Gabrielle Dunbar

Did you know that PR contributes to, or is responsible for 74% of new business opportunities? That’s what 150 senior marketing decision-makers told Champion when we conducted our B2B PR for Growth research. And yet, somewhat surprisingly, the same piece of research found that 43% of business development teams do not see or use editorial content for sales enablement. 
 
So content that is being used to generate opportunities, isn’t then being used to nurture those conversations? Anecdotally, when we have explored this with our clients, we often hear the old expression ‘you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink’ being quoted back to us. 
 
If that’s the case, what can businesses do to ensure that their sales team are using editorial content to nurture conversations? Here’s our advice. 
  

  1. Actually make sure they are seeing the content: Business development teams are busy enough, so make it as easy as possible for them to see coverage.  

  

  1. Get them involved from the start: By talking to sales about their challenges and developing story ideas designed to help them overcome them in tandem, they will be more bought into the process and will anticipate the results.  

  

  1. Draft social posts for them: Drafting LinkedIn posts that they can copy and paste directly onto their profile when coverage is achieved will make their life easier and help to get them bought into the process. In some cases, you could even go further and create direct messages for them to send to prospects containing coverage.  

  

  1. Email campaigns: Email campaigns are a great way to ensure your prospects see editorial coverage. This could be done as a weekly or monthly round-up, or with big pieces of coverage such as customer features, it could be done as and when they go live. The point is to create an additional touchpoint between your brand and your prospects.  

  

  1. Create a feedback loop: Keep the dialogue open, and measure and monitor the effectiveness of coverage on the sales cycle. This will enable you to create more of the editorial content that is resonating with prospects and less of the stuff that isn’t.  

 
In the hands of the right sales teams, earned media has the power to be an effective sales enablement and lead generation tool. The key is ensuring sales teams actually see and use the high-value editorial content being created. With some thoughtful effort to integrate PR and sales enablement, you can fully leverage hard-won media coverage to boost conversions. 
 
If you want to learn more about how PR can support your sales team, or to find out how we can help amplify your sales efforts, book in a call here: https://calendly.com/gabrielle-dunbar/30min?month=2023-11