TIPS ON WRITING LINKEDIN MESSAGES – The Bitter Business

TIPS ON WRITING LINKEDIN MESSAGES – The Bitter Business

When implementing a
digital sales or social selling program, the biggest single point of failure
can be writing LinkedIn messages to buyers. Or to put it in simpler language,
the ability to craft well thought out messages that convert into offline
conversations between seller and buyer.

Every sales
strategy most likely has a multi activity approach which may include phoning,
emailing and social interaction. However, sales people who use social selling as
their primary customer acquisition channel are now getting the majority of
their leads via well crafted and well timed messages via social media platforms
such as LinkedIn.  

So here are some
tips on writing LinkedIn messages (or indeed for any social media platform) to
potential buyers so sales people can generate sales pipeline quicker.

Tip. 1: UNDERSTAND YOUR BUYER

Long before a sales person ever writes “that message” whether it is for
a connection request or for conversion to pipeline, we need to take a step back
and consider how much we really understand our buyers. For example at The
Bitter Business, I target 3 ideal customer profiles (ICP’s)/buyer personas:
Sales Leaders, Marketing Leaders, and Sales Trainers.

I created these ICP’s
so I can create content that speaks and resonates with people who are
interested in using social media to drive sales. I also use these buyer personas
to gain an understanding of my target audience, their needs, wants, concerns and
business challenges within their industry.

Remember the 5 Buyer Why’s when developing Ideal Customer
Profiles and content that matches for social selling. Why listen? Why care? Why
change? Why you? Why now?

Every sales person and every sales team should sit down with
marketing and create 1, 2 or 3 ICP’s as to take targeting of buyer personas to
the next level. Use this exercise between sales and marketing to explore what
are your prospect’s biggest fears or challenges, the consequences of them maintaining
a status quo position, and the biggest win you and your business can deliver to
them.

It may sound
simplistic but the better you understand your buyer, the better chance sales
people have of being able to move buyers out of their status quo and walk with
them on their buyers journey.

Tip 2: USE INSIGHTS TO BUILD VALUE

Value is the
currency for buyer connectivity. So once we understand the buyer’s position and
needs, we need to source insights (news, data, information, research) which prove
that we understand them and their industry. There are many content curation
tools such as Owler, Scoop.it. Crunchbase, Google Alerts, Twitter Lists, and
LinkedIn.

To build value with
insights, sales people should focus on 3 areas:

The Buyer: Start by
following the buyer on LinkedIn, Twitter even Facebook. The objective is to
discover how socially active they are plus what content or conversations are they
engaging with as to ascertain what they are interested in. Also try to find out
if the prospect has been referenced in an article, has been complimented in a
conversation or writes blog posts. There are great opportunities to engage the
buyer in a starter conversation.

The Buyers Company: The level of
data or insight you can get on a company depends on their size. A good place to
start is their blog and do a Google search for news and announcements. Remember
there are 5.4 decision makers involved in a business purchase so do some
LinkedIn research on the senior players. What groups do they belong to, what
level of connectivity do they have and who are they connected to. Make sure to
follow their company page and twitter accounts. Then repeat a Google search for
these names to find out some information or news. Also look out for press
releases, newly appointed people, announcements, press mention and maybe sign
up to their company blog posts.

The Buyers Industry: Another way to
build value is to understand the industry dynamics of your buyer. What trends,
data or insights can you gleam from business research companies such as Forester,
Aberdeen Group, McKinsey and Gartner.

By focusing and
investing time on these three areas, sales people will uncover insights that:

1. Put’s themselves
in the shoes of the buyer so they can anticipate future needs; plus

2. Become valuable
to the buyer in sharing quality information while gradually positioning
themselves as a trusted source.

Tip 3: BUILD YOUR MESSAGE

Once a sales person feels they can bring value to a buyer (via understanding
and relevant insights) with content worthy of sharing or to spark a
conversation then they can proceed to the message or engaging phase. Do not
rush into this.

Regardless of whether it is a connection request, a conversation starter
or a conversion message, crafting the correct wording is critical.

So let us move on to how to construct the messages:

The Subject
Line: Very few buyers will open a direct social media message/email/InMail
unless they are intrigued by your Subject Line. It is essentially the gateway
to opening a relationship. To increase the chances of a buyer opening the
message, make it relevant and avoid spam sounding sentences. A subject line
like “You mentioned recently” or “I noticed you”, plus include their first name
and any snippet of information that will spark an interest or curiosity.

Make it 100% Personalised: Always state your
name, and give the buyer the context into why you are reaching out. Then add in
the value exchange (what is in it for them – research/information/similarities
etc). Then maybe reference a piece of content you found from insights research.
These elements are what separate your messaging from the raft of other messages
they get every day from sales people doing a brochure dump or vanilla flavoured
template.

Include an Impact/Value
Statement: If this is a conversion message, then every sales person should address
the buyer WIIFM (What is in it for me). Talk about what you can do for them
referencing specific case studies, facts or clients. Include a statistic and a
timeframe.

Value Statement
example: “I help SaaS technology
companies who are launching a new product into the marketplace – and need it to
be successful in the short-term to achieve their sales forecast. Where I help
my clients is to generate more leads faster using social selling. As a result, my
customers are able to more easily meet projected sales targets and
significantly reduce the time to profitability.”

As Harvard
marketing professor Theodore Levitt put it: "People don't want to buy a
quarter-inch drill. They want to buy a quarter-inch hole." You must
understand why your customer wants that hole. Cultivating relationships within
that context is much more powerful.

Every message
should ideally end with a question asking them to take a specific action. If
this is a connection request, then keep it with context and zero sales pitch.
If a conversion message (moment of truth), maybe end by asking for a time to have
a chat (reference some specific times you are available).

A few MESSAGE EXAMPLES:

 Subject Line: John, You mentioned you
plan to grow 250% in 2017

Hi John,

I read your quote
in the Irish Times where you mentioned you plan to growth 250% in 2017 with a
particular focus on SaaS companies and you are now putting your plans in place.
Social selling will enable your sales teams to generate additional sales pipeline
in these areas, which will enhance your company’s ability for larger deal sizes.

Companies like Dell,
Schneider, and smaller companies have leveraged our Social Selling Methodology
to:

Increase their qualified leads pipeline by 35% plus within 12 months.

Create team revenue
(sales & marketing alignment) to accelerate revenue.

Drive sales
enablement and account development through leadership buy-in and measures.

Can I have 15
minutes of your time for me to share the digital transformation success we are
seeing across many Irish companies?

Can we set out 15 minutes
on [Date1] or [Date2]?”

Regards

Brian

Subject Line: Dave,
I noticed your interest in this article

Hi Dave,

I noticed that you looked at my profile and
commenting on the article “How to Social Sell” I shared in some LinkedIn groups.
I research and write articles on using social media to drive business, so if
you ever require information on social
selling, feel free to use me as a resource for whitepapers
and research. Look forward to connecting with you.

Regards,

Brian

Creating the right
message is all about creating value for the buyer at the right time, this value
has to be separated in connecting, being useful (conversations) and being
valuable (conversion into pipeline). Sales people need to understand the buyer
(ICP’s/buyer personas) from all fronts, individual, company and industry. The skill
is to do the research and craft messaging around the buyer’s journey you have
plotted.

Business Plan Template – The Bitter Business

Business Plan Template – The Bitter Business

Download these free business plan templates to help you formulate a business plan for your business.

image with business planning options

How to Use Social Media To Promote Your Business – The Bitter Business

How to Use Social Media To Promote Your Business – The Bitter Business

he use of social media is now the most effective way when you need to promote or launch a business or new product. The free access to social networks for prospect identification and the ability to reach a large audience of buyers via content means every marketing or sales leader has to use these channels as part of a go-to-market strategy. When launching a new product or service,   social media provides a rich media platform that with some planning can make it easy for people to share around your message.

It doesn’t seem like so long ago that promoting, marketing and launching a product whether nationally or global required a massive budget and was one of the barriers to entry the traditional multi-nationals relied upon. But the digital switch by buyers to self-educate on the social networks has re-written both the sales and marketing rules.

The following approach or any part of it can be used by anyone with the right discipline and time.

Use Facebook

Action:

Create a Facebook fan page specifically for your brand or product, then share and network with the Facebook community as it is the largest single social networking site on the web. Remember it is about engagement and then sharing. To build up your fan and advocacy base to give you that critical mass to share your stories/messages, why not offer an incentive to “like” your page, maybe by giving some merchandise or prize.

Suggested Primary Goal:

Create an incentive for people to “like” your page by providing via a free product giveaway in order to grow your fan base.

Use LinkedIn

Action:

With over 400 million business users, one of your first actions should be to create a company page, followed by joining interest groups related to what you are selling. Don’t forget to pimp up your profile with a photo and fill out as much detail in your profile as possible. Learn about “social selling” and how to use content from your blog (see below) along with other content to engage connections. You can also search and tag prospects, influencers and potential partners.

Suggested Primary Goal:

To identify potential buyers and partners for your brand or products.

Website and Blog

Action:

Thanks to WordPress, Weebly, Medium, Blogger etc it has never been easier or cheaper to create your own branded web presence and attract potential buyers (with some SEO and promotional activity). For less than €100 you can have your own domain and less than €500 can give you a fully branded website. Learn to target keywords, read up on SEO and how to share your website URL’s on sites like Plurk, Scoop.it, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Pinterest to name but a few, will start to give you a trickle of traffic to build upon.

Learn to write 1000 plus word blogs with titles like Tips, How to, A guide to or Top 10 so you can further use social media to attract potential buyers and improve your search engine results. Try to write a blog weekly but monthly at a minimum. Don’t forget to share and post your blog articles around the web.

Suggested Primary Goal

To make it easier for potential buyers to engage with you while finding out more about your business.

Product Reviews by Social Influencers

Action:

If possible, prior to formal launch try to get some external product reviews, even recommendations. As the trust between buyer and suppliers is at an all time low, peer recommendations instead of marketing blurb can give your business a much needed injection of interest. Maybe offer your product free in return for publishable references.  Apart from using LinkedIn there is a whole host of social tools (lots are free) that you can use to identify social influencers or connectors. Also do not forget journalists and online magazines, approaching them can be as simple as crafting an introduction letter with an invitation to review or sample your offerings. Ensure you put a unique slant on your business, what problem is it solving and why would people be interested in your personal story.

Suggest Primary Goal:

To gather independent and verifiable 3rd party authority as social proof, which you will then share with potential customers.

Have a Contest

Action:

Who doesn’t love a good ole a contest and they work well on Social media especially in the B2C space. Using your social media channels, offer up some real goodies (if not your actual product then something related to it). Keep it simple, you are not trying to snare emails, you chasing “share ability”

Suggest Primary Goal

Note: Get a fan base engaged before you officially launch your business or product so that when you do launch you have a fan base that could be ready to buy and spread your message for you whether that is on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. The combination of your regularly updated blog, website and your social media community activity can be a powerful platform for getting in revenue faster.

Try a Quiz

Action:

It is also easy to create and publish a quiz on your website and social channels. Just do a Google search for “create a quiz”. There are some free and paid options. People like to test their knowledge and if you can relate or match the quiz to your product even better.

There doesn’t have to be a prize but you could combine it with a contest as above.

Suggested Primary Goal: To engage customers and also create more buzz.

Create Infographics or Video

Action:

The rise in popularity of infographics and video content in social media cannot be ignored. Sites like Canva, Visualize, Piktochart and Easel.ly make it easy for anyone with some patience to create stunning graphic stories. You can even create video content online but there is a higher price to be paid here, if your product is very visual then maybe a 20-30 second video for YouTube or Vimeo maybe a must.

Suggested Primary Goal: To provide some wow media formats that could go ‘viral’.

SlideShare

Action:

You can create a PowerPoint presentation that could not serve as a key note presentation but would also publish on Slideshare to spread your message while reinforcing your professional image.

Suggested Primary Goal: Publish on the Slideshare platform to make it easy for people to

These few tips on using social media when launching a business or product are by no mean exhaustive, what else have you tried? The purpose of the article is that with a limited budget and the learning of new skills (social selling, social media marketing, creating infographics, writing blogs, running contests etc) most of us can achieve results beyond our expectations. Oh yeah, did I mention lots of hard work but no pain no gain.

A Guide to Content Marketing for Start-ups – The Bitter Business

This article on content marketing has been republished from The Bitter Business.

A Guide to Content Marketing for Start-ups – The Bitter Business

How can content marketing help satisfy a start-ups customer acquisition and quest for growth. Old sales tactics are declining and the push sales cycle can mean a new business is out of runway long before their business gets off the ground with revenue. The rapid change in buyer behaviour for both B2B and B2C means an unforgiving economic climate in which a start-up has to function. Thankfully, the meteoric rise of inbound marketing together with social selling has added a suite of new tools to the business sales and marketing toolkit.

While the sales and marketing field have been levelled they are also becoming more complex as buyers seek out useful and valuable vendors via quality content as they self educate like never before. So how can a start-up business win with content marketing and what does it stand to gain from it?

It begins with a plan

To develop a content marketing strategy, we must first understand the role of content in attracting the buyer in the digital economy. As buyers self educate online in both B2C and B2B markets they consume content as part of the buying journey. When we refer to “Content” we are referring to whitepapers, video, infographics, images, press releases, newsletters, help guides right through to thought leadership articles. Also, focus content themes and topics that match the interest of your “Ideal Customer Profiles” or “Buyer Personas”. When it comes to content curation do not consider content to be anything you find funny or amusing as you dive into the sea of digital content being published about your industry. Instead, think of content that adds value to customer or buyers journey, information that is useful and benefits the reader in some way. Start-ups who remember that content is bait and the better the content, the better the fish will have taken a big step towards getting their business moving forward. So ask yourself, “Who is your customer?” “What is their need?” and “How will you deliver on their need”. Now you can start to assemble a content marketing plan.

The first step as mentioned above is to define your target audience (ideal customer profile/buyer persona) in terms of Firmographics, demographics, age, occupation, habits, etc. Then, the start-up needs to plan who and from where will they create and source a steady stream of content for publishing. Next it is time to research what is their favourite social media platforms. This information allows us to define clear goals and social KPI’s. These may cover items such as content views, content downloads, traffic, blog visitors, total traffic, social reach and social engagement. Now the start-up can proceed with moving their plans from the drawing board into social media reality.

Put the start-up on the social media stage

We know from research that over 75% of B2B buyers seek business information online. Over 90% of consumers now consume content prior to making an online purchase. So it is no surprise to know that one of the greatest benefits of content marketing is increasing the exposure to potential customers whether it is locally, nationally or globally. That is why building a social brand and social reach through content is closely tied to the process of developing closer relations with the target audience, and getting to know each other. The ultimate goal of any content plan is to inform, educate, engage, inspire, and spark attention. This is no easy task as the work of attracting buyer’s attention has fierce competition. The best shot for a new business is to become a valuable information source with real insights and fresh, challenging points of view. Content blindness or overload can be avoided if the start-up can separate itself from the competition and rise above the noise generated by vanilla flavoured content.

Also it is important to avoid the pitfalls that go with content marketing. Don’t be tempted to write about product superiority and service excellence without social proof which may include influencer opinions or valid customer reviews. Do not overlook the value of visual content and videos. A whooping eight seven percent of the top posts on Facebook have pictures included, while it is thirty five percent on Twitter.

Another critical point is to convey the businesses personality and social purpose. Content should reflect the business culture and be used to plant seeds with targeted buyers on your beliefs and philosophy around serving customers. Finally, create a content sharing schedule so that the selected content must is posted regularly. Creating a calendar is paramount, as this enables start-ups to plan themes and topics to match buyer interests while scheduling posts ahead of time.

A content publishing engine room

Content creation falls into two main categories, “First click content” and “Second click content”. First click content is designed around the search engine optimisation (SEO) and driving traffic. It is heavily keyword focused with “Tips” “Guides” and “How to” type content the best themes to ensure sharing and thus getting the content at the forefront of search engine results page (SERP). Using content to build inbound links is one of the best marketing strategies there is, so ensure your content publishing engine knows what keywords to target.

Remember Google carefully monitors the content surrounding the anchor link (title, topic, theme, keywords) so it is vital that the quality of the content has to be top-drawer when doing link building. Other aspects of a content publishing plan are to monitor industry trends and new relevant keywords as to develop content or visuals. Identifying these elements can boost a business’s search ranking and drive more traffic.

While content marketing can be an inexpensive, yet highly effective lead generation method to reach ideal customer profiles, it does require investment in the production of the assets to be published. Create a content publishing engine that will help your start-up to attain a position of industry leader over a period of months. Sometimes if not often start-ups have little room for manoeuvre and must operate on a shoestring budget. So to make every Euro count, content marketing can have both short tailed and long tailed benefits by aligning all social media marketing to target buyers supported by quality, relevant content.

The runway is shorter than you think

A sense of paranoid can be healthy when launching a new business; one can live or die by their ability to quickly identify real wants and needs of buyers. The runway to getting the start-up of the ground maybe shorter than you think with more effort than you planned. This requires social selling with content, social media marketing, social reach and social engagement. To pull this off, the business must make the best use of content marketing strategies. Relevant, regular, appropriately themed quality content that engages the target audience to find you useful and valuable is the only way to make a name for the business quickly. If content is king, then badly written, irrelevant or copied articles, have little chance of becoming royalty. Always refer to the plan and only produce content that is tailored to the needs of the customers. It is about using content to be seen, be found, be useful and be valuable in the eyes and minds of buyers so the start-up can generate revenue sooner rather than later.

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The What and How of Sales Enablement

The What and How of Sales Enablement

Sales enablement is linchpin that a business uses to bridge
the gap between their sales strategy and how they execute this on social media,
the phone or face to face. In a fast moving digital world, common sales
challenges (buyer interactions, longer sales cycles, declining win rates,
slowing customer acquisition and shrinking deal sizes ) can be mapped back to
the same source — the conversations between sales people and buyers. 

The challenge for sales leadership is to equip the entire
sales team(s) with the ability to consistently and systematically have a
valuable conversation either online or offline with the right set of customers
at each stage of the buyer’s journey to optimise the results of the selling
system.

The goal of sales enablement is to ensure that every sales
person has the knowledge, sales skills and behaviours to maximise every
interaction with buyers.” In other words, how can sales leaders create the
environment to “get all your ducks in a row to give the salespeople the best
chance of closing a deal?”

A sales
enablement framework for the digitally connected buyers should include:

Targeting
the Right Prospects

Reports show that only 3% of buyers are in a purchasing
cycle when contacted by sales. This blunt sales effort can be extremely for all
stakeholders when lead nurturing is directed at the wrong buyers, who are not
ready to buy, or worse just are not interested in what you have to offer.

Sales productivity is impacted due to sales people’s efforts
not being focused on buyers who are middle of the funnel or already in the “I
may have a problem” mindset. A better use of social selling and social data
combined with sales intelligence as part of a sales enablement program will go
a long way to helping this challenge.

Aligning
the Sales and Marketing Teams

Sales enablement cannot be correctly implemented without
aligning marketing and sales. Both departments need to work together to arm the
sales teams with the right assets to have the right conversations with the
right buyer profiles at the right time and in the right channels.

The reality today is that sales people need to be engaging
and holding conversations with buyers throughout the whole journey, even while
the buyer is in status quo mode (not yet aware that they may have a business
issue that needs solving). It is about bringing a level of consistency to the
whole sales process as both marketing and sales work together to interact with
customers across the entire buying journey.

A consistent approach from sales and marketing will help
assess the sales cycle, identify problem areas, fix them, and achieve the sales
goals.

Understand
where content fits In

This involves developing relevant content to specific buyers
during a specific stage of the buying process. Content is a “must-have” asset
in successful sales enablement roll-outs. This includes blog posts, white
papers, infographics, eBooks, videos and reports which are deployed to engage
customers and potential buyers. During the sales process, the sales team need
to understand when to use each type of content and how to position it with
their buyers and prospects

 Ask and answer
questions like:

What are the online personas each prospect will display?

How do we create content that aligns with that persona?

How do we deliver content to the sales people?

Who will produce and supply this content to the sales team?

How will all sales people be trained to use content effectively?

Which is the right combination of company-created, curated
and shared content?

How to match the content to the stage the buyer is in?

The role
of social selling

For a whole host of reasons (which you can read in other
articles on this blog), social selling is crucial for a sales enablement
initiative in the sales 2.0 world. Once the content strategy has been mapped
into the sales process, sales people can use these assets as 2nd click content
to qualify prospects through the funnel. They can leverage the content to share
with and engage buyers, showing that your company is already aware of their
concerns and is ready to answer their questions.

A successful social selling program takes time to listen,
share, post, nurture, engage and convert. Sales and marketing should work
together to form concise messaging and offers that targets issues that buyers
may be addressing now.

Measure your Results with KPI’s

If you
can’t manage it, you can’t measure it, still holds true even if large parts of
the sales conversations has moved online. Rather than try to measure too much,
it may be more beneficial to focus on a small set of key performance
indicators.

A tip is to separate the sales enablement metrics into
two parts:

Performance metrics: How
did we do?

How many new connections did we make last month or how much content did the
sales teams share last week? How much reach, interest or engagement did we
ignite?

Diagnostic metrics: Which
is working/not working?

Which activities are working? What needs to be improved? What
types of content are the salespeople sharing and with who? What content is not
performing or which set of prospects are not responding?

These metrics will help all stakeholders make the right decisions;
decisions which help the buyers engage and drive revenue.

Always prioritise
the prospects

Too many times, businesses are thinking about “Me” and not
“Them”. The focus can be solely on the company, the product, the messaging, the
key differentiation, etc. They hone in on themselves and relegate their target
audience and the audience’s needs. This internal focus impacts on true sales
enablement.  So rather than helping the sales
teams understand the buyers, the focus can be entirely on helping the sales
team understand the products. Helping buyers through the buyer’s journey should
the core of all sales enablement programs, from awareness to decision.

A quick
summary

Sales enablement is critical as the business world in which
we function has fundamentally changed. Out with the explaining the companies’
products and why buy messaging.  In is assisting
prospects evaluate alternatives, helping and educating buyers. The focus
becomes truly enabling the sales team to engage throughout the whole buyer’s journey,
on their grounds and in the channels they choose.

The modern buying process means that different criteria have
to be introduced. Using sales enablement as the guiding principle, sales organisations
everywhere can set themselves up for success. The end result will be empowered and
productive sales people, skilled in helping prospects across the buyer’s
journey and bringing in more revenue, faster than ever. 

Social Selling Influencers – The Bitter Business

Social Selling Influencers – The Bitter Business

Social Selling Influencers

May 11, 2016 by brianoconn

The Bitter Business is delighted to be named in the TOP 100 BRANDS and influencers for Social Selling. The report complied by Onalytica was to identify which Social Selling brands and individuals were leading the online discussion. They analysed 263K+ tweets from 16 November 2015 – 4 February 2016 mentioning the keywords “Social Selling” OR socialselling OR socialsales OR “social sales” and identified the top 100 most influential brands and individuals leading the discussion on Twitter.

In the top 100 brands there is organisations such as Salesforce and Hootsuite and some top industry resources such as SocialMedia Examiner and Social Media Today.While 38 on the global list is a great achievement, it should be noted that The Bitter Business is flying the flag for social selling from Ireland.

Social Selling is an evolutionary step forward making the sales process more productive and meaningful

The Top 4 Reasons Why Companies Embrace Social Selling

 Old sales tactics have diminishing returns:

90% of decision makers say that they never respond to cold outreach

(Harvard Business Review).

Buyers use social media:

75% of B2B buyers now use social media to research vendors (IDC).

Bigger deal sizes:

Buyers who use social media have larger budgets – typically 84% larger than the budgets of buyers who do not use social (IDC).

Better Sales Achievement:

Social sellers realize 66% greater sales achievement than those using traditional prospecting techniques (Sales Benchmark Index).

Social selling starts by being about the relationship between sales professionals and the connections they have nurtured in social media spaces. While there is a lot of social selling that takes place on LinkedIn (which is considered the businessperson’s social media space), there is also a tremendous amount of it going on in all social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram, Google+, Periscope, Blab, and others. (If you aren’t familiar with all the social media spaces  and how to use social selling that your sales team can be a part of, don’t worry! there are lots of articles in our Social Selling category to keep you going.)

Connecting Content Marketing to Sales – The Bitter Business

How to use content marketing for improved sales enablement is a big discussion point among sales and marketing leaders. Most B2B companies rely on selling by direct sales teams to generate a large percentage of their revenues. For these companies, improving sales performance is a critical business objective, and sales enablement alongside the use of social media is seen as the best method for delivering company revenue goals.

When executed correctly, sales enablement has the involvement of both marketing and sales. Content marketing resources such as research articles, whitepapers, e-books, testimonials, video content and case studies plays a vital role in sales enablement. The marketing department are the ones usually tasked with creating the content assets.

Does your sales team understand your content strategy?

Research shows there can be a mismatch between the content that marketing produces and the content the sales people need to progress their sales opportunities. The findings included that:

• Only fifty four percent of sales people and sixty five percent of sales managers understand their company’s content marketing strategy.
• While 65 percent of sales people and seventy four percent of sales managers say the content their company publishes is valuable to their customers.
• However, a full fifty two percent of sales people and forty three percent of managers say the content their company publishes helps improve sales effectiveness.

The results show that nearly 50% of sales people do not understand the content strategy. So what is the issue?

Read the rest of the article here:

Connecting Content Marketing to Sales – The Bitter Business