A new Showpad survey of 504 businesses across the U.S. and Europe found that 80 percent of Marketing and Sales Professionals aren’t reaping the rewards of content. That means that they’re collectively spending (read: wasting) more money and time to engage and convert fewer customers – and that isn’t the stuff of business plans and mission statements.

But rather than focusing on what these people are getting wrong, we chose to explore what the other 20 percent of high-performing marketing and sales professionals are getting right.

Here’s an overview of the key insights that the two groups have in common. It reveals why this smaller group exploits far more value and ROI from content vs. their under-performing counterparts. They: 

• Have access to customized and targeted content that is designed for various target audiences.
• Realize the significant impact that content has on customers across the buyer’s journey.
• Understand which pieces and types of content are most useful at different points in the sales cycle.
• Know that the people who create content in their organization are responsive to feedback, and leverage a formal mechanism in place to facilitate this process.
• Appreciate the importance of effective, close and ongoing collaboration between marketing and sales teams.

The Takeaway: These insights reveal that high-performing marketing and sales professionals have access to targeted content, and know how to create great buying experience by sharing the right content, with the right customer, at the right time. In other words: they’ve successfully embraced sales enablement in their jobs, and across their organizations.  

Looking Ahead: We’ll be sharing additional insights from the new survey in the coming days, including some eye-opening statistics to help the last remaining content skeptics out there realize that great content isn’t just important on today’s business landscape, but critical. Stay tuned.