Content Strategy for Sales

Don’t get me wrong, but you're creating content for strangers when you should be creating content for prospects. Here's what I mean: Most LinkedIn advice says: "Create valuable content, build an audience, eventually some of them will buy." This is the long game. And it works. Eventually. But there's a faster path most people miss: Create content that solves the specific problems your current prospects are facing. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤: Every week, look at: • Questions potential clients asked in discovery calls • Objections that came up in sales conversations • Challenges your current clients are dealing with • Topics that came up 3+ times in conversations Then create content addressing those exact things. 𝐍𝐨𝐰 𝐥𝐞𝐭 𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐡𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬: 1. 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐬 𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐢𝐭 They're already connected with you or following you. Your content lands directly in their feed. You're top-of-mind when they're ready to buy. 2. 𝐈𝐭 𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐛𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥 Someone reads your post about pricing psychology. Now on the call, price isn't an objection - they already understand your value. 3. 𝐈𝐭 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦 Generic advice positions you as knowledgeable. Specific solutions position you as the person who gets their exact situation. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐲 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐮𝐬𝐞: "What's trending in my industry?" "What tips can I share?" "What will get maximum engagement?" 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐮𝐞: "What's preventing my prospects from saying yes?" "What misconceptions do they have?" "What framework would make their decision easier?" 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐟𝐭: Stop creating content for the algorithm and start creating content for the sale. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭: Before you post anything, ask: "Would my current prospects find this valuable enough to share with their team?" If not, it's probably not strategic content. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐈 𝐦𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐟𝐭: My engagement dropped 20%. My follower growth slowed. But my conversion rate from connection to client jumped 340%. I went from 15,000 people seeing generic content to 3,000 people seeing exactly what they needed to hear. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐡: • 15,000 impressions × 0.1% conversion = 15 leads • 3,000 impressions × 1.5% conversion = 45 leads 𝐋𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡. 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐮𝐞. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐡: Building a massive audience feels good, but it doesn't necessarily build a business. I know people with 100K+ followers making $50K/year. I know people with 12K followers making $300K/year. The difference? Strategic content for the right audience vs. viral content for everyone. P.s: Look at your last 5 posts. Were they created to build your audience or advance your sales conversations?

Most technical companies approach content backwards. They hire someone to "create thought leadership content" hoping it will generate inbound leads and improve SEO rankings. But here's what I'm seeing work better for manufacturing and engineering companies: content as sales enablement, not an inbound engine. Instead of optimizing for search algorithms, you're documenting your point of view to hand out after sales calls. Instead of trying to rank for "advanced heat exchanger technology," you're creating a white paper that explains why your approach to thermal efficiency is fundamentally different. Your prospects aren't Googling for solutions. They're getting pitched by three vendors who all claim to have "superior technology" and "best-in-class service." They need something that helps them understand why your technical approach matters for their specific business problem. Content becomes the vehicle for differentiation, not just lead generation. When your sales team can leave behind a document that clearly articulates your technical philosophy and backs it up with real engineering insights, you stop being just another vendor. You become the company that actually understands what they're building and why it matters. This is especially critical for technical companies competing against category leaders. You're not going to out-SEO bigger names. But you can out-educate them on your specific technical approach or point of view. Content that enables sales conversations beats content that tries to start them.

Semi hot take: most “content marketing” is just a socially acceptable way to avoid talking to your buyers. You’ll run a 6-month campaign, spin up 20 assets, hire an agency… …but won’t spend 60 minutes actually interviewing the humans you want to sell to. Then we all act shocked when: -Nurture emails don’t convert -eBooks don’t get finished -“Thought leadership” gets 3 likes and 0 pipeline Here’s the uncomfortable truth: If your content doesn’t create or deepen relationships, it’s a vanity project. Reality is.. Logos don’t build trust. Landing pages don’t build trust. Conversations build trust. I don’t care how “strategic” your content calendar is — if it’s 95% internally authored and internally sourced, you’ve basically decided that: Your team’s opinion > your market’s reality You’re optimizing for asset volume, not relationship density. This is what we are 100% in on at Outlever And If I was running content at a B2B company today, my rule would be brutal and simple: 👉 No net-new asset gets created unless at least one external practitioner is in it. Customer, prospect, partner, advisor, operator — doesn’t matter. If there’s no outside voice, the piece goes back in the draft pile. Want something that actually moves pipeline? Try this instead of “Q3 Content Campaign”: Build a list of 50 accounts you want Find 1–2 operators at each Invite them into a small research panel, roundtable, or “state of the industry” report Make them the hero: their quote, their story, their name Now your “content strategy” is: 50+ warm relationships 50+ people with a social incentive to share your asset 50+ internal champions who already had a smart, non-sales conversation with you Call it content marketing if you want. I call it pipeline disguised as research. Let the rest of the market keep A/B testing subject lines on cold nurtures. The real game is figuring out how many relationships you can build per asset shipped. 🚢

Most companies don't need more content. They need better, more strategic, value-driven content. 🚀 👉 Copying your competitors? It only adds to the noise — it doesn’t differentiate you, and it definitely doesn’t drive pipeline. Here’s what to do instead if you're serious about scaling content the smart way: → Audit your existing content — identify what's driving outcomes (not just traffic). → Align your strategy with your Sales, Product, Success, and Support teams — integrate real customer feedback into your content plan. → Map your content to the full buyer journey — awareness → consideration → decision → expansion. → Focus on intent over volume — not every high-volume keyword matters to your funnel. → Identify opportunity gaps where you can genuinely add value, not just "rank." → Build content clusters around your core solutions to strengthen topical authority. → Refresh and optimize existing content regularly to keep it aligned with evolving customer needs. → Treat SEO as a distribution channel, not a content strategy. → Prioritize formats that match intent — blogs, webinars, guides, comparison pages, customer stories. → Measure what matters: influenced pipeline, sales velocity impact, time-to-value reduction — not vanity metrics. Content marketing isn’t about churning out more. It’s about building a real growth engine — one piece of strategic content at a time. Need help turning your content into a revenue-generating machine? Drop me a DM and let's get talking! 👋 #contentmarketing #b2bsaas #b2bmarketing #saasmarketing #seostrategy #b2bcontent

Before I build any SEO or AEO content strategy, I book three meetings: 3. Sales team (30 min) 2. Success team (30 min) 1. Support team (30 min) And I ask one simple question: "What's coming up unprompted in your calls?" Not what you're asking them about. Not what's in your talk tracks. What customers bring up. Unprompted. Real search intent doesn't live in keyword planner (though they're a great next step). Recently, a Growth Sprints client tried this approach. Sales told them: "Everyone asks if we're actually different from [Competitor X] or just marketing fluff." Success revealed: "Customers keep discovering our API integration 6 months in - they had no idea." Support showed them: "We get 20+ tickets a week asking how to connect us with Zapier." From those 90 minutes of conversations, they built: → A comparison page that now ranks no. 2 (and gets quoted by ChatGPT) → An integration guide that reduced support tickets by 40% → Use-case content that sales actually sends in deals Their previous keyword-jockey agency had them writing about "enterprise software solutions" and "digital transformation best practices." Checkbox content that that people searched for, sure. But read? No. Shared? Definitely not. Meanwhile, their customers were literally telling them what to write. Every. Single. Day. This is how we win in the SEO+AEO era: But by listening harder than anyone else. Your frontline teams are sitting on your next high-converting content strategy. You just have to ask. ⚡️ PS - If your content team is still starting with keyword tools instead of customer conversations, we need to talk. Your pipeline will thank you.

Imagine going on a first date and proposing marriage right away. That would be unhinged, right? Yet, this is exactly what many B2B companies do with their content strategy. The No.1 content mistake most B2B businesses make on LinkedIn: They go straight for the sale. They're only creating content that appeals to the purchase intent of the buyer (BOFU). But the truth is: Only a tiny fraction of your total addressable market is ready to buy right now. By ignoring the rest, you're leaving 60% of your potential market untapped. Purely creating content for solution aware prospects leaves out the nuances involved in modern b2b purchasing process. Your buyers' journey begins long before showing up to a sales call. It involves: Realizing they have a problem (TOFU) Researching solutions and reading content on LinkedIn (MOFU) Deciding which vendor is the best choice once solution aware (BOFU) Many b2b companies are too weighted at the bottom of the funnel and wonder why they content marketing never produces a return. So, what types of content do you need for each stage? TOFU: Niche observations Industry opinions Industry research and insights MOFU: Frameworks of what it's like to work with you Point of views Philosophies BOFU: Testimonials Hand raisers (offer a lead magnet to generate convos) Case studies Creating content for all stages of the buyer's journey will: Attract buyers early on in their journey Build trust with a larger TAM Move buyers efficiently through the funnel Ultimately leading to predictable pipeline from your content strategy. So, if you're only creating content that aims to make a sale, you're leaving money on the table. - Create a content strategy that actually addresses the different stages of the buyer's journey to maximize your potential for sales. That’s how you go from fishing from a dwindling pool of leads to shooting fish in a barrel.

Here's how we generated $650K in revenue with a thought leadership program for a B2B tech company: 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟭: 𝗖𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 Customer research should be the foundation of your content strategy—it's the only way to create content that actually resonates with buyers. Every 4 months, the client's marketing team interviews customers and analyzes recent sales calls to uncover common pain points and objections. 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟮: 𝗗𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽 𝗸𝗲𝘆 𝘁𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗰𝘀 & 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗣𝗢𝗩 Using the data from the customer research, we identify key topics that address specific pain points. For each topic, we define a strong point of view by pinpointing the unique insights and perspectives our client can offer that others can't. 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟯: 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 𝘀𝘂𝗯𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁𝘀 For each topic, we conduct a monthly 1-hour interview with the CEO and CTO. Despite their busy schedules, they're all in on this process because they understand that: 💡 ..people buy from people they know, like and trust—and they wanted their content strategy to reflect this. 💡 ..their expertise, insights and stories are what make them unique as a company. Our interview approach allows us to capture their insights without them having to spend hours writing. 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟰: 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 Our interview approach allows us to create multiple content formats from a single recording. From a 1-hour interview, we typically produce: ➝ 1 long-form article ➝ 5 video clips ➝ 8 LinkedIn posts ➝ 1 newsletter 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟱: 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 You can't expect your content to drive results when you're just promoting it with a couple of LinkedIn posts. Content distribution isn’t an afterthought—it determines whether your content will drive results or not. Here's the strategy we use for this client: ✅ We publish the LinkedIn posts and video clips on the company page, as well as the personal profiles of the CEO and CTO. ✅ After 2 months, we started running LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads to promote the CEO's and CTO's LinkedIn posts to their target accounts. ✅ After 3 months, we launched an employee advocacy program to turn 5 other subject matter experts into a powerful organic marketing channel with massive reach. We repurpose existing content to fuel this program. ✅ Using LinkedIn ads data, we identify highly engaged companies each week and provide the sales team with a targeted list to initiate conversations and book calls. This strategy is highly effective because outreach works best when backed by strong brand awareness. 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟲: 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗱𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘀 After 9 months of running this program, the first $300K deal closed from an inbound lead who cited the CEO's LinkedIn posts in the "How did you hear about us?" field. After 12 months, a $350K deal closed from an outbound meeting initiated by the sales team after identifying a highly engaged company from the Thought Leader Ads.

Most content strategies are backwards. And this is why they fail. They start with, "What should we create?" Instead of, "What do our stakeholders need to believe?" Here's the right approach.👇 Step 1: Map stakeholder beliefs (not content types) - What does the CFO need to believe about ROI? - What does the CTO need to believe about implementation? - What does the end user need to believe about daily impact? And so on for EVERY SINGLE decision-maker and influencer in your sales cycle. Step 2: Design the belief journey - Belief 1: "We have a problem worth solving" - Belief 2: "Solutions like this can work." - Belief 3: "This specific solution fits our situation." - Belief 4: "This vendor can deliver results." - Belief 5: "The risk is worth the reward." Step 3: Create content that builds beliefs systematically - Don't start with "What format?" - Start with "What belief does this build?" - Then choose the format that builds that belief best. Example: enterprise software company ❌ Content-first thinking: "Let's create a whitepaper, some blog posts, and a webinar series." ✅ Message-first thinking: "CFOs need to believe ROI is measurable and predictable. CTOs need to believe implementation won't overwhelm their team. End users need to believe this will make their jobs easier, not harder. NOW... what content formats build those beliefs most effectively?" The result? Every piece of content has a purpose. Nothing gets created "just because." And your entire content library works together like a systematic persuasion machine. Your content should answer: - Why should they care? (Problem belief) - Why should they believe change is possible? (Solution belief) - Why should they choose you? (Vendor belief) - Why should they act now? (Urgency belief) Bottom line: Content without messaging strategy is just expensive noise. Messaging-driven content is systematic persuasion. What belief are you trying to build with your next piece of content?

Most marketing strategies fail for 2 reasons: - They don't adapt to the prospects' buying journey. - They don't show what the buyers need to see, to buy. Actually, they do the opposite: - They brainstorm internally, and skip research. - They are seller-centric, and plan randomly. Now here's what you need to do instead: You need to develop a 'customer-centric' marketing. Problem: every customer is different, and buying journeys are complex. But across 9 years, I've identified a pattern. Customers often go through 4 stages: 1/”We’re always listening” 2/”We have a problem to fix” 3/”Let’s look for potential solutions” 4/”Let’s compare 3 providers and decide” It can take weeks, months, or years. And across these 4 stages, the champion has a decisive role. - He collects content about the problem; - He identifies the best potential solutions; - He leads the buying committee & negotiations. Now the question is: "how do you adapt to these 4 stages?" - You need to research your buyers' journeys - You need to adapt your marketing & content - You need to align marketing and sales efforts Here's exactly how you should do that: 1/ Create educative content to position your brand as a choice To cover stageS (1) and (2), you should not create salesy content or aggresive sales sequences. Instead, publish easy-to-digest educative content about the industry, its problems, and ways to solve them. → Keywords: Thought Leadership & Educative Content 2/ Prove that your company is the best choice with trustworthy content To cover stage (3), you need to position your business as a solid option. You can't rely on short videos anymore; you need in depth content that shows you can really fix the problem and how. → Keywords: Clarity & Trust 3/ Close the deal with high quality sales-enablement content For stage (4), the most important factors are (a) the relationship between the champion and the seller, and (b) the quality of sales-enablement content. Here, you need to align sales and marketing efforts. → Keywords: Relationship & Sales-Enablement Content *** Follow me Pierre Herubel for daily marketing tips. Subscribe to my newsletter for weekly marketing guides.

𝐀𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫? It’s probably because your content isn’t meeting them where they are. To convert leads into loyal customers, you need to create content that speaks to each stage of your buyer’s journey—from awareness to decision. Many businesses focus all their content on selling the product. But here’s the truth: → not everyone is ready to buy. Some are just discovering the problem, others are comparing solutions, and a few are ready to make a decision. If your content only targets one stage, you’re leaving money on the table. 👉🏻 Awareness Stage: Create educational blog posts, infographics, and social media content that addresses common pain points. 👉🏻 Consideration Stage: Develop case studies, comparison guides, and webinars to help prospects evaluate their options. 👉🏻 Decision Stage: Offer testimonials, product demos, and special offers to nudge them toward making a purchase. "One-size-fits-all content will work for everyone." Tailoring your content to each stage of the buyer’s journey ensures that you’re engaging with your audience at the right time, in the right way. Top marketers understand that the buyer’s journey is not linear. They craft content that nurtures leads from curious onlookers to committed customers, building trust and authority at every step. If you want to turn prospects into customers, you need to meet them where they are on their journey. Create content that guides them every step of the way, and watch your business grow. #socialmediastrategist #digitalmarketer #brandstrategist