5 Essential Content Types for Sales Success

If you work in sales, you need content and resources to generate and convert leads, plain and simple. Without the right type of content or consistent interaction, you might be missing out on potential opportunities.

To boost engagement, generate leads, and improve brand awareness and sales conversations, you need content that resonates with your audience. Here are five key types of content to help you target prospective clients effectively.

First, understanding and addressing your target audience’s pain points will shape the content you create. This approach aids sales teams in starting conversations with potential leads and closing more deals. Your content should cover the entire buyer’s journey, including educational articles, eBooks, guides, case studies, product datasheets, and whitepapers. Each of these serves different stages of the buying cycle and helps nurture your prospects.

The difference between closing a deal and losing a lead often comes down to distinguishing between a client’s needs and wants. Addressing the client’s needs will make them more receptive to your offers.

Following up on prospects manually can be overwhelming and time-consuming for sales teams. One way to manage this is by automating some content marketing processes. Small businesses should look for software that can automate multiple aspects of content marketing, reducing manual tasks and simplifying the team’s workload. Sales enablement tools can help track all steps in the client’s sales journey and trigger automated actions as they progress through the funnel.

Whitepapers, backed by industry research, provide hard facts rather than just sales talk, making your content more credible. Social content that includes data or research relevant to the challenges your clients face will likely be more engaging and shared within their circles.

Gathering your own data and insights can help quantify and qualify your product’s value. Use this data in blog posts, marketing materials, and to prove your worth to leads. Having clients provide testimonials or case studies showcasing your business in a positive light gives your sales team strong proof to share with potential clients. Real stories humanize your content, making facts and figures less intimidating.

Case studies and testimonials often fit into the ‘consideration’ stage of the buyer’s journey. They provide the reassurance needed for prospects who are already familiar with your brand but are deciding whether to choose you over a competitor. Keeping a collection of case studies and testimonials for different customer types can help you prepare for specific discussions.

With today’s digital landscape, video is an essential part of almost any marketing strategy. YouTube, for example, has 1.9 billion active monthly users, and 5 billion video views per day. Creating explainer videos can fill this space for your sales collateral and attract prospective clients.

If your company already has a video marketing strategy or a podcast, ensure you stay updated with the latest or most helpful episodes/videos. Using a sales enablement platform, you can track which videos are getting the most engagement, helping you understand what’s driving the best results.