In the world of medical device sales, how do you distinguish yourself? How can you change the game so completely that others are continuously trying to catch up?
Every seasoned leader in medical device sales recognises the essential role their sales team plays in the success of their company. Ensuring they’re armed with the best tools is crucial. This is where customer-centric content enters the scene.
In this article, we’ll uncover how a robust content strategy can not only empower your marketing and sales teams but also refine the entire journey for your buyer. It’s a refreshing shift, to say the least!
Why does customer-centric content matter?
In today’s digital landscape, customers are continually searching for answers and are more inclined to engage with brands that offer clear, informative, and trustworthy information.
By converting these questions into honest and educational content, your business can establish itself as a reliable source and industry expert, particularly in the medical device and healthcare sectors.
Studies suggest that roughly 80% of a customer’s decision-making (ranging from 70% to 90% depending on the sector) takes place before they even get in touch. By addressing these queries and concerns ahead of time, you can positively shape the adoption journey and streamline the sales cycle. We’ll delve deeper into this as we progress through the article.
If you’re keen to understand the significance of quality content, you might find our detailed analysis of the ‘They Ask, You Answer’ marketing philosophy insightful. For a more thorough grasp, Marcus Sheridan’s ‘They Ask, You Answer’ is a recommended read.
What is truly customer-centric content, and how does it benefit your sales team?
Truly customer-centric content, whether articles or videos, answers the actual questions your buyers are asking during the sales process.
Answering these questions might push you out of your comfort zone, but to truly excel, you must approach topics with an openness few dare to adopt. You must show things in a way others are not willing to show and sell things in a way others are not willing to sell. But what is the upside of this approach?
Increasing qualified leads
By presenting forthright and clear content on your website or in pre-meeting materials, you’ll empower your audience to self-assess their fit. This fine-tunes your sales team’s focus, allowing them to cater to genuinely interested prospects and steer them seamlessly through their decision journey.
Just think about it—how often does your sales team find themselves on calls far from home, addressing repetitive queries, only to hit a deal-breaking concern? What’s the impact on your company’s resources and time?
By proactively addressing your audience’s inquiries with transparency (be it on your website or other materials), you ensure that when they opt for a discussion or connect via another medium, it’s rooted in their confidence that you’re the ideal fit for their needs.
Shortening the sales cycle and increasing conversion rates
With only well-matched prospects agreeing to meetings, the dynamics of your sales team’s interactions will shift. Given that 80% of the prospect’s decision is already influenced by your content, your team can channel their efforts into guiding the crucial concluding 20% of the journey, ensuring a streamlined and prompt conversion.
Imagine this: instead of the typical sales cycle requiring five engagements and yielding a 60% conversion rate, it could be trimmed down to just one or two meetings with an impressive 75% conversion rate.
Just think about what else your sales team can now do with that saved time and the impact this will have on your business growth.
Need help implementing revenue-driving content?
How can sales teams help with customer-centric content?
While such a content strategy can undoubtedly transform your company’s trajectory, the practical question remains: how can it be effectively implemented?
Let’s examine how your sales team can get involved to optimise your content.
The vital role of sales teams in creating customer-centric content
When embracing a customer-centric content strategy, the significance of your sales team cannot be understated.
Why? Because they possess unparalleled insights into your audience’s challenges, apprehensions, and reservations regarding your technology, given their daily interactions. This renders them irreplaceable! True, they might not have the skills or time to craft content that’s compelling, unbiased, and educational with flawless syntax and impeccable readability. However, that’s precisely where the marketing team steps in.
Without this crucial and continuous feedback loop between sales and marketing, there’s a real danger your content will veer off course and fail to engage your intended audience altogether.
Running a workshop
When adopting a customer-centric strategy, initiating a workshop is an important first step. One of the most common barriers to success companies face is a lack of alignment between their sales and marketing teams.
Hosting a workshop that brings together sales, marketing, and key members of senior leadership allows you to showcase the transformative potential of content and brainstorm the 80% of questions that are wasting your sales team’s time.
After the workshop, your marketing team can start creating the articles that will make the biggest impact on your sales process. A sound guideline to consider is this: if an article isn’t going to be utilised by the sales team ‘tomorrow’ (literally tomorrow!), then why spend time producing it? Prioritise creating content that will deliver an immediate impact.
Involving subject matter experts (SMEs)
When it comes to creating content, you’ll need to involve team members from different parts of your company. They’re the ones who have the expertise on the topics you’re writing about and are therefore well-placed to guide the information to be included in the article.
Sales representatives often make perfect SMEs. Their daily interactions with your audience equip them with a thorough understanding of the questions they’re asking.
SMEs can be other people in your organisation, depending on the topic your audience is asking about. As long as they’re the expert, then they’re the right person for this role.
Setting up a revenue team
So, you’ve developed your content plan from the workshop and crafted your initial articles with guidance from an expert. Now, it’s essential to assess their impact and continuously gather fresh ideas from your team.
A practical approach is to form a revenue-focused team (after all, the collective goal of sales and marketing is revenue growth). Meeting every two weeks, this team can review content performance and plan for new content based on the latest questions the sales team receives.
This group should ideally include members from both sales and marketing, with occasional input from senior leadership.
As this team finds its rhythm, it will play a pivotal role in shaping the content strategy, ensuring that all new queries from your audience are promptly addressed in upcoming content.
Key takeaways: the impact of customer-centric content on your sales team
The idea that marketing and sales sit in silos is totally disrupted by this strategy. Instead, these teams will work closer than ever, both striving towards the same goal of revenue growth.
The key is to elevate your sales team’s efficiency by providing them with educational and unbiased content that helps your audience to quickly move through their buyer’s journey before they even get in contact with you or your team.
But the sales team isn’t just part of this strategy; they’re its heartbeat. Their active participation and integration of this approach into their daily operations is paramount.
Transform your business with content driven by ‘They Ask, You Answer’
The digital landscape is changing, and your business strategy must evolve to thrive too. At Podymos, we’re not just observers of this transformation; we’re certified coaches for ‘They Ask, You Answer’.
Whether you’re a start-up seeking to carve out a place in the market or an established multinational company aiming to strengthen your online authority, we have the experience and tools to guide you. We’ve partnered with Marcus Sheridan, creator of ‘They Ask, You Answer’, and his team at Impact to become experts in helping businesses rapidly adopt this powerful strategy throughout their organisation.