It would be nice if products and services simply sold themselves. But the reality for most prospectors isn’t order-taking, it’s creating effective outbound marketing—and that relies heavily on the accuracy and timeliness of your content.
So why is content marketing so important for sales?
It demonstrates growth
Blogs, videos, how-to guides, and other free material are all beneficial to your outreach because they show your audience that you know their market. Keeping this information up to date is important because it demonstrates your awareness of current events and changes to that market—and how your company intends to grow and adapt. This growth could include better methods for completing certain tasks and using specific products, or anticipating the needs of your prospects that are seasonal, scientific, economic, and even political.
It conveys value
Verbally telling your prospects how awesome you think your company is will never be as effective as showing them that value through your content. This is especially true if there’s at least one other business out there that does what you do, because they’ll be giving the same reasons about why they think they’re the better fit. Instead, focus on educating your prospects. This allows you far more creative latitude in the messaging you develop, and can be used to uniquely position your brand.
It shows you’re present. Bueller?
Ever go to a website and see that the copyright is out of date, the website format looks old, or the newsfeeds, photos, blogs and Tweets haven’t been updated in a while?
These can be potential red flags for your prospects. Sure, the information you want to tell them may not have changed much since the last time you posted it, but that doesn’t negate the importance of periodically refreshing how you convey that material. When you don’t, it tells your prospects that you don’t care enough to stay current—or worse, that you’re not really making that much business.
Updating your website tells them at the bare minimum that someone’s still in the office. Think of it like maintaining a classic car: it may drive the same way it always has, but at some point it’s going to need a fresh coat of paint.
