Content Marketing and the Sales Process: How to Squash Buyer Objections
The most challenging part of the sales process is overcoming buyer objections. For every great feature and benefit you mention to them, prospects seem to find two or three objections to throw at you. You could try to persuade them with verbal gymnastics or you could hand them a new case study your company published that deals with their exact concerns.
How Content In the Sales Process Looks
Content should be included in every step of your sales process. In the early stages of the sales process, you will want to provide educational content to your prospects. Educational content comes in the form of:
- Blog posts
- ebooks
- Checklists
- How-to Guides
- Videos
As they show more interest in your products or services, the type of content you share with your prospects should change. At this point, you can introduce:
- Whitepapers
- Product videos
- Product demos
Once they have been in contact with your sales team and have started to raise objections about your product, this is the perfect opportunity to provide:
- Case studies relevant to your prospects’ business
- Proof of ROI across your entire customer base
For Best Results, Start with Your Sales Team
Your sales team will have the best information to give you regarding gaps in the sales process. By being in the trenches day in and day out, they are a wealth of information regarding where the sales process is slowing down. If they’re the ones constantly facing the objections, you need to find out what those objections are and equip them with the right content.
To make it easier, here are a few questions you should ask them to determine your content needs:
- How much time do you spend educating on higher level issues vs. discussing product specific features and benefits?
- What are the specific knowledge gaps between you and your prospects?
- What are the most common objections that you face during the sales process?
- What have you said to prospective customers to help them move from objections into buying?
The data gathered from these questions can then be mapped into your sales content process. A major thing to look out for here is in the first question. If your sales team is constantly starting at the beginning and their leads have little to no idea about the bigger picture of your product, it’s time to start creating more early sales process content.
Content Can Save Your Sales Process
Don’t miss this point: If you really want to crush objections to your products, educating your prospects will do more to help you and your sales team than any latest and greatest sales trick.
Prospects are human. They waver, they hem and haw, they doubt, and they are holding on to their wallets more tightly than ever. Content sets them straight, helps them take the leap of faith, and ultimately, shows them that the money they invest will provide a significant return on investment.
Content: An Investment in Long Term Customer Satisfaction
So, you might think that if your sales team is closing deals, you have no need for content. After all, why fix something if your team is meeting their quotas and cash is coming in?
Retention. That’s why.
If you have ever had to deal with clients who keep on coming back to you with lingering doubts about their decision, you will know exactly what I’m talking about. You constantly have to go back to square one, educating them on the big picture. And then, it happens. They cancel their subscription, they return the product, or they don’t renew their contract. You have lost all that time spent counseling them.
But imagine if that customer was secured by educating them completely and getting them sold on your product through whitepapers, case studies and product demos. Your retention rates would soar and you would have much more time to spend creating even more content for the sales process.
Have you started to implement content into your sales process? What results have you seen? Leave a comment below!
