How to Shorten Your Data Solutions Sales Cycle with Content Marketing
Does your sales process look like this?
One of the objections I hear against content marketing as a sales-generation mechanism is that it takes too much effort to create content, not to mention all the other content-related activities.
You and your team are too busy doing consulting delivery and sales calls to get bogged down in creating and promoting content.
But here's the irony - when prospects find you through your content, they come onto discovery calls having already moved a significant way through the sales funnel - saving you a massive amount of time.
Depending on the type of proposition you're selling, it can even make the need for a sales process practically redundant.
When your prospects fully understand your approach, and why it makes sense for their specific problem, you don't need to 'sell' in the conventional sense. Instead, it just becomes a question of working out the commercial logistics, because all the education and persuasion are delivered via your content.
It's like having a 'Virtual Salesperson' who quietly nurtures and develops sales opportunities - while you get on with the delivery side of running your data consultancy or software business.
Here's an example...
A few weeks ago, I spoke to a data consultancy founder who had adopted one of my ideas that I shared in an article and applied it in his own business to improve the impact of his content marketing.
It helped them get results. This week, they became a client.
And it was all part of a master plan that I outline later in this article.
Creating Data Sales - The Old Way
In the past, back when we had real events, industry conferences, seminars, and other networking hangouts were one of the mainstays of lead generation for data consultancies because these events would occasionally result in what could loosely be described as 'prospects'.
Perhaps you bump into a senior manager during a presentation break at a data conference. You get chatting, swap cards, and follow up when you get home (after lamenting the costs you'd racked up to attend the event).
You pushed for a time-slot to talk further, but they kept putting it off several times.
Or they took the call, had a friendly chat, and nothing came of it.
In the end, you gave up trying.
And you think to yourself:
"I really hate sales".
For those data firms with enough money, the founders may take things up a notch by hiring an agency to do 'outreach'.
This outbound channel requires the conversion of 'cold' traffic into some form of a qualified lead.
It also means your message is about to get pushed onto thousands of unsuspecting business or data leaders.
Cold-pitching is still the most prevalent sales generation methodology I see today within the data consulting and software industry but based on the research I've seen so far, the results are not great and it can leave a sour taste with executives who resented the intrusion.
At myDataBrand, we attract a lot of new clients who have spent months, or even years, running outbound pitch campaigns and have little to show for it. They join our Accelerator program because they're tired of trying to push their message onto senior leaders who are no longer receptive.
I speak to senior data leaders who are bombarded daily with this type of cold outreach - it seldom attracts a response.
For the 3,000+ leaders you annoy, you may get a handful of meetings, so it feels like a system, of sorts.
In the early days, I adopted this 'spray and pray' approach to sales, because that's what everyone else did.
I created a white paper and sent it out to hundreds of senior leaders, then embarked on the dreaded 'follow up' campaign.
I called or emailed hundreds of people asking if my ideas resonated and if it was worth a more in-depth discussion.
It didn't end well.
I got lots of 'this is useful, thanks, we'll consider you for the future' but also plenty of 'we're putting you on a blacklist, now go away'.
We recently worked with a client who had applied the same tactic but upgraded for the modern era using LinkedIn 'Connect and Pitch'.
They had earlier hired an agency to connect and pitch thousands of CDOs across the globe using LinkedIn to tell them about their data management platform. But when their marketing budget ran out, they had only netted five meetings, three proposals and zero sales.
Fortunately, there is another way to generate sales that doesn't require any of the 'push-tactics' you typically experience with more traditional selling.
Creating Sales - the 'Content-Driven' Way
Imagine your Ideal Client Profile (ICP) needs to make some fundamental improvements to a critical aspect of their data.
Perhaps they need to enhance their Data Governance approach - maybe they've had a data breach, a slap on the wrist from the regulator, or they've bought a modern Data Governance platform and need to implement an operational framework to leverage their investment.
For support, they may speak to the 'usual suspects' - the incumbent solution providers who deliver internal IT and data services.
But they don't focus on data governance, other than a passing nod to metadata and data quality, which is too technical for the ICP.
So, your ICP turns to the web...
And immediately they find someone sharing in-depth articles, about what’s required to implement a large-scale data governance program - in their industry.
There are published examples, stories, frameworks - the depth of expertise is apparent.
And as your ICP starts to piece together a plan, they realise that the Data Governance expert, who’s content they’re not ‘binge-reading’ has an uncanny ability to 'read their mind' and provide the precise information they require.
They see that the person sharing this content is easily accessible, so they book a discovery session.
When the expert and the prospect connects on a call, there is already a common understanding.
The prospect has studied numerous articles about how the expert handles data stewardship conflicts and business ownership. They understand how Data Governance and Data Quality tools fit into a broader Data Governance framework.
The prospect doesn't need to waste time grilling the expert on their background and expertise - it's visible from the quality of the content and the case studies that the expert is a master of their craft.
When this happens, and many of my clients experience this regularly, a lot of the traditional sales tactics of 'getting past the gatekeeper', or 'uncovering the pain', or 'mapping out the stakeholder hierarchy' - all those conventional 'pushing on a closed-door' sales tactics are no longer required.
When prospects respond to your content and reach out for a help with their problems, you've pulled them towards your solution. In that moment, everything changes. You’re not trying to convince them of anything, they’re already convinced.
And yes, sometimes your prospect is not the ultimate sponsor.
But after reading your content, they become your 'internal evangelist', greasing the wheels to make the procurement process far less laborious.
In fact, this exact situation occurred a few years ago when I delivered a presentation on how to perform a Data Migration Impact Assessment.
Here is a trimmed-down version of the presentation I delivered for a client (Experian) a few years back.
In the original (much longer) presentation, I went through every single step of my process. I left no stone unturned. I explained all the tools, techniques, people required, timescales, obstacles - everything.
A few days later, one of the largest utility organisations in the UK called to book me in to assess their migration.
To try and discover that client through conventional telemarketing or cold emailing would have been expensive and time-consuming.
I would have had to force my way in past gatekeepers, find the ‘decision-maker’ and then have multiple calls to explain my process.
But using my 'warts and all' approach to publishing, all I had to do was share every step of my process. The program leader then contacted me via LinkedIn, asked if I was free next week, and off we went.
And here's the critical point many data consultancy founders miss:
Your Ideal Client Profile (ICP) - the type of client who desperately needs your service and has the urgency and authority - they don't just require information - they need a guide.
Your ICP can't replicate your expertise from reading a 3000-word article.
They can't watch 2 or 3 webinars on Data Governance, then go off and lead a Data Governance Strategy workshop the next day.
Your content provides information that helps the prospect move forward by making a decision towards the next step.
But when it comes to execution, no senior leader is going to stake their career on a blog post, white paper or webinar.
In the words of Peter Block, author of Flawless Consulting, your ICP needs a consultant who fulfils the role of an 'expert, a pair of hands or a collaborator'.
All of which - they don't possess!
Your services fall into one of those categories - you can play the role of an expert, a pair of hands or a collaborator.
But the problem is, many consultants don't even hint at the roles they can play. There are no calls to action or offers made, the reader even has to hunt around to figure out how to reach the author.
When you make the next step clear, as I do in this article for example, by offering your services within your content, you'll find the sales process becomes much more straightforward.
I find that by applying the myDataBrand process in my own business, the sales process is now, at most, two short calls (but most clients convert on the first call).
And I hear the same from many of my clients, especially the ones who produce the most content because the same system that attracted you to this article is the same system I teach my clients.
You don't need complex sales funnels and telemarketing campaigns.
You simply need to answer the most pressing problems your ideal customers are wrestling with and publish your response using great content with a clear offer to your services.
And this doesn't always require a long-form article, white paper or webinar. Many of my clients are booking consistent leads from a regular schedule of short LinkedIn posts, interspersed with more in-depth content in the form of articles and webinars for credibility.
If you're unhappy with the results of your current lead generation approach, it's the perfect time to consider a change.
Want to learn a smarter way to attract more clients to your data consultancy or software business?
If you want to figure out how to create clients through content marketing, particularly in these strange times, I recommend you attend my upcoming webinar that focuses on what's working right now to attract clients to a data solutions business through a thought-leadership content marketing system.
You can register or find out more about the free session here:
https://register.gotowebinar.com/rt/8185756726894784783
If you want to find out myDataBrand will help you attract new clients through content marketing, simply book a call: