Why it’s time to get serious about sales content

It’s no secret that the volume of sales content – from case studies to whitepapers – has exploded in recent years. And marketers and sellers continue to produce even more content to fuel the sales cycle.

But, there’s one big problem: Few organizations actually track the performance of their sales content. This had led to a costly blind spot in the middle of the funnel.

How costly?

When it comes to the over 65 percent of B2B content that never gets used, the cost is in the millions. For mid-market to enterprise companies, it’s estimated that companies spend between $2 million and $2.3 million annually per company on unused B2B content.

So, what can marketing and sales leaders do?

They can start by connecting content to business outcomes. In a new report, the team at DocSend, a content management and tracking solution, analyzes over 34 million content interactions to provide much-needed insight into how sales content drives bottom-line ROI.

The report, From Strategy to Execution: 6 Sales Content Benchmarks Every Business Needs, gives marketing and sales leaders an inside look at when, where, and how prospects consume sales content. The findings make it incredibly easy to connect sales content to business outcomes, and to formulate actionable strategies for optimizing the middle of the funnel.

Download the full report here, or dive into the some of the key insights below.

Sales content benchmarks you need to know:

You have less than 3 minutes to make an impression

When creating sales content, keep one thing in mind: Your prospects are busy. The data reveals that prospects spend just under 3 minutes, on average, viewing sales content.

While that might not seem like very much time, it doesn’t mean that important decisions aren’t being made. Prospects often make rapid-fire – and consequential – judgments about your product as soon as they start reading.

Data from DocSend’s Sales Content Benchmarks Report

Start tracking the average viewing time across your content to see where prospects are engaging most. You might be surprised at what collateral is effectively capturing prospects’ attention and what needs to be shelved or reworked.

If you practice account-based selling, gain deeper visibility into your accounts with page-by-page analytics. Seeing where prospects spend their time can provide important clues as to what topics matter most and might be deal makers (or breakers) for the account.

You can stop optimizing all your sales content for mobile

In today’s mobile-obsessed world, it’s easy to assume that you need to optimize everything for small screens and on-the-go consumption.

But the data shows that the vast majority of prospects in the middle of the funnel view content on desktop devices, not mobile. And the truth is, it makes sense. Prospects making key purchasing decisions are likely doing their research during work hours.

Data from DocSend’s Sales Content Benchmarks Report

What does that mean for you? You can save time and resources by avoiding needless optimizations for all devices and formats. Here’s the thing, best practices for content at the top of the funnel don’t necessarily apply to content shared during the sales process.

Focus on creating content that performs well on desktop, and use the extra real estate to make your content easy to read. You might include rich visuals, like charts and illustrations, or add some much-needed white space.

Aligning sales and marketing with content benchmarks

One thing should be clear by now: We need better, not just more, sales content. And that requires aligning sales and marketing around sales content performance.

By establishing benchmarks for success and the methods needed to track it, sales and marketing can finally get the actionable intelligence they need to build rapport with prospects, demonstrate real business ROI, and drive business efficiency.

With actionable intelligence on hand, organizations can connect sales content to bottom-line outcomes, and turn the costly blind spot in the middle of the funnel into a business asset.

Want more insights like this? Download the full report here.

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