One of the big changes that Inbound Sales is bringing to the discipline of selling, is that you can get the right content, into the hands of the right prospects, at the right stage of their buying journey.
You can do this by mapping your various types of content across the different stages of the buyer's journey, particulary at the bottom of the funnel, when the buyers content requirements become more specific.
So, how does content mapping for Inbound Sales work?
For every piece of content you have, you should have a good idea of the individual who would benefit from that piece of content – this will start your process of matching content to your buyer persona.
Secondly, you should have a clear idea of where that piece of content fits in the buying process; notably, being aware of a particular problem, researching a solution to that problem, making a product comparison, looking at pricing, or making a final decision.
How To Start Content Mapping
The easiest way to begin content mapping is to create a buyer's journey for each of your personas and identify what content you have available for each stage. This is ideally a collaborative effort between sales and marketing - that way both teams can discuss what works and what doesn't.
The obvious advantage of content mapping is that it can directly help to move prospects along to the decision stage. A well-placed piece of content, sent to a prospect at the right time, can make all the difference between clinching the deal or having it fall through.
It’s useful to sort your content into stages, adding the reasons why this type of content is helpful at this stage of the process. To make the process easier for your sales team, you should have detailed descriptions for all of your content about how and when to use that content.
Always ask for feedback from your sales team, as we recommend making continuous improvements and adjustments to your content in order to make it better and more useable in the conversion process.
By clearly defining how your company's content should be used, you'll cut back on any miscommunication that keeps you from finding any problems with your content. You'll also see a drastic reduction in the misuse of content that's in the wrong place or at the wrong stage.
Start slow and take your time. Begin with the first stage of the buyer's journey, at the top of the funnel, and identify all the content available to you that belongs there.
Keep in mind that the content you're looking at may not be what your sales representatives are actually using. Some of your sales team's content may be outdated, created by themselves, taken from external sources, or used at a different stage than you expected. So, when you do content mapping always make sure you have all the content available – from marketing and sales.
Content mapping is a valuable opportunity to ensure that everyone is on the same page, by asking them exactly what content they're using, how they're using it, as well as when they're using it. This allows you to find new content opportunities, and improve those you have.
The end result of content mapping for Inbound Sales is to empower your sales teams to close more deals, and make them more effective in their selling roles – by leveraging content.
THE BRIT AGENCY is a B2B Inbound Marketing Agency providing Inbound Marketing, Inbound Website Design and Inbound Sales services to companies around the world. We're focused on growing website traffic, qualified leads and sales, using the Inbound lead generation and marketing automation process.
THE BRIT AGENCY is a certified Gold Tier Hubspot Partner, a HubSpot COS certified Inbound Website Design Agency, a Shopify eCommerce Partner, and a certified "Google Badged Agency Partner". We have offices in Toronto and Barrie, Canada, and Salisbury, UK.
