Creating a frictionless sales journey with the power of content.

Ever received an article or message in the post, a brochure or catalogue and thought ‘why the heck am I seeing this?’ or ‘what have they share this with me for?!’ Of course you have – and it’s incredibly frustrating for us as a customer and consumer of that content. But as the person responsible for sharing that content we seem to forget this consumer confusion and get quite clumsy when it comes to our content delivery. We think just because we have this super shiny catalogue that took us hours to create and print and is something we are super proud of, that naturally, the whole world will also share in our pride and joy?

And then – nothing.

No one cares…and we feel disheartened about it and it prevents us from creating anything again.

By creating consumer confusion we are in essence creating friction in the sales process. We are inadvertently creating a blocker that will make the consumer question the purpose of what they’re seeing. Ultimately, this piece of content you send may have no chance to move the sale forward.

According to statistics, in 2021, the average person sees between 6000 and 10,000 ads every single day. That’s just ads, never mind the myriad of other content that is available and interrupting our days. What you create matters. It needs to matter most important off all to your reader.

Content in context – the powerful check to ensure what you create counts.

If we spend so much of our important time talking to our customers before they’re ready to buy and showing up online and offline in a joined-up approach that matches the buying journey, we often risk falling down by creating the aforementioned consumer confusion.

What is content?

Content ultimately is the medium in which you share a message. Some examples for us here at Plan. Grow. Do. include case studies, sales training webinars, e-books (Key Account Management e-book), articles and brochures.

What do you have available currently to assist you in your sales activity? What gaps are there and how can you go about filling those gaps to create a well-rounded content plan for your business?

What is context?

Having the content is one thing and definitely encouraged, but without an end-user in mind or a purpose for that content, you may well just be creating more stuff that will never be seen because it just didn’t have a purpose in the first place.

So when you are doing step one – creating the content – always ask yourself – why do you have this content, why are you creating it and for what purpose? What sort of outcome are you looking for and what is the next logical steps once someone has read or engaged with it? With each content piece, there needs to be context and that context needs to align with the sales process.

With this in mind as you start your customer facing content journey ask yourself…

Three questions to ask when planning your content in context.

1. What would help my customer here and what do they need to achieve?
2. What is the next logical step for them after reading or engaging with this content?
3. At what point would my customer (or future customer) be most likely to engage with this content?

If you can answer clearly those three questions you will be on your way to curating a plan for content in context that helps you on your sales journey.

Further reading for the modern sales professional.