Aligning marketing and sales with a content library

It’s the moment marketers dread.

A member of the sales team calls the marketing director, looking for collateral on a specific topic. There’s a big deal in the works, and the sales team is in the final stages of negotiation. But the lead wants to see proof of performance before moving forward.

“Um, we don’t have anything like that,” the director responds. The line goes silent.

For many healthcare sales and marketing departments, this hypothetical situation may hit a little too close to home. A study by global market intelligence firm IDC showed that as much as 80 percent of the marketing content created is never used by sales teams. Why? According to the Content Marketing Institute, there are three primary reasons: first, the sales team simply doesn’t know it exists; second, they don’t have time to look for it; and finally, there’s altogether too much content to filter through.

Alas, there’s a simple fix. Creating a content library, a centralized repository for marketing and sales content, allows prospects, clients and employees alike to access content within a couple of clicks. Here’s how to start the process:

Review existing content  

While the process of locating, reviewing and organizing existing content can be challenging, following a strict methodology can quickly determine what’s good and what’s not and help identify what’s needed. It’s also important to establish during the initial review process the goal of the content and how its success will be measured.

Create a taxonomy

After mapping out the existing content, generating new topic ideas and determining where the content library will live, it’s time to arrange your organization’s content by audience and business line. Content taxonomies not only help users locate the latest content, but also can help identify older content that may be repurposed.

Remember: more and more web traffic today comes from mobile devices; as such, organizations should consider what the arrangement of these libraries means for tablet and smartphone visitors. A rule of thumb? A library should be sortable by one or more categories to cut down on the amount of time it takes to locate content.

Spread the word

Now that the hard work of developing and organizing your firm’s content library is done, be sure to let prospects, clients and employees know about your new resource. And as the library grows, keep your audiences up-to-date.

Organizations often make considerable investments into developing great content, only to let these white papers, blog posts and case studies gather dust. While there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to creating these valuable tools, a well-designed library can unlock the value of your firm’s content and put it at the fingertips of prospects and buyers.

To learn more about creating and organizing a content library, please contact psc@ehmresults.com.