Is Content Marketing the Star of Your RevOps Plan for 2023?

Is Content Marketing the Star of Your Revenue Operations Plan for 2023?

By Bridget CunninghamDec 15 /2022

By 2023, it’s estimated that 25% of organizations will have a Chief Revenue Officer. While a nod to making revenue growth a priority, the rise of this role is a testament to analyzing and optimizing a company’s full revenue cycle to achieve sustainable growth.

The function of RevOps is to support the customer lifecycle by using technology and platforms to streamline, align internal team processes and provide visibility across the entire revenue acquisition process. This focus on operational efficiencies helps you optimize your complete revenue journey, from acquisition and selling to closing, service and reporting. Key to these efficiencies is the alignment of sales and marketing. 

Building a revenue-driving engine via a RevOps plan requires synchronicity across various teams involved in the customer journey. Yet, marketing doesn’t always have the same muscle power in RevOps planning as other departments. According to Forrester research, marketing is the least-managed function by CROs, who are nearly three times more likely to manage sales than marketing.

In light of this divide, critical business functions like content marketing can sometimes be left out of the RevOps conversation. In reality, content marketing should be center stage in your strategic plans.

Content Marketing Is Fuel for Filling the Lead Funnel

It’s a statistic we’ve highlighted before but worth mentioning again in the context of RevOps: content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing efforts and generates three times as many leads.

Content marketing is a common entry point for prospects into the customer journey, and it’s irresponsible not to account for that initial touchpoint. Consider the case where a lead first comes to your website by way of a search query that takes them to one of your blog posts. They value the content enough to subscribe to the blog and, after a few months, they connect with your sales team for a software demo.

These are the consistent customers that a RevOps plan should target; one of many examples where content marketing efforts should be the catalyst for driving sales. But it’s only when you align marketing into the larger RevOps picture that you can account for these wins, while also optimizing your future marketing efforts. With insights into specific topics that draw in quality leads, such as the blog post example above, marketers can build out a more data-driven content strategy that is optimized for revenue growth and helps them focus their efforts on the right work.

Content Marketing Is Fuel for Nurturing the Lead Funnel

Let’s circle back to the case where a lead has scheduled a software demo with sales. Your sales team’s reports indicate that while they’re meeting goals for the number of monthly demo requests, the ratio of conversion rates to customers is relatively low.

When content marketers have visibility into this data, they can use it as a jumping off point to collaborate with sales and come up with helpful initiatives to boost these rates.

What kind of communications, if any, are happening between when a lead schedules a demo and when the demo happens? By creating a series of content marketing emails, you can help the sales team answer some of the common questions they receive about the software during a demo before it even happens. Prospects will feel more prepared for the software demo while your sales team gains the ability to be more efficient.

The same thought process can also be applied to other stops on the customer journey. For instance, when a lead moves from the demo stage to signing up for a free trial, you can supply them with a series of videos showcasing the most popular software features in use. This can help them get the most out of their free trial and see the value in being a long-term customer. 

A recent success story from Kuno’s work with a technology client illustrates the value of efficiency gleaned from RevOps. The company, a global player in the tech sector, realized a 99% reduction in time spent performing tasks now automated.

An ecommerce payment solution platform asked Kuno to help provide visibility across their marketing, sales, account management and partner programs to accelerate their revenue growth processes in a booming market. After a detailed review of goals, priorities, roadblocks and opportunities, each department now has the tools at their disposal to effectively do their jobs and focus on RevOps to protect and grow their company’s margins.

Marketing now delivers accurate information to the sales team, sales acts on that information in a more timely manner with increased insight and well-structured incentives, the partner team is better equipped to close partnerships as well as help service the sales team with co-selling opportunities, and the account management team then takes those closed deals and benefits from increased bandwidth to effectively onboard and manage clients, enhancing both relationships and revenue.

The result is a cohesive team working together and a fully-optimized flywheel that the client team now confidently manages and can readily scale for the future.

Content Marketing is Fuel for Nurturing Customer Relationships

While bringing in new business is critical to revenue growth, a large portion of this growth also comes from relationships with existing customers. According to a HubSpot survey of more than 500 sales professionals, 72% of salespeople who upsell said it drives up to 30% of their revenue. With insights into customer data and behaviors, sales teams can make personalized recommendations that resonate with existing customers.

But what does this outreach strategy look like? Content marketers can help connect the dots with the right language for emails, sales sheets and other collateral that supports customers in their evaluation process. By measuring engagement with these emails and continuing conversations with sales, marketers can offer proactive ideas on how to improve upsell metrics. For instance, if a sales survey indicates customers want to see real-world examples of the product in use before they invest, the marketing team can conduct interviews and create case studies to support this sales need.

Content marketing is a proven strategy that gets more sophisticated every day. It most definitely deserves to be the star of your next RevOps plan. 

Need help getting started in maximizing your data, aligning teams and improving sales? As a full-service digital marketing partner, Kuno Creative can help support your RevOps needs, with content marketing being just one of the ways we accomplish sustainable growth. Schedule a consultation to learn more.

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Bridget Cunningham
The Author

Bridget Cunningham

Bridget uses her journalistic experience to successfully engage with technical minds. Prior to Kuno, she managed the blog program and assisted with social media efforts at COMSOL, a high-tech engineering company that offers multiphysics software solutions.
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