Changes in the consumer buying cycle have completely transformed Marketing’s 
approach, and the biggest harbinger of this change is that consumers might move on before you ever knew they were customers. Competing successfully in this new environment requires three foundational building blocks:
1. Thought leadership as a lead nurturing strategy
2. Expert Sales & Marketing alignment
3. Technologies that enable marketing personalization
We touch on the role of each pillar below.
1. Thought leadership as a lead nurturing strategy
Providing content that resonates with consumers and connects them with the information they seek, when they need it, through the channels they prefer, can help to keep you on their short list throughout the buying cycle. Today's consumers demand value-added content that articulates why they should choose your solution over that of a competitor. What is your core differentiation? Have you taken steps to clearly define it? Does each new piece of content you share provide thought leadership and entice prospects to learn more about your company while nurturing them through the decision journey to purchase? Many consumers have researched your company online before ever contacting you. If you have been entrusted with their contact information, enrolling your prospects in drip and trigger campaigns can help to provide value-added content aligned with each stage of the consumer decision journey.
2. Expert Sales & Marketing alignment
Creating your drip and trigger or continuity campaign materials and uploading them to your marketing resource management system is only the first step. Once you’ve created the materials, you need to make sure Sales knows what resources are available to help them nurture leads and coach Sales on best practices for using the content. According to MarketingProfs, “Marketers tend to avoid the issue of actually training salespeople on how they can more effectively deliver your brand and product messages.” This is in part, according to the article, due to a failure to collaborate effectively with Sales leadership.
Providing marketing materials to your Sales team without best practices for using content is like leaving a gallon of your favorite ice cream out to melt on the kitchen counter. It’s decadent, but it never makes the dish. Great content is like ice cream, and Marketing is responsible for making sure Sales knows the ice cream is on the table. Marketing should also coach Sales on how marketing pieces can be personalized for their target segments from within their MRM system. Finally, Sales and Marketing alignment is pivotal to a winning thought leadership and lead nurturing strategy, and the better collaboration is between both departments, the better the content will be.
3. Technologies that enable marketing personalization
We know that Sales can be skeptical of marketing technology – often for good reasons. Perhaps your marketing technology solution has created Sales downtime in the past or training wasn’t managed properly during rollout. But here’s the real truth: Marketing technology is your company's ally, especially when it’s coupled with great content. Marketing technology solutions empower Sales representatives to quickly match prospects with the messages that best fit their circumstances and stage in the consumer decision journey and to personalize messages dynamically in just a few clicks. Marketing resource management systems can do a bulk of the heavy lifting of the lead nurturing process – from automating your communications with prospects to enabling personalization tailored to your target segments and customers – so Sales can spend less time prospecting and more time closing. And it’s a two way street: The more feedback Sales shares with Marketing about marketing collateral, the easier it will become to shorten the path from campaign to conversion.
Conclusion
With more consumers researching products online than ever before, thought leadership, Sales and Marketing alignment and marketing technologies that automate lead nurturing and enable Sales to dynamically personalize marketing messages are providing competitive advantage. A full-service marketing service provider can help to ensure the full benefits of your marketing resource management system are utilized. Finally, expert Sales and Marketing collaboration is key to creating enticing content that connects with consumers at key stages of the consumer decision journey – and to ensuring that this content is leveraged actively in the Sales process.
How collaborative is your approach to thought leadership, and how are you coaching Sales on strategies for personalizing marketing messaging?
