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Today, customers manage 85% of their interaction with a company without interacting with a human. As such, the use of content marketing to build trust with your customers is more important than ever. But in such a crowded marketplace, how can you break through the noise and make an impact with your content? In this article, you’ll learn about the best content marketing strategy to use for your business.
‘They Ask, You Answer’: a Timeless Content Marketing Strategy
They Ask You Answer (aka TAYA) is a practical framework and sales and marketing philosophy that assumes one simple truth: if your prospect or customer asks a question, you answer, and in doing so, you will become the most trusted voice in your space and will gain more business than you ever have before.
TAYA is a timeless strategy because it is something that always works, regardless of the times. Buyers want information in order to make a purchasing decision and as a business you provide that information, helping guide them to their decision.
It leads to more website traffic, leads and sales than any other strategy out there. Let’s take a look at what exactly TAYA involves and how it can impact your organisation.
What exactly does TAYA involve?
TAYA consists of three main components:
- Aligning sales and marketing teams by forming a Revenue Team: This team works together to brainstorm content that answers the questions that buyers are asking on sales calls. By combining the insights of both sales and marketing, your content will be more relevant and valuable to your target audience.
- Writing and posting three blog articles every week that answer buyer questions: Consistent content production helps improve website traffic and leads.
- Using the created content in the sales process as follow-up material (called Assignment Selling): This helps your sales team address customer objections and concerns more effectively, leading to higher close rates and shorter sales cycles.
Why you Shouldn’t be Using Any Strategy Other than TAYA
There’s five reasons why you should be using TAYA:
- Increased website traffic and leads
- It focuses on answering buyer questions
- It aligns teams that are usually truncated
- Enormous impact on your sales team (and your sales revenue)
- It cannot be outsourced
Increased website traffic and leads
When you implement TAYA, you can expect to see an increase in website traffic and leads within the first 90 days.
In fact, we’ve seen website traffic double from before implementing TAYA to the end of the 90 day mark.
It focuses on answering buyer questions
TAYA is not just a content marketing strategy, it’s a customer-centric framework that helps businesses to become an authority in their industry.
By answering the most pressing questions of potential buyers, businesses establish trust and credibility with their audience, and ultimately become the go-to source for information in their field.
This approach has worked for businesses for centuries, and it’s not going to change anytime soon. For example, when the Michelin Tyre Company began publishing a guidebook for motorists in 1900, they weren’t just selling tires – they were establishing themselves as an authority in the automobile industry. Today, Michelin is still considered an expert in the automotive industry, largely because of the trust and authority they built through their guidebook.
In saying that, this strategy works even better in today’s day and age because customers search for answers online before they even speak to a salesperson. This means you can start selling to buyers with your content before they even talk to a salesperson – powerful stuff, right?
It aligns teams that are usually misaligned
The traditional approach to content marketing is to have the marketing team produce content in a vacuum, without any input from sales.
The result is often content that doesn’t resonate with potential buyers, and a lot of wasted time and resources.
TAYA takes a different approach by bringing together the sales and marketing teams to identify the most pressing questions of potential buyers.
By working together, the teams can create content that speaks directly to the needs of the customer and addresses their most pressing concerns. This alignment leads to a more effective content strategy that resonates with customers and drives real results.
Enormous impact on your sales team (and your sales revenue)
By providing sales with a wealth of content that addresses the most pressing concerns of potential buyers, the sales team is better equipped to close deals and shorten the sales cycle.
According to Marcus Sheridan, founder of the TAYA framework, implementing TAYA increased his sales close rates from 15% to over 80%.
This significant increase in sales effectiveness is largely due to the fact that TAYA provides sales with a powerful tool to address the needs and concerns of potential buyers.
It cannot be outsourced
Outsourcing your content marketing strategy to an agency is like hiring a personal trainer to get fit – while it may seem like an easy way out, it’s not the most effective approach.
In order to truly achieve your fitness goals, you need to take control of your own health and work closely with a trainer to create a plan that works for you.
Similarly, by taking your marketing in-house, you take control of your marketing efforts and work closely with your sales team to create content that resonates with your target audience.
Just like taking control of your own fitness journey, insourcing your content marketing strategy ultimately leads to better results and a more effective content strategy that addresses the needs of your potential buyers.
TAYA, in particular, requires a close-knit relationship between the marketing and sales teams, making it almost impossible to outsource.
As such, it’s probably the best content marketing strategy you can invest in for your business.
How to Implement TAYA?
Now that you know what the TAYA strategy is and why it’s the best option, it’s time to learn how to implement it.
Here are the steps you need to take to implement the TAYA strategy:
- Form a Revenue Team
- Set up a content brainstorming session
- Marketing team starts producing content
- Sales team starts using the content
Form a Revenue Team
Start by forming a Revenue Team.
A Revenue Team is a combination of your sales and marketing teams and is made up of key players from both sales and marketing. All activities, regardless of individual roles, are focused on the shared goal of increasing company revenue.
The day-to-day operations of a revenue team include these core recurring activities:
- Weekly or fortnightly revenue team meetings where they discuss the content that has been published and its value, the content that is currently in production, and the performance of previous content for sales.
- Brainstorming sessions to come up with new content ideas by answering questions such as “What do your buyers have the biggest doubts or worries about?”
- Measuring the quality of sales enablement content by asking follow-up questions such as “Why are they asking this question?” and “When are they asking this question in the sales process?”
- Fortnightly Team Reports to update the team on what was done last and what’s next.
- Monthly Newsletter to showcase content wins and sales wins from the efforts of the Revenue Team.
Here’s an example of what a team report could look like:
Set up a Content Brainstorming Session
Once you’ve formed your Revenue Team, it’s time to start brainstorming content ideas. This session should include everyone on the Revenue Team, and you should encourage open and honest communication.
Some questions you’re going to discuss as a team are:
- What content has been published since you last met, and how is it valuable?
- What content is currently in the production pipeline?
- How has the previously published content been performing for sales?
- What questions are you currently being asked by buyers in the sales process that should have a piece of content created for it?
Then, the sales team will generally answer the following questions in a discussion format with the marketing team:
- What questions do you get asked that immediately indicate the buyer is not close to ready to make a decision?
- What do your clients and buyers push back on the most?
- What are your buyer’s biggest doubts or worries (with respect to the product, the process, the company)?
- What do your buyers have to convince the key decision-makers of?
By asking these questions, you’ll end up with a long list of content that can be used to increase website traffic, leads, and sales revenue.
Marketing team starts producing content
After you have a list of content ideas, it’s time to start producing content.
Your marketing team should start creating blog posts, videos, social media posts, and other content that answers your buyer’s questions.
The first step is to consistently publish three articles every week. Then, you can scale your marketing efforts and produce 50+ pieces of content every week (here’s a guide on how to do this).
Sales team starts using the content
Once the marketing team has created the content, it’s time for the sales team to start using it.
The sales team can use this educational content as follow-up material when talking to leads during the sales process. The best way to use it is to assign the prospect with “homework” to read the blog article before the next call.
This technique, known as “Assignment Selling,” can be highly effective in closing deals. For a comprehensive guide on Assignment Selling, see our article here.
Hiring a Coach to Implement the Best Content Marketing Strategy
While TAYA may be the best content marketing strategy out there, it’s not easy to implement. That’s where hiring a coach can be a game-changer.
Working with a coach can help you save time and avoid costly mistakes. Coaches bring years of experience and expertise to the table, which can help you streamline your content marketing process and get better results in less time.
At RedPandas, we have a team of expert coaches who can help you implement your content marketing strategy. Our coaches have years of experience working with businesses of all sizes and industries, and they know what it takes to create a successful content marketing strategy.
If you’re ready to take your content marketing to the next level, we’re here to help. Contact us now to learn more about how our coaches can help you implement the best content marketing strategy for your business.
