In my last post, Sales Reps… Why writing content should be part of your sales strategy, I speak to successful sales reps about how to recognize and learn how to not only engage the new digital buyer but to align their online and offline resources to the buyer journey.
Successful sales reps realize the one critical part of addressing the new buyer’s journey is not merely creating digital tactics, but focusing on how they engage prospects and even clients once they engage digitally.
Successful sales reps acknowledge the content they generate or curate must engage the digital buyer in conversation.
Successful sales reps augment their prospecting efforts by generating new business opportunities online by focusing on making their LinkedIn profile a destination stop for information with custom content. Why? According to the 2014 State of B2B Procurement study from the Acquity Group, 94 percent of business buyers do some form of online research:
77% use Google search
84.3% check business websites (This could be your LinkedIn profile)
41% read user reviews (This could be recommendations on your LinkedIn profile)
I realize that writing content for sales reps doesn’t come easy. However, it is a skill sales reps must develop. The old saying, “You must crawl before you walk” applies to sales reps and content.
Crawling = Recurating Content
Walking = Writing Content
Sales reps… Let’s go visit the bait and tackle shop so we can find some content to cast out into the deep blue digital ocean.
A helpful hint to sales reps… Before you visit the bait and tackle shop, spend a few minutes with some of your current clients: CFO’s, CIO’s, IT Managers or Purchasing Managers and ask them this question…
“What sites online do you frequent when you are looking for education to help you improve what you do within your position?”
Hint… Follow those sites! Become the conduit by providing educational content to your prospects and clients. Heck, you may even learn something along the way.
3 Sites to Help Sales Reps Find Digital Bait
Flipboard – Think of Flipboard as a social network aggregator. Flipboard collects content from social media, newsfeeds and other websites and presents it in magazine format allowing users to “flip” through their social-networking feeds and feeds from websites. Here are few sites you may want to follow: Forbes, Harvard Business Review, CFO Agenda, CIO or CEO.com.
Feedly – Think of Feedly as a news aggregator. Feedly compiles news feeds from a variety of online sources for the user to customize and share with others. You can also customize the content aggregated by Feedly to include your own personal preference of RSS feeds. Here are a few feeds you may want to follow; Fast Company, Business Insider or CNET News.
DrumUp – DrumUp was developed for professionals and businesses for content discovery, curation and social media management. DrumUp mines through tons of content across the web in real time then uses sophisticated algorithms to recommend fresh stories most relevant to you. You can then quickly review, create and post to social platforms such as LinkedIn or Twitter.
As part of your prospecting approach; relevant and educational content does drive conversation with the modern digitally driven B2B buyer. Successful sales reps integrate the use of content as an additional method of communication along with email and the phone.
Build a Content Library to Stay Competitive
In cases where sales and marketing may not be aligned, successful sales reps will take ownership by building a digital library of content which can then be used to teach and tailor their audience (prospects and clients) throughout the buying process.
I will leave you all with this quote from the Acquity Group: “Digital content is becoming a deal breaker for consumers who are looking for information online. Companies (I will add in sales reps) that aren’t there with answers to prospects’ questions will fall off the radar, while brands that anticipate questions and provide useful resources will win brand awareness and, eventually, conversions.”
Good luck in reeling in the revenue!
