There’s a well-known divide in the business world between sales and marketing teams. Sales teams view their job as closing deals, whereas marketing teams are tasked with finding qualified leads and generating brand awareness. If you ask a sales representative if they should spend time understanding a marketing task, such as search engine optimization (SEO), chances are the answer will be no. Yet there’s a lot of good that can come from these teams grasping each other’s jobs on a deeper level. Here are three reasons why your sales team will benefit by understanding SEO.
Gaining Customer Insights Through Keyword Research
Perhaps one of the most important tasks in SEO is keyword research. This is where a marketer will dig into the analytics and find out which terms people are looking for online. For a sales representative, this information is invaluable. Fewer SEOs are using shortened up, broad keywords. In today’s noisy online world, long-tail keywords (those that range five to seven words) are better suited for driving traffic. More searchers use long-tail keywords to narrow their search results too. They know how the Internet works now, so they take matters into their own hands narrowing their findings. Sales teams can use these long-tail keywords to determine what information their prospects are looking for. When they go out to the field to prospect with them, they’ll have a better gauge of the type of information they need to fork over to close the deal.
Understanding the Customer Experience
Every buyer goes through a process toward making a purchase. Often, this process starts with a search online. Sales representatives don’t usually get involved until the sales process is 60% over. By that point, customers have done their own research, narrowed their own pool of candidates, and have a good idea of what they’re looking for. That places unique obstacles in front of sales representatives these days. By understanding what happens throughout the customer experience before talking to a prospect, sales representatives can become more effective at shaping their pitch and gaining a new contract.
Improving Lead Generation Efforts
When sales teams understand SEO, marketing teams benefit too. Marketers need the expertise of the sales team to help capture better leads. When the sales team understands how SEO works and what’s needed to boost this strategy, everyone wins. The marketing team can produce higher quality content, tackling common objections and concerns up front. Then, the sales team is fed more qualified leads who are more in tune with what the business has to offer, making their job easier. It’s a win-win.
What’s Next?
Ready to get your sales team on board with your SEO efforts? Check out the AddNow+ to see what content your prospects are engaging with the most, and the keywords being used to find your business.