B2B Content Marketing

With the economic rebound in play and knowledge and content gaps at an all time high, a sales information portal can transform process activities efficiently and effectively with just in time information.  Let’s first lets talk about the components, Figure 1 identifies a typical work flow of  a sales information portal:

Sales: Current inside and outside sales force and marketing.

Legal: Current terms and conditions document

IT: Technology used to support process

ATS: available to sell

WIP: work in process (product)

AR: accounts receivable

SME: Subject matter expert

CRM: Customer relationship management

The integration points is a taxonomy, process activity and anticipating what is in the mind of the buyer, i.e. is product engineering information is required during the sales process.

A major benefit for undertaking sales alignment and content marketing initiatives is to reduce the cost of sales.  According to Sirius Decisions, “ Unrelenting expense pressures are forcing sales leaders to rethink the affordability and disposition of all their sales support resources.”  The evolution of sales to content marketing provides sales a platform that allows the sales person to become a subject matter expert.  A recent Forrester study cites up to 19% of SG&A expense is tied up in the hidden cost to support sales, so the RIO numbers are huge.

From Sirius Decision’s perspective, they describe the development of microsites augmented with rich media that allows salespeople to access content or people resources to differentiate their goods and services from their competitors. Not only does sales information portals and content marketing allow you to find, care and feed website visitors but reduces the cost of the sales process too.