Speaker 1: you Thank you. All right, everyone. As you know, if you're checking in today, let me know. Give me a virtual wave. Let me know where you are joining us from. Say hello. It really makes for a more engaging live stream. And all of you, you know, chat with us. Send us your questions and comments as well. I see Lisa already checking in. So I'd love to see where you are joining us from. All right. So question of the day. How do your sales and marketing teams work together on sales enabling content? I would love to hear from you. Are you guys got a good strategy, good cohesive working relationship? Are you struggling a little bit? Share with us in the chat. Hello, Ellie. She says hello as well. So thank you for joining us. All right. The ability to produce high-performing sales enabling content starts with a smooth transition, as I said, or smooth collaboration, as I said, with sales and marketing. But, you know, the two are often at odds. And we recently released an ebook with Demand Science about how to overcome the knowledge gaps, the strategic disconnects, the process-related obstacles, all those things that prevent these two teams from working well together to create this kind of content. Today we're going to dive into this relationship and let's see how we can grow a stronger pipeline for your organization. All right. Today's guest. Enough of me. The guest is Anna Elliott. She is a senior director of marketing at Demand Science. She has more than 10 years of traditional and digital marketing experience with a passion for driving brand awareness and lead generation. And at Demand Science, she's responsible for bringing their brand story to life and their product offerings. So hello, Anna. Thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker 2: Hello. Thank you for having me today.

Speaker 1: Is it like 23 degrees where you are? Because it is for me.

Speaker 2: It's too cold. It's too cold. That's for sure.

Speaker 1: You know, last week when I was working, it was said seven degrees, so I feel a little bit better. We're in the 20s, so I will take it. We have people from joining us from all over. We have Ellie from Lebanon joining us, Nicolette. She's eager to hear what others say about creating sales enablement content. We have some people from LA, from Houston, Texas. So thank you all for joining us. All right. Let's get started here. Anna. Why is it so important for the sales and the content marketing to be aligned, especially since this pandemic has started?

Speaker 2: Well, honestly, I think it's always been important for sales and content marketing to align. The pandemic starting has really just shown a spotlight on the fact that there needs to be alignment. I think it's really about how you want to reach your customers and how you want to talk to your customers. Having alignment between the content production teams, the teams that are deciding the strategies, what they're going to develop and what they're going to write about, and the end users, the salespeople who are actively talking to your potential customers is just so super important. Getting that alignment can be challenging for a lot of organizations. Marketing departments have been really pivoting towards digital marketing strategies for some time now. So we're a little bit more attuned to that. Yeah. We're a little bit more attuned to what has to happen from that perspective so that we can produce content quickly and meet customers where they live online. And making sure that the sales have that agility as well is extremely important, especially since COVID, because we've started to lose that face-to-face interaction that sales organizations are used to having, either through in-person events or through in-person meetings. Now is our chance to really get that alignment together so that they can better understand how to reach out on social media platforms. Yeah. What content they need to provide when doing email outreach.

Speaker 1: If you're just joining us, Anna Elliott here with Demand Science, and we are talking about how to get sales and marketing on the same page to build a stronger pipeline with content. So what are some of the causes of this misalignment between sales and marketing?

Speaker 2: I think some of the big causes are kind of strategic alignment. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, each department really has their own goals. What does the content marketing team need to have accomplished with content? What is the marketing overall goals that need to happen with content? And then sales has, nine times out of 10, it's going to be strict revenue goals. So getting strategic alignment between the two teams is really key. And one of the ways that I know our organization does it is through aligning our KPIs. We need to make sure that we're producing content that meets the needs from an organic search. We need to make sure that we're producing content that meets the needs from our email outreach and social media activities, also meets the need of our sales individuals who are reaching out to people by email and phone calls. So getting aligned there, I think is really, really important. And it's often a big obstacle, kind of bridging that gap between the two teams. And I think one of the things that kind of nets out from that too, is a miscommunication about how you talk about the alignment or how you talk about your prospects or the content and things along those lines. We've seen that, I've seen that throughout my career that I use one word that is common within the marketing world and the sales organization utilizes another word. So getting alignment on even just the language that's used internally can help a lot. And looking at the ability to align language, not just internally, but the way that you talk to your customers so that they're always hearing the same words and things along those lines from marketing and from a sales perspective. I think also one of the big things that COVID has really pushed everybody to pay attention to is that we can no longer have these kind of siloed technology stacks. Sales and marketing both perform best when all of us have a data share that's going on. So all of these activities that are taking place from the marketing side, we're grabbing email engagement numbers, we see what content people are accessing, we know what webinars they're attending, et cetera. The sales organization, they are on the calls with these prospects. They know the words they're using, what they're saying, what their challenges are, what their pain points are. So getting all of that information into one location so that everybody has access to it and really start aligning stories for various stages of the buying cycle is really key and also a challenge.

Speaker 1: That's right. That's right. What has worked for you on your end? Do you kind of get everyone on a call and you're all around the table and you're working things out? Does that get ugly? I mean, in your experience, how has that worked? I'm just curious.

Speaker 2: I think it goes down to structure, right? It's people having the dedicated job of making sure on the marketing side that we're communicating effectively what we're doing, why we're doing it, and how we're doing it, and having somebody on the sales side to catch that. That's where that sales enablement role, that team, really becomes pivotal for organizations. Making sure that those two teams are coming into alignment. What we've done, the experience that I've had is kind of getting ourselves around that Zoom table, so to speak, that video conference table and starting at the very top. It's not just a, we're doing this and the other team going, well, we're doing this. It's coming together, aligning our goals, figuring out what those shared KPIs are going to be. And then sharing the information, the insights that we have from our respective activities to come and align together to say, what's the next campaign going to be? What's the next initiative to be? Hey, sales team, you need to, or sales enablement, it'd be great to train the sales organization that this huge initiative we're working on. These are the type of activities we're expecting. And this is the kind of things we're telling, you know, these prospects that we're feeding into the lead machine. And then the sales team saying, you know, this is what we're hearing back when they come into our sales cycle. Maybe we need to pivot and switch here. So it's a lot of give and take. It's almost like, it's almost like a new team all together.

Speaker 1: All working together. Yes. It's so important. I mean, I know you know that, but it's so important to get that content right. And everybody wants it, right? It's just making sure you're getting the right piece to the right, you know, person at the right time. So everyone. Joining it. We have people from Salt Lake City, Winnipeg, San Francisco, South Africa. So people from all over us joining us today, Anna. As always, if you guys have a question, please feel free to drop it in to the comments. Okay. What kind of sales enablement content do you think is most effective?

Speaker 2: Well, it depends on the scenario. Very broad of a question. I know, right? Well, it really is true. You know, what's most effective for our organization could be completely different for somebody else. What we found is that we like to be aligned through the entire buying cycle. So something that you would think traditionally would only live in the marketing realm, such as awareness level outreach that could be blog articles or social media outreach and things along those lines. I think that's pivotal for the sales enablement teams to work with the broader sales teams to not only be aware that it's happening, but to activate it from the sales organization as well. Marketing shares a lot of, hey, get to know us. We exist. We see your problems and we can help you address them. Having that information shared to the sales team so that they can put it in their own voice and utilize it to reach out to their prospects as well is very, very valuable. Now, when it comes to getting. People to really convert, you know, I think everybody would agree. It's that that traditional bottom of the funnel. It's that deal closing content that is so pivotal when sales and marketing teams align. And a lot of times it's common across all industries. What are the case studies? You know, people who are actively thinking about purchasing your product want to make sure that they're making the right decision. Are you going to make my life easier? How are you going to make it like my life easier? And how have you done it for others like me before? So, yes, case studies, testimonials, video testimonials, reviews, that type of content. It can't just live out there in the ether anymore. People are actively finding those things within their own research, which, as we all know, usually happens way before they are ready to talk to a salesperson. But what we found from the from the content perspective, from the marketing perspective, is that we can. We can coalesce that information in easy to read formats and in ways that enable our sales organization to share them at a faster rate to to address certain pain points or issues that their client has has brought up. Having that flexibility to share that really decisional information, I think, is is key.

Speaker 1: Great. And we have so much here. Let me pop it up that that e-book that we. Put together for building a stronger pipeline, there's some really great information in there as well, more than we've touched on here. We really go in depth. So if you're really looking for some help with this, aligning your teams so you can create that content, there's the link there. You can also just go to Content Marketing Institute and look under resources and we have our e-books there. Anna, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us today. I really. Really appreciate it. And this super cold day for joining us, as always, of anybody, even afterwards, if you have a question or comment, please feel free to drop it in the chat. And of course, you can find more info on us at Content Marketing Institute dot com. And I will see all of you again, probably not next Monday, but the Monday after that. And thanks again, Anna. And have a great day, everyone.

Speaker 2: Thank you.