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Have you ever heard the phrase, “content is king”? Chances are, you have, and you wholeheartedly agree. Businesses put a lot of emphasis on their content whether it be blogging, long-form content such as ebooks and white papers, or audio/visual content such as podcasts and video. When you google any brand, I guarantee you’ll be able to find at least one type of content where they shine that showcases their brand.

The brains behind this content epidemic, the content marketers, are responsible for everything from content strategy to content creation to content analysis. It’s important that your content showcases your brand, your product, and your industry expertise. But what else is crucial to a strong content marketing strategy? The answer is simple - competitive intelligence. Without competitive intelligence, there may be gaps that you’re missing throughout your content lifecycle. Let’s take a look at how competitive intelligence is crucial for content marketers when you’re planning, executing, and analyzing your content marketing strategy by looking at five key elements to analyze.

The following post was written by Meg Guarente, Product Marketing Manager at Seismic, the leading B2B marketing enablement and sales enablement software solution. Meg has over 7 years of experience working in strategic product marketing and management roles. She has worked at TechTarget, Dataxu, and now at Seismic Software. At Seismic she leads the product marketing function for the SMB and mid-market space. 

Product marketers have a complex job working cross-functionally to support many crucial areas of the business. Creating and distributing buyer-facing content, updating sellers on the industry and competitive landscape, and understanding how content is performing are just some of the challenges product marketers face daily.

As a product marketer myself, I can attest to these problems firsthand. Throughout my product marketing journey, I haven’t always been able to say with 100% confidence which content repository I was supposed to use to create new or update existing content for sales. When I asked my fellow marketers, they all had different answers as well. I also haven’t always had insight into what was working and what wasn’t.

Sound familiar? I’m sure a lot of product marketers (and marketers alike) can relate, so I wanted to share some tips and tricks I’ve found along the way to help combat these challenges.

As companies grow, sales teams get bigger, and sales cycles become more complex, many businesses invest in a sales enablement function within the marketing team. Marketers, who are tasked with driving acquisition and awareness efforts first and foremost, partner closely with their sales teams to make sure the business hits its revenue targets. Enter, sales enablement marketers: marketing professionals tasked with supporting sales teams with resources, tools, and trainings to help them close more deals. But the reality is that the task of enabling sales expands beyond one focused role. In fact, sales enablement can and should be supported by everyone in marketing. Here’s how each area of marketing supports sales enablement.

Many companies hide their pricing from the general public on their website. Why? Well, there are a couple of possible reasons. It could be that they have completely customizable pricing, and it could be too much to throw at a site visitor. Another key reason is that they don’t want their competitors getting ahold of their pricing model. Companies want to maintain their competitive advantage when it comes to closing deals. However, the reality is, your competitors probably have your pricing locked away in a battlecard somewhere for their entire organization to see. If you’re wondering how to best showcase your pricing model to appeal to prospective clients and differentiate yourself from your competition, check out these successful pricing pages for inspiration.