Why sales pitches and website content should match

Why sales pitches and website content should match:  from The LEADSExplorer Blog: Lead generation - Website visitors - CRM - B2B by The Leads Explorer

The gap between marketing and sales

Since the early beginnings of the creation of the marketing department, marketing guru’s have argued that sales and marketing should cooperate in order to increase sales and revenue. The gap between both exists and continuous to exist.
In many companies there is even a larger gap between the sales pitches, activities, presentations and meetings of the salesmen and the content on the website by the web marketers.

Website content

In most cases the content on the website is created by people who don’t meet with customers. They actually know little about customers besides general information and statistics making customers like a number consisting of numbers/stats. From their offices it is hard to understand or image what the prospect or customer really requires and wants.
Do they know why the salesmen really sell ? What really sells the product or service ? Do they know the competitors ?

Salesmen know their customers

On the other hand salesmen and sales reps meet with prospects and customers and know what ideas, worries, problems, perceptions and concepts that live amongst their prospects and customers.
The feed back from meeting with customers and prospects to the marketing people is minimal or not existent. As such marketing is creating content which is far or not related to what the prospects or customers concerns.

Product managers

In some cases the product managers are asked to write the website content for their products which is a step in the right direction as product manager do meet customers, but in most cases only important or innovative customers as they do not meet the average customer.
Product managers are halfway through as they know some customers, their products and the competitors.

Content by salesman

In fact it should be the salesman who should write or define the content on the website as they are the closest to the prospect and customers. he knows how they react upon his sales pitches. However a salesman has no intention to waste his time on writing content for the website while he is being paid on a commission on his sales.

The increase of purchase risk

Due to the gap between marketing and sales, it will be hard for salesmen to tell or present the same story, concept, benefits, advantages, industry view and positioning as on the website. If there is any difference then it will induce a hazard or danger for the purchase decision.
Any increase of risk, will decrease the chances of a sale.
Therefor the content on the website should match the content in the meetings.

Sales pitch should match the website

Before the Internet and the almighty presence of the company website, salesmen had only to deal with advertising, press releases or editorials which concerned a small part of the total of benefits, advantages, concepts, views and perceptions . Whereas now the website has all the content only a click away.

Synergy sales en marketing

A synergy between sales and marketing is needed. Even more than before as the website content is visited and inquired before and after every meeting, telephone call and even emails from the salesman. Any difference will increase the purchase risk.
The website content and the salesmen need to align up in order to form one front and have one view exposing the same messages and the same vision.
Do you have a sales pitch matching the website ?