Today, Mediafly has acquired visual communications provider Presentify. Headquartered in Europe, Presentify has a proven track record of helping brands revolutionize their sales content for more interactive, impactful, and inspiring buying experiences. They work with many well-known companies, including Pitney Bowes, Barclaycard, and Avalara, who value them for their unique and resonant approach to visual storytelling.
I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “Content is King.” It was coined by Bill Gates in an article published on Microsoft’s website in 1996. In the article, Gates (accurately) predicted that in the digital age, the quality of a company’s content would determine its success. His theory was that if people had to turn on a computer and read a screen, they would rightfully expect to receive meaningful and accurate information in return.
“They must be rewarded with deep and extremely up-to-date information that they can explore at will,” he wrote. “They need to have audio and possibly video.”
The Increasing Importance of Good Sales Content
In 1996, Gates was mostly referring to content published on the internet, but as the shift to digital has accelerated and given brands more channels to engage customers, the need for good content has only grown. Sales organizations, in particular, have increasingly prioritized content creation. From product brochureware to thought leadership blogs to sales presentation decks, today’s B2B sellers and marketers rely heavily on sales content to get their message across and position their products and services. But how many are doing so successfully?
An estimated 26% of B2B marketing budgets are spent on content. Yet, according to the American Marketing Association, 90% of that content is never used by sales. Meanwhile, one in three people admits to falling asleep during a PowerPoint presentation. These are just a few of the many statistics that point to a very widespread sales content problem.
If ‘Content is King’, and we’re producing more than ever, why aren’t we seeing the results we expect?
Static Sales Content Is No Longer Enough
If you’re creating a large volume of ordinary sales content, you’re going to fall short of your business goals. To be successful in winning deals and driving revenue, you need to make sure the content you create can engage and inspire your audience. Remember the viral ‘Crap Content’ piece from a few years back? It emphasized the importance of quality over quantity. It posed, “Are you building a great content brand or just building an efficient content machine?”
In 2020, where Forrester reports 80% of B2B sales will now be digital and remote, that question carries even more weight. Because in the COVID economy, you have to work smarter to capture remote buyers’ attention and keep it. It’s not just about what you say, but how you say it. Today, both the message and the format affect the quality of your content.
Is your narrative challenge-based? But beyond that, is the format of your content visually immersive? Will it motivate your sellers to use it and compel your buyers to act?
Gates said it best. A company “can’t just take what it has in print and move it to the electronic realm. There isn’t enough depth or interactivity in print content to overcome the drawbacks of the online medium.”
Remember, people can recall only 20% of what they read, but 80% of what they see. Lackluster PowerPoint decks and static, linear sales content won’t cut it. Compelling, interactive content is a requirement for companies that want to improve buyer engagement and close more deals.
Sales Content Needs Context
Regardless of how compelling your sales content is, you also need to ensure you can put the right content in front of the right buyer at the right time. As Gary Vaynerchuk puts it, “If Content is King, then Context is God.”
Imagine you’re a pet food company that takes the advice above. You’ve built striking, animated content that you know will engage and inspire your target audiences. But wires get crossed, and your seller goes into a meeting about dog food placement ready to pitch…gulp…cat food. It doesn’t matter how appealing and impactful your content is if it isn’t relevant to your buyer.
That’s a very oversimplified example, but you get the point. If your seller had access to your entire content library at her fingertips, she wouldn’t have lost your buyer in a moment of truth. She would have been able to pivot and address the buyer with a seamless and personalized pitch on-demand.
To win buyers over, your sellers need compelling, visual sales content at their fingertips, the flexibility to tailor selling stories to each buyer’s business, industry, or challenge – and the ability to deliver it all at just the right point of impact.
The Only Multi-Faceted Sales Content Solution Of Its Kind
With our acquisition of Presentify, Mediafly is the only sales enablement solution provider positioned to help customers achieve both the sales content format and context required to improve buyer engagement and drive revenue. Where previously, companies would need to work with multiple providers, including creative agencies, outside design resources, and technology solutions, Mediafly now streamlines the process of creating, distributing, and delivering engaging content that resonates with buyers in one holistic solution.
The incredible content creation resources and personnel we gain through the acquisition of Presentify enable us to help our customers build elevated selling stories using sophisticated visual communication capabilities directly within their Mediafly sales applications.
Mediafly’s content activation tools, including Enterprise content management software, AI-driven content hubs and recommendations, Share Links, and best-in-class presentation tools, put sales content at sellers’ fingertips. This allows them to seamlessly deliver strikingly visual sales stories to their buyers at the right moment in their journey. Insights garnered from Mediafly’s advanced content usage analytics tie specific content assets directly to pipeline creation and revenue, allowing a continuous cycle of sales content creation, measurement, optimization, and improvement.
Mediafly’s acquisition of Presentify furthers our commitment to putting content at the center of everything we do so our customers can engage their buyers better than their competition. I’m thrilled to welcome the Presentify team on board and look forward to marrying the sales content capabilities required to take ordinary, static sales content and transform it into extraordinary, visual sales stories that can be seamlessly leveraged in-person, remote, or as follow-up.
You can learn more about Mediafly’s acquisition of Presentify here.
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