On some deep level, marketers have a belief that all of the content they create serves a greater purpose that ultimately drives revenue for the organization. They may not say it out loud and indeed know that it’s not necessarily true, but there is a secret hope that everything they touch will move the needle.
This comes from a desire to believe that all of the work that marketers put into a piece of content—time, research, money, design, etc.—is worth something in the long run. And it’s not only a selfish desire to want to see results from their own work, there’s also the real desire amongst marketers to help Sales and make their jobs easier. The relationship between Sales and Marketing is directly related to how well Marketing is able to create content that is necessary and vital to sellers’ efforts in engaging buyers.
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However, we all know that not every piece of content can be the one that pushes the deal across the goal line and seal the deal. Some content won’t hit the mark or just won’t be applicable to certain audiences. Other times Sales might not even know the content exists or simply can’t find it. These are all real problems marketers face when it comes to their content.
Recently, Seismic partnered with MarketingCharts to study a few key topics within the area of marketing enablement. Within the full report are studies that take a look at content management, content personalization, and content insights & analytics.
The most surprising statistic that came out of this partnership was the way marketer view their own work. As we discussed before, marketers have to have some belief deep-down that their content is meaningful and being consumed. However, this particular survey revealed that even marketers have doubts about how much of their content is being used. As you can see below, most enterprise marketers believe that less than half of their content is consumed.
This data reveals a real need for both Sales and Marketing. Clearly the material is going unused for a reason whether its findability issues or the content doesn’t meet Sale’s needs. Both teams need insights into how content is being used and the engagement that buyers have with content. When Sales and Marketing have more visibility into what content works, Marketing can rest easy knowing that the content they are using is hitting its mark.