In the past month, I’ve been talking to my clients about the latest trends I see in the area of sales and marketing. One of these trends is the “integration” of content marketing and sales as a way to strategically get new customers and retain existing ones. Are you keeping up with the times?
While content marketing has been part of the business development process for some top performing salespeople for some time, the key to this trend is the “integration” of the two functions and the heightened importance of effectively using content marketing as a deliberate and intentional strategy in the business development process.
– Content Marketing As A Strategy Is Accelerating: According to the latest research by the Content Marketing Institute, 89% of B2B marketers are using content marketing and more than two-thirds of those plan to create more content in 2017 than they did in 2016.
– Content Marketing Has To Tap Into Market Needs: To be effectively used in the business development process, content marketing must educate clients and prospects in a way that is meaningful and relevant. Those closest to the business development process are in the best position to identify the topics of interests by client group or segment.
– Video Has The Highest Consumption Rate: Another emerging sub-trend of this integration of sales and content marketing is the increased use and consumption of video content. Videos have some advantages over other mediums because they have higher consumption rates. According to Hubspot’s Consumer Behavior Study, over 55% of consumers said they watch an entire video, compared with 29% for blogs and 33% for interactive articles. In the survey, they also found that four times as many consumers prefer video content over text. So video will continue to be a hot trend that is getting hotter in 2017.
– Video Can Be Used More Effectively To Build Trust & Engagement: While all good Content Marketing should help build trust and engagement, videos featuring your team can provide the viewer with greater personal connection and engagement. In other words, if prospects or clients watch a video featuring one or more of your salespeople and/or other team members, the viewer will naturally feel a stronger connection (and even a relationship) with them. If done well, it provides an extra level of connection that can’t be matched in a printed medium.
– Content Marketing Has To Be Seen As Valuable: An important consideration of all content marketing that is generated and distributed is to realize that, in the “sales process,” your content has to be seen as valuable by your prospects and clients. Valuable content will attract clients while self-serving hype on your services or firm will repel them. If your content is just seen as glorified “commercials” for your services, they will be dismissed as such.
