Why Your Sales Team Need Marketing Automation and Content Marketing to Close More Deals

It’s time your marketing and sales teams work side by side. The best way to do that? Marketing automation and content marketing.

Insight: Content and marketing automation are powerful tools that can aptly support your sales team
Data: Research reveals that 51% of B2B buyers rely on content to research their buying decisions, and almost 50% view three to five pieces of content before wanting to engage with a salesperson (DemandGen)
Key action point: Watch this video as Jeff Cooper, Founding Partner at Step Change, shares seven key reasons why marketing automation and content marketing help sales teams close more deals

Editor’s note: Below is an edited transcript of the video.

One of the things we love is making sure that marketing connects directly with what the sales team is doing because, let’s face it, when the cash register sings, then we know we’ve done a really good job.

And so why does, particularly, marketing automation and content marketing work so well in the new age of sales?

There’s a couple of reasons, and the concept I always talk about, one I find entertaining to think about, is sort of being a cyborg.

I work in the old sales days, where I used to just hit lists, wear out my shoe leather, make phone calls, and try to make as much engagement for clients as possible. I’ve also lived in the new world that is enabled by content funnels and marketing automation.

There’s a couple of things that make it the best. The very first one reason is that it allows you to be superhuman, and this is what I call being a cyborg.

How does it do that?

1. We Can Build Smart Lists Based on Behavioural Triggers and Customer Information

Rather than a consultant trying to start on top of that list then go all the way down, the computer, or the machine, can provide the top ten prospects with insights on what they’ve been reading, what they’ve been interested in, what sites they visited, how many times they visited that site, their job title, and all those sorts of information.

That’s a much more powerful place to be. Automation allows you to make a pitch from “Let me tell you about my company” to “Let me tell you about something that’s important to you.” And it makes your prospects that “Wow, your timing is impeccable” feeling. And that’s the best feeling you could possibly have.

2. Automation Allows Us to Have Better Segmentation

Now when we run campaigns, we are building new segmentation in every single campaign. Of course, we have overarching personas and that’s where a lot of the automation is built off.

But interestingly, if we have a product or a focus, we build a list specifically for that campaign, and we’re often building them in just a few moments.

3. Content and Marketing Automation Get Our Reach and Frequency Up

This is a really interesting thing about being superhuman. Marketing automation platforms and content funnels don’t get sick. They don’t have bad arguments with their partner or have an off day. They’re working 24/7 for you.

So not only do they get the reach because they can get to a lot more people than you are as an individual, but they also get the frequency, which is critical. It allows you to move your activities into high-value, high-engagement, human interactions, which is how we make sales.

But frequency does another thing too. Humans are funny. They mistake frequency with trust. Now trust is essential for selling, so when they see you a lot, they become familiar with you, and of course, they have the trust.

Now this a hack to the human brain, and they can help this, but we can leverage this to make sure that when we meet them, we’re experts first.

4. Automation Reduces Workload

So essentially, it reduces the tedious workload. There’s automation and nurturing going on. And this means, we can just do the high-value human parts. If you spend every single day as a salesperson only doing the highest-value connections, you’ll be miles ahead.

5. Content and Marketing Automation Bring about Speed of Response

People don’t count enough on this. Speed of response is a hack in the human brain for competency, for expert knowledge, and for a fact that you can help.

What we’ve found is that with the world moving faster than ever before, clients need solutions faster than ever before. So if all of that stuff can be done by machines, then you most definitely will have a much faster speed of response.

6. With Content Marketing and Automation, Your Sales Team Are Seen as Experts

It positions you as an expert, and it helps you nurture your audience across the full sales journey where sales consultants tend to be at the bottom or at the end of the funnel.

Customers are not interested in listening to salespeople talk about their products. Not at first. What they want to hear are experts sharing solutions to their problems.

7. It Makes Your Business Top of Mind

By putting this all together, marketing automation and content marketing help make your business top of mind. So even when you haven’t touch-based with your client, they’re ready, willing, and able to talk to you. And when they are ready, they reach out.