Content can help you in more parts of your business than building your brand awareness or attracting traffic from search engines.
Content can also serve as one of the tools under the belt of your Sales Reps. When done right, it will boost your customers’ trust and contribute to your company’s bottom line.
But what exactly is “done right” sales enablement content? In this article, we’ll explain this concept and show you how to craft it.
What is Sales Enablement Content Strategy?
Sales enablement content helps your sales team confidently communicate the value of your product and demonstrate your industry expertise.
They can be either:
- Internal: To educate new employees and standardizing the sales process
- External: To showcase your company’s products or services to prospects.
Sales enablement content strategy is a comprehensive plan that outlines how sales content will be created, organized, distributed, and measured to support the sales team in closing deals. Its ultimate goal is equipping sales reps with the right tools and resources to effectively engage with prospects and customers at every stage of the buyer’s journey.
While content marketing aims to attract and engage prospects through valuable and relevant content, sales enablement content strategy specifically aims to empower the sales team with the tools they need to convert leads into customers. The ultimate goal of sales enablement content is to increase sales productivity, accelerate the sales cycle, and ultimately drive revenue growth.
Sales enablement content can include a variety of materials, such as:
- sales scripts
- battle cards
- case studies
- product demos
- customer testimonials
And more. By providing sales reps with the right content at the right time, they can effectively communicate the value of the product or service, overcome objections, and ultimately close more deals.
Key Types of Sales Enablement Content Every Company Needs
When creating a sales enablement content strategy, you should consider the key types of content that can support your sales team in effectively engaging with prospects and closing deals.
Here are some of the essential types of sales enablement content that every company needs:
Internal Sales Enablement Content
Internal sales enablement content is designed to educate and empower your sales team. This includes:
- Sales scripts: Provide a structured guide for sales reps to use during sales calls or meetings.
- Battle cards: Summarize key competitive information to help sales reps differentiate your product or service.
- Persona documents: Outline the characteristics, needs, and pain points of your target customers to help sales reps tailor their messaging.
External Sales Enablement Content
External sales enablement content is created to showcase your company’s products or services to prospects. This can include:
- Case studies: Highlight success stories of how your product or service helped a customer achieve their goals.
- Product demos: Show how your product works and its key features in action.
- Customer testimonials: Provide social proof by sharing feedback from satisfied customers.
Each type of sales enablement content plays a crucial role in the sales process:
- Sales scripts help sales reps stay on message and address common objections.
- Persona documents help reps tailor their communication to the specific needs of the prospect.
- Case studies and customer testimonials build credibility and trust with potential customers.
- Product demos demonstrate the value and functionality of your offering.
Different types of sales enablement content serve various stages of the sales funnel.
For example, sales scripts and persona documents are typically used in the early stages of the sales process to help reps understand the prospect’s needs and tailor their messaging accordingly.
Case studies, product demos, and customer testimonials, on the other hand, are more commonly used in the later stages of the sales cycle to provide social proof and demonstrate the value of the product or service.
A well-rounded sales enablement content strategy should include a mix of internal and external content types to support the sales team at every stage of the buyer’s journey.
Before you create that content, you should do one more thing:
How to align Marketing and Sales Working on Sales Enablement Content
Sales and Marketing should collaborate to create sales enablement content. The Sales team can provide Marketers with first-hand information about customers’ goals and challenges.
In turn, marketers can prepare laser-focused content that will help Sales close deals faster.
However, you should watch out for a couple of friction points that may appear during such a collaboration.
The key two to keep in mind are:
- Miscommunication
- Goal misalignment
Luckily, those two are easily fixable – you have to prioritize open and frequent communication between the two teams.
Regular meetings and check-ins can help ensure that both teams are working towards the same goals and objectives. Creating a feedback loop where sales reps can also provide input on the effectiveness of marketing materials can help ensure that content is meeting the needs of the sales team.
The best sales enablement content happens when both parties contribute to its quality. Encourage your Sales and Marketing to exchange insights regularly.
Step-by-Step Guide to Developing a Sales Enablement Content Strategy
Developing a sales enablement content strategy is a crucial step in equipping your sales team with the tools they need to effectively engage with prospects and close deals. Here is a step-by-step guide to help you create a successful sales enablement content strategy:
1. Conduct a Content Audit
Start by conducting a content audit to assess the current state of your sales content. Identify what content you already have, what is working well, and where there are gaps that need to be filled.
To do this, you might want to use a ROT score.
This involves evaluating content based on whether it is:
- Redundant
- Outdated
- Trivial
This will help you determine which content can be repurposed, updated, or created from scratch to better support the sales team.
2. Define Your Target Audience and Sales Process
Next, clearly define your target audience and understand the sales process they go through. This will help you tailor your sales enablement content to address the specific needs and pain points of your customers at each stage of the buyer’s journey.
While building the sales enablement content strategy for our clients, we gather the following information about their target audience:
- Demographics: All statistically relevant information that informs us how the content should look like. For example, sales content for 25-35-year-old female audience will look different from the content for 50-60-year-old male.
- Psychographics: Here, we focus on Fears, Frustrations, Goals, and Aspirations (FFGAs) of our audience. This is the basis for crafting a resonant, relatable piece of content
- Customer Journey: We outline the touchpoints your customer goes through before buying from you and identify the best content formats to support them along this journey.
While working on the last one, we also map out the entire sales process and look for alignment between the marketing efforts and the sales activities needed to close the deal.
3. Create a Content Strategy
Based on your content audit and understanding of your target audience, create a content strategy that outlines the types of content you need to create, the topics you should cover, and how you will organize and distribute that content.
For example, your content strategy might include creating sales scripts, case studies, product demos, and customer testimonials to support your sales team at various stages of the buyer’s journey.
Consider creating a content calendar to help you plan and manage your content creation efforts. This will help you maintain consistency and measure the effectiveness of your sales content’s effectiveness.
4. Develop Sales Enablement Content
With your content strategy in place, start developing sales enablement content that aligns with your goals and objectives.
Once you begin the creation process, we recommend creating templates and SOPs for specific formats, like battle cards, case studies, or product demos.
They will ensure your content’s look and feel is consistent and trustworthy.
There’s no need to spend too long on their good looks, however. Prioritize clarity and concision over design. Even the best-looking content won’t help you convert a customer if it lacks substance.
Of course, make sure to involve the sales team in the content creation process to ensure that it meets their needs and resonates with prospects.
5. Implement a Content Management System
To effectively organize and distribute your sales enablement content, consider implementing a content management system.
This will help you centralize your content, make it easily accessible to the sales team, and track its performance and effectiveness.
Look for a system that allows you to categorize content based on different stages of the buyer’s journey and provides analytics to measure content engagement and impact.
For our internal content processes, we use Clickup. It helps us monitor the entire creation process and align it with other content activities in the pipeline.
6. Gather Feedback and Optimize
Throughout the process, gather feedback from the sales team on the effectiveness of the content.
Monitor key metrics such as:
- Content usage
- Engagement
- Conversion rates
This will help you understand what resources are available to leverage and what areas need improvement.
Use this feedback to continually optimize your sales enablement content strategy and ensure that it is delivering value to the sales team and driving revenue growth.
Technology’s Role for Sales Enablement Content
Technology can help you increase the accessibility and effectiveness of your sales enablement content.
Sales enablement platforms can centralize all sales content in one place, making it easier for reps to find and share relevant materials. Analytics tools can track the performance of content, helping teams understand what content is most effective at each stage of the sales funnel.
Here are a few key ways to leverage data and technology in your sales enablement strategy:
Integration of CRM systems:
By integrating your CRM system with your sales enablement platform, you can provide sales reps with real-time access to customer data, sales history, and other valuable insights.
This integration can also help track the effectiveness of your content and identify areas for improvement.
Analytics-driven content creation:
Use analytics tools to track the performance of your sales enablement content. By analyzing metrics such as content engagement, conversion rates, and sales team feedback, you can gain valuable insights into what is working and what needs to be adjusted.
This data-driven approach can help you refine your content strategy to better meet the needs of your sales team and ultimately drive revenue growth.
Success stories:
Many companies have successfully leveraged data and technology in their sales enablement efforts.
For example, Salesforce uses data analytics to personalize content for sales reps, resulting in higher engagement and conversion rates.
By harnessing the power of data and technology, you can enhance the effectiveness of your sales enablement content and empower your sales team to succeed.
Future Trends in Sales Enablement Content Strategy
One of the latest trends in sales enablement content is AI content personalization.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies can analyze vast amounts of data to understand customer behavior, preferences, and buying patterns. This data can then be used to personalize sales content and communications to better engage with prospects and customers.
AI-powered tools can also help sales teams identify the most promising leads, prioritize sales activities, and track the effectiveness of sales content in real-time. This level of automation and personalization can significantly speed up the sales process and drive higher conversion rates.
In addition to AI, other future trends in sales enablement content strategy may include the integration of virtual and augmented reality technologies for immersive product demos, the use of interactive content formats for increased engagement, and the development of more dynamic and personalized sales enablement platforms.
By staying ahead of these trends and embracing emerging technologies, you can continue to improve the effectiveness of your sales enablement content and drive revenue growth in the ever-evolving digital sales landscape.
Conclusion
A well-crafted sales enablement content strategy is crucial for equipping your sales team with the tools they need to effectively engage with prospects and close deals.
By differentiating sales enablement content from content marketing, aligning marketing and sales efforts, and leveraging data and technology, you can drive revenue growth and increase sales productivity.
And if you’re too busy to create sales enablement content – we’re here to help! Grab a spot from our calendar below and let’s discuss how you can generate more revenue with content:
