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Sales and Marketing: The Ultimate Tag Team

Jamie Shanks
Jamie Shanks

Sales And Marketing

 

When your sales and marketing teams works together, fantastic business results can be realized.

Sales professionals are pounding the pavement every day trying to get on the radar of new potential buyers (and future advocates). The marketing team arms the sales team with solution-based information, that is then sent to users by way of glossy brochures, e-mails and forced newsletter sign-ups.

Sounds familiar, right?

But, what if there was some way to know what buyers really care about and how they research? There is, and the signals are all around us.

Buyers are Going Social – No Surprise

Buyers (you included) are going social in your research for new products/services that you’re on the market for. We know that the B2B buyer is no different. Are you online assisting them with information that’s insightful and helpful?

Having a few social profiles doesn’t make you a social seller, FYI. You’ll need to bring all the different platforms (LinkedIn, Twitter, Google +) and processes together in a way that’s meaningful for you and, most importantly, your buyer!

Content: Sell Without Being There

Let’s go over some of the different types of content that your buyer cares about in the exploration phase of the buying process. If you want to be invited into the vendor selection and presentation round, you’ll need to focus on the following items below.

Here’s the exciting/troubling part (depending on how you view it), your buyer is going to get the overwhelming majority of this information without talking to sales reps. Therefore, it’s critical that the sales and marketing teams work together to create and spread this information in a meaningful way.

Social Selling Expert

Our clients have told us that the following are types of content that resonate the most with potential buyers in the exploration phase.

1. Market trends
2. Client success stories
3. Thought leadership status
4. Client testimonials & reviews
5. Data on ROI

Each of these content types serves a purpose, mainly to shift the priority of the potential buyer and convince them that your solution is one that should be evaluated.

How can sales reps convince buyers of this with cold calling if buyers are online researching without the help of sales reps?

How Do You Rank?

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

  • Do you have this information properly laid out on your website so that it tells a story and guides the buyer effectively?
  • How are you sharing this information proactively to potential buyers on social channels?
  • Are your sales reps sharing this information with potential buyers?
  • Are you measuring the engagement of your content to see its impact?

The Bottom Line

These are some of the ways that sales and marketing can work together to create the ultimate tag team. By focusing on creating and articulating a content strategy that marketing can build, and that sales can deploy on social channels, you’ll have a winning combination.

Need help in getting started with determining what types of content you should start with first? I can help. Contact me and we’ll get started.
Amar Sheth

CTA

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The Ultimate Guide to Social Selling