When producing content to help your company win sales, more than likely you’re looking to your marketing team to handle the bulk of those responsibilities. Perhaps you should be looking to your sales team instead. Well, at least, as part of a collaborative effort. According to a study by Docurated, sales is already taking on the responsibility of creating content to meet the needs and questions of prospects — but perhaps not in the traditional sense. In some cases, the whitepapers, presentation slides, ebooks and case studies were skipped over for content sales reps produced themselves in an effort to address specific questions by the client.

Who is Responsible?

While survey respondents indicated that they thought marketing created about 80 percent of the content for their companies, an analysis showed that sales actually was responsible for about 40 percent of the content creation, while marketing accounted for 30 percent of all content. As Docurated put it, “even the most productive marketing team can not possibly keep up with all the unique selling situations sales reps find themselves in.” Therefore, sales reps go for their own methods to close the deals. Apparently, it seems to be working for them. According to the research, the content created by the sales team resulted in 61 percent of their closings.

Effective B2B Content

When considering the overall effectiveness of content used in the B2B industry certain formats seem to emerge as more effective than others, according to another study by MarketingSherpa. They include repurposing and reformatting existing content, encouraging customers to submit feedback for testimonials and case studies, and recruiting subject matter experts from other departments to produce content. Also, the content must be strategic in its purpose. Ardath Albee, author of eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale, said that the message must be cohesive as if you’re speaking to a potential customer with one voice. Whether it’s emails, whitepapers or webinars, the content also must be current and match the message you want to convey to prospects. “Content has to serve a purpose,” Albee said. “It has to create that momentum and it needs to encourage them to engage further with other pieces of content, which is why it all needs to work together.” MonsterConnect, a sales prospecting enablement tool, helps sales teams focus their energies on communicating with key decision-makers. Let us show you how we can help your department gain efficiencies. Contact us about a demo.