Improving sales and marketing collaboration with B2B Content marketing

Chart of the Day: What are the success factors for improving sales and marketing alignment

This research from the Content Marketing Institute and LinkedIn shows how the continuing popularity of content marketing in business-to-business (B2B) marketing has highlighted common flaws in the way organisations are structured to manage their content marketing.

The report starts by showing how changing buyer behaviour has demanded an increased focus on content marketing since, of prospective buyers:

92% start with an information search
53% find that going online and researching is superior to interacting with a salesperson
75% depend on social networks to learn about different vendors
90% won’t take a cold calling

The report goes on to compare the performance of highly aligned sales and marketing teams with less well aligned teams. Across the board, the highly aligned content marketing and sales teams collaborate far more frequently than the low aligned.
This chart reviews these success factors for alignment around content marketing activities:

The areas where they saw the biggest gaps between the high and low aligned were: How to use the content (81% vs.25%) and when to use the content (79% vs 19%). Success factors suggested to support alignment from this chart are:

Account targeting strategy including buyer personas and sharing market data
Content marketing strategy
Measurement and evaluation plan

The report also considers broader issues of sales and marketing alignment that we consider in our sales and marketing integration guide including goal setting, lead profiling and scoring and measurement.

Research source

Source: Report: Content marketing: Unlocking Sales and Marketing Performance - Content Marketing Institute
Sample: A total of 1,246 global responses (representing 95 countries) were qualified for analysis. Qualified respondents were defined as those who indicated they are a content marketer (or are involved with content marketing in their organization) working in a for-profit organization that employs a sales function.
Recommended Smart Insights resource: Sales and marketing integration guide

By Dave Chaffey

Digital strategist Dr Dave Chaffey is co-founder of Smart Insights and creator of the Smart Insights RACE Planning Framework. 'Dr Dave' is known for his strategic, but practical, data-driven advice. He has trained and consulted with many business of all sizes in most sectors. These include large international B2B and B2C brands including 3M, BP, Barclaycard, Dell, Confused.com, HSBC, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, M&G Investment, Rentokil Initial, O2, Royal Canin (Mars Group) plus many smaller businesses. Dave has contributed his expertise to many of the templates, guides and courses in our digital marketing resource library used by our Business members to plan, manage and optimize their marketing. Free members can access our free sample templates here. Dave is also keynote speaker, trainer and consultant who is author of 5 bestselling books on digital marketing including Digital Marketing Excellence and Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. In 2004 he was recognized by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as one of 50 marketing ‘gurus’ worldwide who have helped shape the future of marketing. His personal site, DaveChaffey.com, lists his latest Digital marketing and E-commerce books and support materials including a digital marketing glossary. Please connect on LinkedIn to receive updates or ask Dave a question.

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