this.
Good Content Marketing Can Assist Your Salespeople
Effective salespeople know all that there is to know about your products and services. They know all of the benefits and will be able to answer all manner of questions from potential clients. Their job is to persuade customers that the products and services will be of benefit to them and close the deal.
You can use content marketing to pre-sell your customers so that all the salesperson has to do is pay them a visit and get them to sign the contract. Imagine the time that your salespeople will save and the additional “closure” appointments that they will be able to make. It is good for your company and your salespeople.
Salespeople can only work a certain number of hours in a 24 hour period, but content marketing works for you 365 24/7. There can be leads sitting in your sales funnel after your closing hours, on weekends, and during public holidays. All your sales person has to do is to take these leads and then validate what the customer already knows.
Why Content Marketing Will Help You to Sell More
One of the greatest things about content marketing is that it creates awareness. If you’re active on Facebook, you’ve likely noticed the ads for some unusual toys and gadgets during the holiday season. Things you didn’t even know existed. With content marketing, it is very likely that a customer will say to one of your salespeople “I never knew that you have XYZ!” Or if they were already familiar with XYZ, and saw that you provided it, it might keep them from going to your competitor.
Answering Questions with Content
When people are looking for solutions online, they are very likely to type a question. This is definitely the case with mobile users. Your job is to answer that question fully with your content marketing.
Think about the types of questions that a potential customer could ask:
- What is the price of XYZ?
- How does product XYZ compare to product ABC?
- How do I…?
- What are the warranty terms of product XYZ?
- XYZ Reviews
If the searcher faces organic content and advertisements, then 70% are more likely to try and find their answers in the organic content. They know that they can find out what they want to know through the organic content without too much pressure.
Interactivity is a great part of content marketing. Monitor the comments that people leave and respond to them without delay. You will build trust with potential clients when you do this and not only that the search engines will appreciate it as well.
Using Content to Build Relationships
You can use content marketing to build relationships. People will look forward to receiving your content if it is useful to them and of high quality. It will also help establish and reinforce your brand. You will drive more sales through this.
Good content marketing will help you to keep the customers that you already have. You can use content to create your customer experience. Your customer will have your business and your products and services in their minds each time they see a piece of content from you.
Loyal customers become repeat customers so keep that content coming so that you are uppermost in their minds. Your existing customers will appreciate the quality content, and they will see that you care about them even after the initial sale.
So you are not replacing salespeople here just providing them with more leads and reducing the amount of time it should take to close a deal. Make sure that they are aware of that and appreciate what content marketing is doing for them and your business.