Sales and marketing team alignment is probably more important to company growth today then ever before. The reason is because marketing has a more direct connection with the customer today through a multitude of digital channels. This doesn’t mean marketing is more important than sales. On the contrary, sales is needed more today to close the loop between marketing efforts and sales engagement. This is especially true for system integration companies that have limited marketing resources.
Salespeople are on the front lines of building business relationships and learning about trends, customer pain points, and real-world messaging. This information and day-to-day activity is extremely valuable to combine with marketing – whether it’s in sharing details for content, connecting the right customers with marketing, or sparking ideas for campaigns.
This blog series details three powerful ways system integration salespeople can assist their marketing teams improve lead generation ... and ultimately increase their success. We start with Case Studies…
Case Studies
Oftentimes, your customers want to know exactly what you’ve done for others in their industry and the results you’ve achieved with the solutions and services you’ve proposed. The Case Study is the perfect way to summarize your projects and educate prospects about why they should buy from you.
Here’s How to Build Content for Your Case Study in 30 minutes or less
A sales person can follow these simple steps to deliver content to your marketing team so they can design a case study (they will absolutely love this):
Step 1 (Five minutes):
Get Your Customer’s Permission & two quotes about your work. Ask your client for their permission and make sure they know you plan to use the case study on your website, will share with others, and that they will have final approval. Once you get approval, ask them for a few quotes that you can use.
Step 2 (Ten minutes):
Using the proposal originally sent to the client, pull out the following information
- Details of their challenges – copy from the proposal or write two to three paragraphs about their challenges.
- Details of what you proposed - this will be your “Solutions” content. Same as above.
Step 3 (Fifteen minutes):
Write a summary of the results of the project – What were the outcomes? What results do they enjoy today?
That’s your challenge – find thirty extra minutes this week, pull out a recent proposal you closed and go through the steps above. The marketing team’s job is to make the material you send them look sharp and post it online behind a form to capture new leads. Your job is to deliver the content following the steps above.
This type of team effort will result in new leads for your business and newfound respect between marketing and sales – a key driver to company growth.
Does your team need help with marketing? From designing Case Studies and lead magnets, to blog writing, strategy and automation - we can help.
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