Creating Deal-Closing Content: The Pivotal Role of Conversation Intelligence

This article originally appeared on MarketingProfs.

Winning a sale is a team effort, not just from sellers and sales managers but the sales organization as a whole. Sales operations, customer success, and product marketing are all instrumental in getting prospects to the finish line. Product marketing in particular plays a key role in converting prospects to customers.

As sellers prepare to move prospects through each stage, they require resources to connect their solutions with buyer needs. Marketers create the content, such as solution briefs, product guides, and sales playbooks, that sales reps need to successfully maneuver buyer interactions. But despite content’s importance in engaging, informing, and nurturing prospects, continued misalignment between sales and marketing teams threatens its impact.

The Persistent Disconnect Between Sales and Marketing

Alignment has long been an issue for sales and marketing teams. With both departments typically working in silos, the development and usefulness of sales content can suffer. According to Content Marketing Institute’s “Creating Content for Sales Enablement” survey, 57% of respondents, including marketing leaders and content creators, said marketing and sales rarely or never collaborate on how to assess content effectiveness.

Lack of collaboration on content is the equivalent of working in the dark—no one knows what’s going on or where to go next. The impact of this is twofold: Sales reps don’t get the relevant and timely assets they need for client communications, and marketers don’t know whether the assets they create are helpful.

The problem becomes more pronounced with the move to remote and hybrid work environments. With sellers and marketers working in various locations and on different schedules, finding time to connect on content priorities becomes more difficult.

Both groups need a way to hit the mark with content so sellers always have the most compelling and impactful resources. Enter conversation intelligence.

Conversation Intelligence: The Key to Deal-Closing Content

Powered by artificial intelligence technology, conversation intelligence records, transcribes, and analyzes sales calls to generate content and coaching recommendations for sales teams. Conversation intelligence helps sales managers see how deals are progressing, identify missed opportunities and skill gaps, improve deal progressing, and enhance training.

But conversation intelligence also offers benefits for marketers, giving them access to sales conversations that they otherwise wouldn’t have. With conversation intelligence, marketers can find out firsthand how sellers are using content, see which content is most effective with buyers, and incorporate these learnings into future content.

Here are some ways conversation intelligence can help marketers create content that resonates with sellers and helps close deals:

• Gain buyer insight. Prospective buyers today have more options than ever at their fingertips because of the amount of information readily available online. They can (and will) arm themselves with knowledge before ever speaking to a sales rep. This leaves very little room for sellers to influence their buying decisions.

On top of that, the time sellers have to influence those buying decisions is limited, especially if buyers are weighing their options. According to Gartner, when B2B buyers are comparing multiple suppliers‚ the amount of time spent with any one sales rep may be only 5% or 6%.

Conversation intelligence makes the most of this small window of opportunity by giving marketers a way to hear the unfiltered moments that matter such as competitive or pricing discussions or a buyer’s response to new messaging. This helps marketing teams keep their fingers on the pulse of trends and learn what is being discussed by buyers today versus yesterday.

Marketers can gauge how buyers interact with content and use this information to develop assets that accurately reflect buyer sentiment. Conversation intelligence also identifies relevant content for each pipeline stage and buyer type, helping marketing teams create more targeted assets.

• Fuel and improve content development. Not only does conversation intelligence let marketers hear how prospects respond to content, it also gives them a front-row seat to how sellers use content during sales calls.

Are sales reps relying on the messaging from a recent solution brief to navigate the conversation? Or do they lean on another asset at a particular stage in the sales cycle? Conversation intelligence lets marketers see what’s most impactful to sales reps, allowing marketers to incorporate these learnings into future content or revise previous content.

• Tailor messaging to prospects. All prospects are not created equal, so a one-size-fits-all approach to content may not address their individual concerns. Conversation intelligence gives insight into which assets are moving the needle for a specific persona or account so marketers can develop buyer-specific content and messaging.

Marketing professionals can take this process a step further and incorporate questions and objections a particular buyer used on a call and hot topics that piqued their interest. Doing so will allow marketers to curate content tailored to every B2B buyer and their concerns, which helps sellers meet their exact needs.

Closing deals requires the expertise of every department in an organization, especially sales and marketing teams. Both groups need to work together to develop the most effective content possible. Conversation intelligence bridges the alignment gap by unearthing valuable insights that marketers can use to develop content that hits the mark with sellers. The results are high-quality, targeted resources that help close every deal.

Learn More:

Download The Complete Guide to Conversation Intelligence to learn how conversation intelligence can help you turbo-charge your sales team, be more effective (and efficient), and drive revenue growth.