Did you know 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, the same research found that 43% of business development teams do not see or use editorial content for sales enablement.
There's a disconnect between the content used to generate new opportunities and the content used to nurture those conversations. When exploring this misalignment with clients, we often hear the old expression "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink".
But what can businesses do to ensure sales teams are using editorial content to nurture conversations?
Here's our advice:
- Actually make sure they are seeing the content: Business development teams are busy enough, so make it easy for them to see coverage.
- Get them involved from the start: Get input from sales on story ideas and challenges to address. This buys them into the process and gets them invested in the outcomes.
- Draft social posts for them: Provide teams with drafted posts so they can easily individually share new coverage on LinkedIn and beyond. In some cases, you could even add coverage into pre-written direct messages for them to send to prospects.
- Email campaigns: Email campaigns showcase new coverage to prospects, creating extra touchpoints between your brand and audience. Write a weekly or monthly round-up of impactful pieces of coverage such as customer features.
- Create a feedback loop: Keep communication open and track coverage's impact on the sales cycle. This focuses your efforts on creating editorial content that truly resonates with prospects.
In today's competitive business landscape, harnessing the potential of PR to support your sales efforts is a necessity. With these strategies in place, sales teams make the most of editorial content and convert opportunities into business growth.
If you want to learn more about how PR can support your sales team, get in touch with us here.
Our latest case study
Logicalis
Increasing lead conversion
Logicalis had a trust problem. It was spending excessive amounts of time and money on lead and demand generation activity that was resonating with IT and Line of Business (LOB) decision-makers.
An Award Winning B2B PR Consultancy
B2B Content Campaign of the Year – Champion Communications & MobileIron: Trouble at the Top
Best Use of Data in a Content Campaign – Champion Communications & MobileIron: Trouble at the Top
Shortlisted – B2B Campaign
of the Year (Aptum)
Best B2B Trade Campaign – Aptum
Best B2B Trade Campaign – Ivanti
Best Use of Data – Ivanti
Winner – Best Use of Data (Ivanti)
Winner – Best one-off Content Campaign (Ivanti)
Winner – Best Use of Data (Greenlight Commerce)
Winner – Best Content Campaign to Assist with Corporate Positioning (Greenlight Commerce)
Shortlisted – Best one-off Content Campaign (Aptum)
Champion Communications
is a member of the PRCA
Shortlisted – B2B Technology Campaign: It’s not always sunny in the cloud – The Aptum Cloud Impact Study
Shortlisted – B2B Technology Campaign: The Public Sector Problem
Shortlisted – Best corporate decision-maker targeted campaign: Trouble at the Top, MobileIron
Winner: gold – best pr campaign, go instore
Winner: bronze – best corporate decision maker targeted campaign, Ivanti
