What kind of content is best for self-serve buying?

If your website features a “Resources” menu item that links to a library full of traditional content, you’re very likely missing out on a tremendous amount of revenue and ROI.

Why is it important?

Today’s “in-market” buyers have already completed about 80% of their pre-purchase research before they engage with you as a vendor. They already know who you are, what you sell, what your value prop is, your pricing, your reviews, your competitors – all of it. So at this VERY FIRST TOUCH when they start digging deeper into your website, they’re already in your sales pipeline.

Moreover, according to TrustRadius, virtually 100% of these buyers want to continue that sales journey they’ve started completely on their own. In other words, they don’t want to speak to your sales reps – even at this point.

Back to that “Resources Library”. It is PRECISELY what they DON’T want. Why?

First, you’re making THEM continue to do all the work to find something relevant – through both your exhaustive website and its content library. And if they do find, let’s say, a case study that’s interesting – you then make them fill in a gate form just to access it. And let’s say they actually decide to chance it with that form, they’re then rewarded with a static PDF – a 30-year-old technology that’s not mobile friendly, not personalized to them, and for a completely different industry or vertical.

Today’s buyer at this point is simply gone. You’ve missed the opportunity, the revenue, and the ROI.

Yet you make matters worse by now having your SDRs (human or AI) hammer this “new lead” with calls, emails, more PDFs trying to get them back into the pipeline. Did you know that 95%+ of those sales development efforts are now ignored by today’s buyers?

What is the cost of doing nothing?

So think about the numbers here. We know that typically only 5% of your total buyers are truly “in-market” at any one time. Now take 5% – of that 5%. That’s the frighteningly low number of SELF-QUALIFIED opportunities actually engaging with your sales reps. In other words, they’re being ignored by most all your IN-MARKET buyers. What’s that doing to your revenue and ROI?

Why not give your buyers the hyper-personalized, intelligent sales journeys they want…with smart content that interactively answers their pre-purchase questions just like a sale rep would? With today’s AI technology, it’s surprisingly easy. In fact, you can even start with that content you already have in that “Resources Library”!

Self-serve buying is here to stay. The question is: Where are you going to invest your company’s time and “resources” to meet that demand?