Lean on Sales to Create Fresh Blog Posts

Lean on Sales to Create Fresh Blog Posts

Are you responsible for creating fresh blog posts on behalf of your employer or client? Do you often struggle to come up with enough ideas for high-quality blog posts? Is this hindering your ability to make progress?

There may come a point when you’re at a dead end. You’re ready to write, but unable to come up with any solid ideas.

Rather than hope for the best (or give up entirely), here’s a trick: contact a few co-workers in the sales department to ask for guidance.

By leaning on sales professionals, you’ll soon find yourself with more blog post ideas than you can handle – and that’s a good problem to have. It can be overwhelming at first, but you will have a garden of fresh ideas to choose from.

Your goal is to make it as simple as possible for your sales team to help you. Tell them what you need and why you’re stuck and provide guidance on where you want to go from there.

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Here are five questions you can ask to get things started:

1. What features or benefits do prospects and customers talk about the most?

When you know what prospects are most interested in, it’s easier to create content that speaks to them.

For example, prospects may love the fact that your company provides world-class customer service. That’s something you can play up when creating blog posts. For example, you could begin work on a piece entitled “Why SaaS Customer Service is Critical to Your Success.”

Ask your sales contacts to provide you with a list of five or so benefits and/or features that prospects always touch on. This should be more than enough for you to formulate a few high-quality blog posts.

Tip: You can even ask this person to contribute to the piece if they have the bandwidth to do so. Professional level quotes can help take your blog post to the next level.

2. What are the primary reasons a prospect chooses another provider?

In a perfect world, every prospect would turn into a customer. However, this isn’t the real world. It’s not possible to convert every lead.

But, if you know why prospects choose another provider, you can create content to help put their mind at ease.

There’s no shortage of objections. For example, SalesHacker shares the most common sales objections. Take a look at this passage regarding a lack of trust:

“Buyers feel uncertain about you, your solution, or your company. In this case, buyers may have a need and want to address it, but they don’t believe that you can achieve or deliver what you say you will.”

What can you do about this as a content writer?

Most importantly, you want your content to instill trust in the prospect. There are many ways to do this, such as adding quotes from current customers or linking out to case studies (check out this blog post).

You get the point. When you know why prospects are going another direction, it’s easier to create content that changes their mind. Your sales department will thank you for this!

3. What are some of the most common questions you receive?

Since you’re not in on the sales cycle, you may have no clue about the types of questions these people receive almost every day of the week. This information is the key to your blog creation ideas box. You should ask, as the information is invaluable.

Here are some of the many types of questions that a salesperson will hear:

  • What makes your solution better than the competitors?
  • Does it really make sense for me to switch from my current provider?
  • Is there anything you can do to offer me a better price?
  • What features make your product unique?
  • What happens if I don’t like the product or service?

And that’s just five questions. There are many others that will come to light.

Once you have a list of these questions, it’s time to brainstorm. For instance, the question of “what makes your solution better” is one of the most common. This can lead you to write a blog post such as:

  • Why XYZ is a Market Leader
  • XYZ Outshines the Competition in Recent Study
  • New Feature: How XXX is Making Life Easier on Our Customers

You can turn any question into a variety of topics. It starts with gathering the necessary information, and from there you simply need to find an angle and start writing.

4. Is there anything I can do to help move prospects through the pipeline?

Not only does this help you, but it does the same for the company as a whole. When your content helps move prospects through the sales pipeline, it will result in more revenue for the company. Not to mention the fact that it can save the sales team a lot of time and energy.

Perhaps a large number of prospects are getting caught up after sales talks pricing. In other words, they have concerns about spending so much for the solution offered.

You could create a blog post that compares your company’s product or service to those of the competitors. Even if it’s not cheaper, it gives you the opportunity to control the narrative.

Take the approach of “yes, we’re more expensive, but here’s what you get in return.” This is a valuable blog post, along with one that your sales team can use to their advantage.  

5. Do prospects ever mention the content on the company blog? What do they say?

You’re familiar with the benefits of blogging, but your sales department may not know the first thing about it. When a prospect mentions something about the company blog, they more or less skip over it.

With so many benefits of business blogging, it would be in your best interest to educate your sales contacts. Tell them why the blog is important to the company, as well as the ways in which it can help them (see #4 above).

If prospects continually make note of specific blog posts, such as those dealing with an important feature, it’s something your audience is interested in. So, it makes sense to revisit these past posts and create more content on the subject in the future.

It doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad, let the sales department know that you want to hear about anything prospects say about your content. It’ll help shape your future strategy.

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A Valuable Partnership

Yes, it’s your job to create blog content, but that doesn’t mean you should do it alone. Think outside the box. Think about the partnerships you can form, both within and outside of your company These partnerships will help you create higher-quality content that drives traffic and conversions.

You can speak with anyone in your company, but few are as valuable as those in the sales department. They spend the most time talking to prospects, so they have a clear idea of what they’re thinking.

This is a valuable partnership that can benefit everyone involved.  

Final Thoughts

Now, do you see the power of staying in touch with the sales professionals within your company? Can you think of a few people who can answer these questions, among others, to help you create better content?

You may be responsible for creating blog content, but it’s not a one-person job. Lean on others, such as sales professionals, to help you formulate better ideas.

When you do this, you’ll no longer hurt for fresh topic ideas. You’ll have everything you need to create high-quality content that moves the needle. 

What are your thoughts on this approach? Have you tried it in the past? Will you give it a go in the future?

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