In my last episode, I talked about a class I took on how to take better photos using my iPhone. I found a class through the Today at Apple website.
Content as a sales enablement extension
By going through that site and checking the various classes that Apple offers, I have to say that Apple does a great job on content marketing and sales enablement. In a way, their content is an extension of sales enablement. They use content to educate new users on how to use their products better. They use content to show existing users new tricks.
All the classes are product-centric. They are on-point and focus on getting users to ramp up as quickly as possible.
Their class content, in a way, focuses on conversion from top of the funnel to the bottom of the funnel. To me, the classes they provide are the essence of content marketing: offer relevant and educational content to acquire new customers and retain existing ones.
With millions of users, people come to the site naturally to find products, ask questions, and make purchases. Apple doesn’t need to use paid and sponsored content to drive traffic to their sites while most of us still need to dial-up paid media as one of our key marketing mix.
The key learning is not completely relying on your organic traffic or dialing back on paid or sponsored content. Most of us don’t have Apple’s brand recognition and a massive user base, we, unfortunately, still need to incorporate paid media as part of our marketing mix to drive traffic to our sites and facilitate conversions. The key takeaway is to create relevant and educational content to assist and support your users in any way possible.
Salespeople need to be more than salespeople
Another learning for me is that salespeople need to be more than salespeople. The instructors of classes are all in-store reps. In other words, they all wear multiple hats: sales rep, IT, subject matter expert, and teacher. This is no different than enterprise or B2B sales teams. Many of them are not just salespeople anymore. They are also order takers, trusted advisors, and problem solvers, or even problem finders. Salespeople can’t be just salespeople anymore. To provide value-add, we all need to wear multiple hats.
You can use content marketing as a means to enable the sales team and your users. You can also use content to train your sales teams so that they can play multiple roles and provide value to their customers.
Please send me your marketing questions or thoughts via Twitter @pamdidner.
Be well. Keep hustling. Until next time.
