As content marketing becomes a more important part of your B2B marketing strategy as a whole, traditional roles of sales and marketing teams are being revised.

You probably already know that, to capture the greatest online visibility, sales and marketing teams need to work together – continuously refining the enterprise’s understanding of prospects and what they want, and developing better ways to engage with them. It also means sharing content from all over your organization that a prospect will find helpful to their purchase decision.

But that raises a question: Should the sales team be involved in content creation?

Sales Needs to Participate in Shaping the Buyer Journey ...

Depending on who you believe, prospects are between 50% and 80% done with purchasing decisions before they reach out to sales. There are many reasons for this, but some of the most influential are:

• Decision-makers simply don’t want to be “pushed” into a sale until they are ready.
• B2B decision-makers are involving more of their colleagues in purchase selections.
• Both B2B and B2C buyers have more sources of information to consult than ever.

With all that in mind, the sales team only has the opportunity to speak with a fraction of your prospects – usually, the ones you’ve built trust and rapport with through your web content. The direct interactions between sales and prospects are, thus, incredibly important to shaping your content strategy and your marketing approach at large.

... but Sales Pros Don’t Always Need to Write Web Content

Not all sales professionals have the technical competencies to develop website content. That’s okay. What’s most important is that they have a voice at the table when the marketing team is designing its approach to prospects. Content needs to speak with the voice of the enterprise – and salespeople know what prospects’ concerns are.

If you want content to have a familiar, trustworthy voice, it needs to answer those concerns.

Here’s how to leverage salespeople – and their expertise - in that process:

Let Them Share First-Hand Insights

Salespeople have the unique chance to gauge prospects’ reactions and see how those reactions are changing compared to last week, last month, or last quarter. Thus, they can pinpoint trends before they become big enough for the rest of the enterprise to notice. Of course, not every buyer quirk is important, but sales reps should be encouraged to share what they’re seeing; when an observation comes up again and again, it could be the flurry of snowflakes before an avalanche.

Let Them Codify Prospects’ Worries

Prospects’ attitudes may change over time, but some concerns will remain consistent for months or years. Salespeople are bound to hear some questions constantly, so let them use that knowledge to your advantage. Have them list the top ten objections they always seem to hear from prospects so the B2B marketing content strategy can build substantial, satisfying answers around them. The content will strengthen sales’ ability to address those issues.

Give Them a Voice on Your Platform

You don’t have to have a “writing background” to be a good writer. Not all sales reps will want to dive into the content side, but those who do should be encouraged. Why? It’ll not only build their confidence and give them deeper knowledge about your products, but also let them have credit where credit is due when it comes to thought leadership. When prospects see your sales team producing thoughtful, engaging articles, it builds credibility. Don’t limit them to blog posts, either: social media networking can really amplify your content’s visibility, and salespeople have the largest networks typically, so use them!

When all is said and done, the most important part of effective selling is listening to prospects as they tell you their needs. Attentive sales pros can tell you what they've heard so your content – the voice of your enterprise – is tuned into those core concerns.