Savvy marketing professionals understand that sales and marketing must work together to move prospects into the sales pipeline. This is especially important in a complex B2B sale that has long decision making cycles and multiple buyers that need to be influenced.

The good news is that press release content drives people into and shortens the sales cycle for any product or service, especially ones that have many steps and take months or years to complete. Here’s how you can make this happen:

Understand your sales process in detail

All sales processes are definable, repeatable and understandable and effective marketers use the Web to move people into and through the process. You need to get together with salespeople, sales management and product managers to understand exactly what happens in the sales cycle. You should answer questions such as: How do people initially find your company or product? What words and phrases do they use? Understanding the process in detail allows you to understand how in the process press releases can be used.

Segment your prospects

Consider press releases based on the buyer persona, perhaps by job title or by industry. A prospect is much more likely to enter the sales cycle by clicking a press release that talks about solving her problems.

Create thought leadership content to sit at the top of the sales funnel

People in the early stages of the sales cycle need basic information on the product category, especially “thought leadership” pieces. Don’t just write press releases about your company and your products; be thought leaders and write about the industry and higher-level strategic issues surrounding your product or service. When doing initial research, people don’t want to hear about you and your company; they want information about them and their problems.

Provide content that is compelling enough to get people to “raise their hand”

In your press releases, deliver something of value that you can trade for a registration form. A link from your press release to an informative white paper, online event (such as a Webinar), or online demo will help move your prospect further down the sales process - and, in exchange for the right content, she will happily “raise her hand” to express interest by filling out a form. Remember, you’re still not ready to sell a product or service (yet); you are still relationship building. (By the way, these links will also help raise the search engine ranking of the pages you point to.)

Measure and Improve

Measure what content is being used and how. Understand through Web metrics what’s working and constantly tweak the content to make it better. Meet regularly with salespeople to gain insights into the sales cycle and how your press release content helps, and can better assist, the process. The Web is iterative - you can and should make adjustments on the fly.

Adopted from the New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott

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