Imagine your company's annual awards banquet. There are all the key players, spiffied up and anxiously awaiting the Sales Rep MVP award.
Will it go to Ed, who never has the highest sales stats but consistently produces high sales numbers? Or will it go to Dharma? That fresh, feisty post-grad that broke the sales record her second year out of the gate?
Shhhhh. Wait. Here it comes....
"And the award for this year's Most Valuable Sales Rep goes to....
...Marketing Content.
Wait. What?!? Helloooooo? Is this some kind of joke?
Your content isn't lifelessly sitting there, gaining SEO traction. It's a living, breathing thing - or at least that's how you should think about it. In this era of digital marketing, you might as well consider marketing content as one of your most valuable sales representatives.
Marketing Content is almost always who people meet first. They search for you, and they find Content. They want to read about you and the access Content. They want to tell others about you, they share Content.
All of this happens without a single handshake from a human being. When viewed from that perspective, you can see why content strategy for your content marketing is so important.
The point is to create content that speaks to clients the same way your sales reps are going to eventually speak with them - so the conversion process is as streamlined as possible. When you take this approach to content, it has multiple affects on the audience.
Your content should have a discernible voice. It is a major spokesperson for your brand. That voice should sound familiar across any of the inbound or outbound platforms you use to promote business. This builds brand familiarity and trust.
Content can't have a unique or discernible voice if it doesn't understand who its audience members are. Make sure you've done your buyer persona homework so Content's voice is music to the audience's ears. This is how visitors convert to qualified lead and then into a loyal customer.
Content has a big role to play. It's instructional, teaching visitors and prospects just about everything they want to know about your products and services, from multiple angles. By the time they actually contact a rep, most prospects should already have answers to the majority of their questions.
This instructional method is also supportive, and the voice and language used should make the audience feel comfortable - not too jargony, not too elitist, and always understanding of what their pain points and concerns are.
Finally, Content should nurture their interests so they move further along the path you've carefully laid out for them. You know they need to get from point A to point Y before they hit Point Z's "Act Now" button. Content that nurtures fills in every point along the way so they never feel abandoned or disconnected from the journey.
Content engages and compels action
Finally, content should be interactive. It can't take prospects to lunch, but content should make them offers, provide extra materials like eBooks, price sheets or white papers and landing pages that engage them enough to keep acting.
Action takes place via clicks, shares and "submits" - none of which occurs unless the content strategy for your content marketing has been carefully crafted to engage and compel action.
Are you creating content worthy of a starring role? ROI is a big indicator of whether or not its an audience pleaser. Get a good grasp of your ROI and you'll know right away whether you can keep up the good work, or whether it's time to return to the drawing board and re-strategize so your content sings to its audience - giving them everything they need to convert, buy and remain loyal.
