Rethink Your Content Strategy to Accommodate Shifting Buyer Behaviours

When HubSpot co-founder Brian Halligan first introduced the flywheel concept back in 2018, there wasn’t a single sales and marketing leader not impacted by the seismic shift in strategy. During the succeeding years, content was named king, thought leadership blogs, ebooks and guides couldn’t be published fast enough, and sales and marketing teams revelled in the abundance of marketing qualified leads that came pouring into their CRM. 

However, as we fast forward to the present day, the content landscape has undergone a dramatic transformation. The once-revered approach has devolved into a frenzied "pump and dump" tactic, as revenue teams scramble to capture as many leads as possible at the lowest possible cost. LinkedIn news feeds are flooded with generic ebooks creating a severely lacklustre user experience. This has been further exacerbated with the release of AI writing tools which make content production faster than ever. With so much noise in the market it is becoming increasingly more difficult to capture the attention of ICP targets. The only solution to combat dwindling user engagement is a comprehensive overhaul of your content strategy. As outlined in our recently published Ultimate Guide to Effective Sales Enablement, quality content plays a critical role in your sales enablement strategy and reaching your business revenue goals.

The Backbone of Sales Enablement: Well-Researched Content

Creating meaningful content is hard work, it requires dedicated time, effort and resources all while facing the compounding time-based pressures to achieve ambitious business growth targets. By investing in well-researched, high-quality content upfront, sales and marketing teams can effectively reduce friction throughout the sales cycle. This proactive approach not only saves time and costs in the long run but also leads to more sustainable results by providing prospects with the information they need to make informed decisions and fostering trust in the sales relationship. 

Well-researched content goes beyond surface-level information, diving deep into the psychographic behaviours of the target audience. By understanding the specific pain points, challenges, and business values relevant to each segment, content creators can develop assets that truly resonate with prospects. This includes analysing market trends, competitor offerings, and customer feedback. 

Training Sales Teams to Personalise Content

While well-researched content is crucial, it's equally important to ensure that sales teams know how to leverage it effectively. Training sales reps to personalise content for their prospects is a fundamental aspect of sales enablement. By tailoring the messaging and assets to the specific needs and preferences of each prospect, sales teams can create a more engaging and interactive experience.

To facilitate content personalization, sales enablement leaders should provide training and resources that help sales reps understand the nuances of their target audience. This may include buyer persona workshops, role-playing exercises, structured talk tracks, battle cards and case study analysis. By equipping sales teams with the skills and knowledge needed to adapt content on the fly, organisations can improve the relevance and impact of their sales conversations.

Segmentation: Key Steps in Creating a Differentiated Message

Given the decline in user attention spans and over-crowded markets, a one-size-fits-all approach to content is no longer sufficient. Buyers expect messaging that speaks directly to their unique challenges and goals. To meet these expectations, organisations must use segmentation to create differentiated content that resonates with specific user groups.

The key steps to crafting a segmented content strategy include:

Develop detailed buyer personas: Go beyond basic demographics and firmographics to build rich persona profiles that capture the key characteristics, pain points, goals, and content preferences of your ideal customers in each segment. Interview customers, consult with sales, and leverage first-party data to inform persona development.

Map content to the buyer's journey: Align your content with the awareness, consideration, and decision stages. In the awareness stage, focus on thought leadership and educational content that addresses industry challenges. For the consideration stage, provide content like case studies, product overviews, and webinars that showcase your solutions. At the decision stage, offer content such as demo environments, free trials, and competitor comparisons.

Identify the most engaging content formats and channels for each segment: Understand which types of content and distribution channels work best for each audience. For example, busy executives may prefer short-form video, while technical buyers may engage more with in-depth whitepapers. Promote content on the channels where each segment is most active, whether that's email, LinkedIn, industry publications, or elsewhere.

Personalise content for key accounts: For high-value prospects, consider adopting an account-based marketing (ABM) approach. Develop highly customised content assets that speak directly to the unique needs and priorities of individual buying committees. Personalised content like executive briefings, account-specific landing pages, and bespoke solution proposals can be particularly effective.

Facilitate Sales Conversations: Equip your sales team with content that supports them at each stage of the sales cycle. This includes sales scripts and email templates for outreach, pitch decks for presentations, battle cards for handling objections, and leave-behinds like product one-pagers. Align sales content with marketing content for each segment to ensure consistent messaging.

Use technographics and intent data for hyper-relevance: Go beyond standard segmentation by leveraging technographic and buyer intent data. Technographics help you create content tailored to a prospect's current tech stack, while intent data allows you to engage prospects with content relevant to their active research and solution interests.

A segmented content strategy is about deeply understanding your audience and delivering the right content to the right people at the right time. By investing in persona development, journey mapping, and sales-marketing alignment, you can create targeted content that cuts through the noise, sparks meaningful engagement, and naturally initiates sales conversations.

Conclusion

A segmented content strategy is no longer optional – it's a necessity for sales enablement success. By deeply understanding your audience and leveraging insights to create hyper-relevant content, you can cut through the noise, engage prospects meaningfully, and empower your sales team to close more deals.

But creating targeted content is just the beginning. The true power lies in equipping your sales team with the skills and resources to effectively personalise and utilise this content in their prospect interactions. When well-researched content and a well-trained sales team work in harmony, the results are transformative.

Ready to take your sales enablement to the next level? Dive into our comprehensive "Ultimate Guide to Effective Sales Enablement" to discover proven strategies and actionable insights for aligning your content, sales, and marketing efforts.