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The way business is done these days has changed, people have access to so much information at their fingertips, so much so that the way sales are done has changed. Gone are the days when people speak to the sales team when they need something, the first thing people do now is to head straight to google and look up everything they can about the products and services they are after, so much so there has been a shift to a split of 80/20 towards marketing vs sales, this is where the CENT model was born.

Having worked for some amazing brands, the shift was clear years ago, people have never been keen on being sold to and the advent of the internet meant that there was a means for people to avoid being sold to even more.

The first part of the CENT model is CONTENT, because you have to have something to say! We’ve all seen it, people pushing things on social media that makes no sense, there are no call to actions but it’s all “BUY MY STUFF”. There is no rhyme or reason to it, they just decide that they have to hit the online market space if they are going to either save or grow their business, so they launch. But the first stage of anything is about having something to say, without that, you are just making noise or virtual small talk – no one likes small talk!

So what content can you create?

There are so many different types of content that you can create:

  • Blogs – Long and Short form
  • Videos
  • Podcasts
  • Graphics
  • Infographics
  • Ebooks
  • Brochures
  • Guides
  • Etc

The next step in the CENT model is Engagement, so by this stage, we have created content, something to say and share with your target audience. Now we have to get that content to the world and start engaging with people, the question is, which mediums do we use and how do we use them.

This is always a challenge for people, there are so many mediums and platforms out there, where do you start and which ones should you actually be on?

When it comes to nurturing people, I’ve always felt this was one of the forgotten elements of the whole process of winning business. I once worked with a company where their entire nurturing/follow up process was a Monday to Friday job – they would contact the lead on Monday, Wednesday and Friday to see if they wanted to buy from them, if by the third call on Friday, they still hadn’t decided….. They were gone! I was shocked but that was the same company we generated £1.8m in hot leads for and they never contacted a single one of them – we dropped them as a client after that.

 

So nurturing is something that is close to my heart at least, you have to look after your leads and nurture them or your competitors will! When you think that 93% of people are not ready to buy within the first couple of months, you have to do something to keep you at the front of their mind, that is the nurturing process comes into play.

 

When the leads get to this point you’ve already worked hard to get them there, you’ve created content that has drawn them in when you’ve engaged on social media, so if you leave them after all of that effort, it’s all been for nothing.

The final part of the CENT model is the Transaction part, it’s where the deals are done and the money is made. In order to get to this stage, you have to have completed the previous stages, of course you might get someone who wants to purchase straight away, those are the unicorns of the sales world!

 

The transaction stage is simple, it’s removing the obstacles that will allow them to buy – either making sure they know where the products and services can be purchased online or how they go about contacting you, or getting you to contact them to complete the deal. Make the process so simple, they can fly through it


ABOUT MATT RUDDLE

Matthew Ruddle started Ruddle Digital in 2019 after 12 years working for a SaaS CRM company. Matt joined InTouchCRM when it was a young company in their first year, starting in a customer support role with a passion for IT and delivering best in class support, he quickly became the Customer Success Director of the company with a team providing the 5000+ customers in 46 countries with 24 hour support, winning an award at the Software Satisfaction Awards in 2012, as voted for by his clients.

During his time with the company, he worked closely with clients such as Rugby World Cup 2015, British Athletics, Welsh Rugby Union, Xerox, Lords Cricket Ground and many more, working with those clients on their marketing and communications, overseeing more than 500m opted in emails being sent.

To help grow the business, Matt setup a marketing service called “The InTouch Growth Academy” which became a six figure a year sub-business within 2 months. The Growth Academy was all about working with clients to drive their marketing forward, helping them to establish who their target audience was and then build content that engaged and converted. During that time, we saw fantastic success with another of clients completely transforming their business.

It was the success of the Growth Academy, Matt’s pet side project that inspired the creation of Ruddle Digital, to help grow businesses of all shapes and sizes, bringing marketing expertise at affordable prices.