Hey everyone – Jordan here with this week’s Content and Coffee. Today I’m talking about bridging the gap between your sales and marketing department. Regardless of which side of the fence you’re on, sales and content marketers are working toward the same end goal – but somehow one side usually ends up pinning their failures on the other department’s shortcomings.

Consider this: In a study from Demand Metric, about one in 10 marketers said the data they provide to sales is very effective. Just 3 percent of sales reps agree.

Here are a few ways your sales team and marketing content can work together for better results across the board:

First, encourage collaboration. When a content producer first joins the team, invite him or her to sit in on a sales demo. That way, they can truly understand the product and the services and how they’re being talked about. When someone doesn’t fully understand the nature of the business, how can you expect them to create content that will help you sell it?

Next, establish a question mapping strategy so sales teammates can tell content producers the biggest pain points people are coming to the table with. Let’s say I get a lot of questions about the difference between SEO and SEM. This could be a great blog topic for our writers to cover – but they may not know unless I tell them.

Learn more: How to create a question mapping strategy 

Finally – create content that’s going to be beneficial to both sales and marketing: in this case I’d recommend case studies and testimonials. These are the bottom-funnel pieces that are going to get people on your site to want to contact your sales team to learn more. On the flip side, they can also help once someone starts speaking with your sales representative. Having these additional resources to send over is a great way to show first-hand results and stay in front of that potential prospect without being too pushy.

I’m in sales – so naturally I’m curious to hear what other sales teams find to be the best types of content to show prospects. Let me know in the comments below, or on Twitter. And don’t forget to check back every Monday for your weekly Content and Coffee.

Jordan has been working in business development at Brafton since 2014. He loves staying up to date on everything content marketing related. In his free time he likes to hang out with friends, play soccer and read.