Whether the discussion centers around lead quality, buyer personas or content, there seems to be a never-ending battle between sales and marketing departments — including those at SaaS companies — to stay aligned.
The good news? Public relations, a function your team (hopefully) already has in place, can help bridge the divide by bringing both sales and marketing together to work towards a shared goal: quality content.
Benefits of Making Marketing and Sales Teams Part of PR Efforts
In working together, both sales and marketing can benefit from improved content that moves the needle. Here are a few ways that making both marketing and sales teams part of your PR efforts can benefit both teams:
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- Secure media coverage
Securing media coverage is an industry stamp of approval by a trusted third party, and being featured in a respected media outlet adds instant credibility. As a marketer, seeking input from your sales team can yield ideas for quality thought leadership content that — when paired with a tailored outreach strategy — will resonate with the media. - Develop fresh owned content topics
Holding a story-mining session with your sales team lead(s) to generate ideas gives your marketing team fodder not only for content that can be used in media outreach but also fresh ideas for owned content like company blogs. - Generate content that addresses prospect concerns
Asking your sales team, “why do we lose?” as part of your story-mining uncovers weaknesses. Those weaknesses may be something you need to address as a larger team (outside of marketing), but they might also present opportunities to combat misconceptions or concerns using thought leadership content. - Create new opportunities for touchpoints with prospects
Depending on a given prospect’s stage in the buyer journey, the type of message you want to communicate with your touchpoint is going to vary. The good news? Media coverage can speak to multiple stages. And, new media coverage creates the perfect opportunity for an extra touchpoint. By working together with marketing, sales can help make sure that the coverage developed for media outreach also speaks to prospects. - Enhance social selling
Social media requires a significant amount of compelling content to make an impact. Thought leadership content works well in social selling because it typically provides value to the prospect — an education piece or otherwise addressing a larger industry trend — but also has your name (company or personal) and messaging attached to it for awareness. When placed with the media, it also can provide third-party validation.
- Secure media coverage
Ready to reap these benefits and begin using PR to align sales and marketing efforts? Here’s where to get our workbook for better aligning SaaS sales and marketing efforts through PR.
