More sales content doesn't mean more customers!

If sales content doesn't resonate with the target audience and therefore doesn't help achieve conversion goals, then the content isn't working. It's that simple! This is a real shame and completely unnecessary.

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Instead of spending a lot of time on brainstorming sessions and creative meetings to generate new sales content ideas, take a strategic approach to creating sales content. Taking a strategic approach means (among other things) extensively testing and refining the content before making it available to sales teams.

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These four practical lessons will help you avoid creating content that has no commercial value.  

Research and validate your target audience

Who is the sales content intended for? Until the answer to this question is clear, no content can be created. The first step, therefore, is to establish a profile of your target audience.

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Elements that should be included in the profiling of your target audience are:

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• How familiar is your target audience with your services, solutions, market, etc.?
• What are the pain points of your target audience?
• What solutions are currently available to address those pain points?
• What kind of content is your target audience currently viewing on a regular basis?
• Which media channels are most commonly used by your target audience?
• What type of content does your target audience prefer (video, email, blogs, etc.)?

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Once you’ve documented all these points, you’ll have a solid profile of your target audience. Next comes the most important step: make sure you verify that your target audience actually exists. Be sure to get real-world feedback from your target audience. For example, conduct customer interviews or consult customer forums.  

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Research the content your competitors are sharing

Once you’ve identified your target audience and confirmed that there’s a need for your offering, it’s time to take a look at how your competitors are promoting theirs.

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Dive into the content your competitors are presenting: What do you like? What don’t you like? What’s missing? These insights will help you better understand what kind of content resonates with your target audience and/or what gaps in content present opportunities for your proposition.          

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Create a content strategy guide

You now have enough information to know what content works best in your market, who you’re specifically targeting with your content, and what content actually needs to be created to inform your target audience about your proposition in a unique way. Use all of this information to develop your content strategy map.

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Start your content strategy guide with a strategy statement (why do you want to use content?), then determine which content types you’ll use in which situations, what topics you’ll address in your content, and which channels you’ll use to share your content with your target audience.      

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Very important: Think carefully in advance about how you’re going to monitor, analyze, and optimize the impact of your sales content.  

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Planning and implementing the most efficient content process

So many people and so many opinions… and this is especially true when it comes to creating and sharing content. The CEO, marketing, communications, sales—everyone wants to contribute ideas, get involved, and have a say in how content is put together and distributed. This can… no, this must be done more efficiently.

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Ensure that the process for creating, distributing, and monitoring content is standardized and transparent. For each step in the content process, it must be clear who is responsible, and make sure the number of people involved is kept to a minimum. This not only ensures an efficient process but also reduces costs and, as a result, optimizes the return on content.    

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Speaking of costs: it’s definitely a good idea to determine in advance how much time each step in the content process will take. Of course, as you gain more experience, the time required will continue to decrease.    

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Instead of endless brainstorming sessions, making assumptions, and then just hoping that the right content reaches the right people, we advocate for a more strategic approach: create content based on research and a clear content strategy.

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