Usually because it wasn't built around the conversations sales is having. If content misses real buyer questions, is hard to find or may be out of date, salespeople build their own slides. It's a gap between the two teams, and rarely a motivation problem.

You may recognise this. Marketing has produced case studies, guides and a refreshed deck. Before the next big call, sales opens a blank presentation.

Neither team is being difficult. Each is doing the sensible thing from where it sits. That is why the gap lasts.

How common is it for sales to ignore marketing content?

Very common. A widely cited figure suggests 60 to 70 per cent of B2B marketing content goes unused by sales. It traces back to SiriusDecisions, now part of Forrester. Treat the exact number with some care. The pattern matches what many leadership teams see.

In a STEM business the cost is easy to underestimate. Technical content takes real expertise to produce. It often draws on the same people you want focused on delivery.

Is the content built around the conversations sales is actually having?

This is the most common cause. It is also the least comfortable.

Marketing content tends to start with what the business wants to say. Capabilities, credentials, the company story. Sales conversations start with what the buyer wants to know. Will this work for our application? Who has done this at our scale? What happens if it goes wrong?

In technical sales, those questions get specific fast. If an asset can't help with this week's objection, the salesperson builds something that can. That is a sensible response, not a discipline problem.

Case studies show it well. Take a case study that praises the supplier. It never says whether the customer looked like the prospect. It skips how hard the install was, and what happened next. It stays in the folder.

Can sales find it, and do they trust it?

Two quieter causes sit alongside the first.

Retrievability. If a salesperson can't find the right asset in a minute, they use what they already have. Content spread across a shared drive, a website and someone's inbox is effectively invisible.

Trust. If a rep isn't sure a document is current, they won't put it in front of a prospect. One outdated price or specification is enough to make a team wary of the whole library.

Neither is about quality. Both come down to how content is organised and maintained. That is usually nobody's specific job.

Has the marketing story drifted from the sales story?

Over time the two teams tell slightly different versions of the same story. Marketing refines the positioning for the website and campaigns. Sales adapts its pitch to what works in the room.

Without a regular check, the approved messaging stops matching the real conversation.

This links to the earlier posts in this series. When sales and marketing drift apart, or teams work in silos, unused content is often the first visible symptom. It is where the gap becomes something you can point at.

What gets sales to use marketing content?

Start from the conversation, not the asset. Before creating anything, agree who it is for, what question it answers, which objection it removes and when a salesperson would use it. If nobody can answer those, the piece probably doesn't need to exist yet.

Put sales in the room early. Ask the people taking calls for the three questions they hear most and the one they find hardest. That tells you more than a month of internal guessing.

Keep one shared core story. Agree what the business does, who it is for and why it matters. Let people adapt the wording. A fixed script gets ignored. A shared foundation gets used.

Make it easy to find and easy to trust. One location, clear names and a named owner who keeps it current. It is dull work. It does more for usage than another new asset.

Look at whether it is being used. Look at which assets appear in live deals and which don't. Invest in the first group. Retire the second.

Content only earns its place when it helps someone win a conversation. Start there.

Frequently asked questions

Why doesn't my sales team use the marketing content we produce? Most often the content doesn't match the questions buyers ask in a live sale. It may also be hard to find, or the team isn't sure it is up to date. So they build their own.

Is it a sign that marketing is doing a poor job? Not necessarily. Content can be well made and still go unused. Usually the two teams haven't agreed what each piece is for.

How do we get sales and marketing to agree on what content is useful? Start with the questions sales hears most often. Build the next few pieces around them. Then hold a short, regular review of what is working in live deals.

Should we create less content? Often, yes, for a while. More content without a better way of choosing, finding and maintaining it makes the problem bigger.

Priddey Marketing helps established STEM businesses build a scalable commercial growth engine, through stronger market strategy, marketing leadership and commercial alignment. A conversation to discuss a Commercial Growth Review looks at how marketing and sales work together, and where effort is going unused.

Photo by Mikael Blomkvist