The metrics quoted by Hatami are enough to ensure you are fully utilising the presales team within your selling process. The four main areas identified for utilisation include:
- identifying leads
- submitting bids
- closing deals
- renewing deals
So where does the role of presales fit into a content marketing strategy?
Presales are seen as the trusted advisor by most clients and can build a very close, non-sales relationship. This allows them to effectively communicate to their audience with credibility. I am yet to work with a client that will not listen to the point of view of presales!
For this reason any content produced is likely to be received in a similar manner to a helpful phone call or onsite visit. With email newsletters and social sharing enabling organisations to reach the masses a presales team can suddenly build a reliable communication channel and inbound/outbound lead generation platform for the entire organisation.
The presales team are firmly on the front lines and with the right infrastructure can be the first to market with timely, relevant and expert-led insight.
Once the content is produced you can utilise an employee advocacy strategy to ensure the other teams within the firm are distributing the insights to their personal networks.
As Hatami points out quality trumps quantity and this certainly resonates with any successful content strategy.
At a time when CEOs are in a constant quest for growth, there is a promising but often overlooked opportunity available close to home: presales. Distinct from marketing and sales operations, presales provides a specific set of activities that lead to qualifying, bidding on, winning, and renewing a deal. In our work with leading companies around the globe, we have found that companies with strong presales capabilities consistently achieve win rates of 40–50% in new business and 80–90% in renewal business—well above average rates.
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