Sales enablement is a term that is used to describe the tools, processes, and information that help sales reps sell more effectively. The goal of sales enablement is to make it easier for sales reps to sell, and to help them close more deals.
There are several different ways that companies can enable their sales reps. Some common examples include providing training and development resources, sales intelligence tools, and CRM systems. By investing in sales enablement, companies can help their sales reps become more successful, and ultimately, increase sales and revenue.
In this article, we will share some examples of sales enablement content to grow and improve conversion rates.
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Sales Enablement |
What is Sales Enablement Content?
Sales enablement content is designed to assist buyers in making purchasing decisions. Every piece of content that you build to help warm leads up in your pipeline has a singular goal to get them to convert.
Your sales enablement strategy should align with your buyer's journey, and your content should be tailored to each stage of that journey. For example, if you're trying to reach buyers who are in the awareness stage, your content should be educational and informative. If you're trying to reach buyers who are in the consideration stage, your content should be more focused on your product or service and how it can solve their specific problem.
Building a robust sales enablement content strategy is essential for any company that wants to close more deals and grow.
Why is Sales Enablement Content Important for Sales Teams?
Sales enablement content is key to boosting sales and generating revenue. It makes salespeople's jobs more efficient and improves the experiences prospects have with your brand at every stage of the buyer's journey.
There are a lot of choices available to buyers these days. If they don't find what they're looking for at your company or the sales rep can't explain how a product will help them, they'll choose a different option.
In a competitive marketplace, it is important to offer your target audience a variety of options to choose from. This will ensure that you can generate leads and sales.
A sales team that is more prepared and knowledgeable, and has a stronger understanding of your products and company values will be able to sell more effectively.
The importance of sales enablement content cannot be understated. This type of content is essential for sales teams to help them persuade and convert prospects.
In a nutshell, sales enablement content is essential for the sales team to:
- Provide more value to prospects
- Move leads faster in the sales pipeline
- Convert more loyal customers
When a sales representative shares relevant content with prospects, it helps them make informed decisions and enhances their overall experience with the company. This, in turn, builds customer loyalty and leads to increased sales and revenue for the business.
Types of Sales Enablement Content To Have on Hand
1. Buyer Persona document
Maybe one day, we may be able to mimic sales conversations using smart, life-like projected holograms of potential buyers. But until then, salespeople have to practice using imagination and a neat little tool we call a buyers persona.
For example, this next one is an in-depth profile that takes into account both the buyer's business and personal interests. By creating a detailed buyer persona, you can anticipate every query, address their pain points with heightened awareness, and tailor your pitch for each persona.
Reps can practice opening up conversations in a variety of ways, and come up with compelling segues if they already know what type of person is on the other end of a phone or email.
2. Customer Journey Maps
When it comes to sales-enablement content, it's important to capture every step that your target audience takes before buying from you. By doing so, you'll be able to better understand their needs and pain points and address them accordingly. This will ultimately lead to more sales and a better ROI for your business.
3. New hire onboarding checklist
As a sales manager, you know that training new or veteran sales reps are essential to success. But what exactly do you need to cover to ensure that your representatives are ready to make calls or send emails on Day 2?
Here's a helpful checklist to make sure you cover all the essentials:
1. Company overview. Make sure your reps have a good understanding of the company they're representing. This includes the company's history, mission, and values.
2. Product knowledge. Your reps must be experts on the products or services they sell. They should be able to answer any questions a potential customer might have.
3. Objection handling. Train your reps on how to handle objections so they can help customers succeed and ultimately grow sales.
4. Email Templates
This makes email templates yet another essential content type to build sales enablement. Write several templates that will help salespeople save time and reach more buyers. However, remember to design your email templates with flexibility, so reps can modify them if needed.
5. High-Value Blog Posts
We are discussing detailed posts addressing customers' product-related concerns. Let's say you are talking with a prospect who wants to know how to animate their graphics.
In this situation, you might want to give them a product demonstration, which walks them through the features of your product's animations.
When providing a demo of your product's features, it can be helpful to also reference a blog post that explains how those features work. This way, you not only give your leads a feature-specific demo, but you're also providing them with content that can help them self-learn, in case they're not yet ready for a call.
When creating blog posts, you should not restrict yourself to writing about one specific topic. Blog posts come in all shapes and sizes, so feel free to experiment with different formats and topics to find what works best for you and your audience.
You might also consider doing a comparison post, where you put your product up against one or two other similar products. We've done this before, comparing our tool against another infographic creator.
An additional option is to write a compare-and-contrast post. This shows readers all of their potential choices, and how your product is the best possible option for their needs. Our post about alternatives for Magisto is one example of this here.
Learn more on how to create a blog or your business.
6. Case Studies
Testimonials from satisfied customers are always persuasive. Seeing how other people like them have had success using your products builds social proof and tells prospects that they could have the same results.
The results the client is getting and how he is getting there should be made clear.
Additionally, be clear and concise so that prospects can quickly understand a large amount of information at a glance.
The template is also highly customizable. So, all you need to do is go into HubSpot and edit the colors and fonts of the template to match your visual branding and replace the placeholder text.
7. Sales Playbook
This kind of sales enablement content is helpful to train your sales teams. Essentially, the sales playbook is a convenient handbook, which packs sales best practices for different situations.
This type of sales enablement content can help to train your sales teams. The sales playbook is essentially a handy reference guide, containing sales best practices for different situations.
If a representative finds themselves in a difficult situation, they may be able to find guidance on how to handle it in their sales playbook.
Sales leaders need to collaborate with marketing teams to ensure the effectiveness of this type of training content. By sharing their insights and experiences, sales leaders can provide valuable input that can help shape the direction of the training.
The marketing team is responsible for taking the information and turning it into a clean, easy-to-understand piece. They will then put it into a Visme template to make it visually appealing and easy to understand.
8. Ebooks
E-books can be used to educate and convince potential customers about a product in a more in-depth way than blog posts. By answering questions prospects may have about the product or related issues, e-books can help build trust and confidence in the product.
If a prospect raises a similar issue in the future, a representative can direct them to the ebook for a more comprehensive answer.
One thing to keep in mind is that it may be difficult to convince people to read a book from cover to cover. But there is one secret to making sure that happens. And that is to make sure that you lay out all your content in a visually appealing format that is easy to read.
One thing to keep in mind is that it may be difficult to convince people to read a book from cover to cover. But there is one secret to making sure that happens. And that is to make sure that you lay out all your content in a visually appealing format that is easy to read.
Instead of creating more work for yourself, consider using eBook templates to build sales enablement content. This will save you time and energy in the long run.
9. Podcast
Podcasts are a great medium for audiences with shorter attention spans. They don't require your undivided attention, but can still be very engaging.
Include them in your sales enablement portfolio to share your expertise and brand messaging, which will help you stand out from the competition.
Google Podcasts is the perfect platform for entrepreneurs to share their experiences and ideas about business opportunities and transformation. In today's age, Google is striving to be the go-to choice for businesses, and this podcast platform is a great way to get insights from some of the top minds in the industry.
It is an excellent example of how to adapt sales-enablement content to changing business goals.
Learn more with this complete guide on how to start a podcast.
10. Training videos
If you lack the time or resources to create a comprehensive training program, you can instead create a series of training videos. Require new employees to watch these videos within a certain timeframe, and use them as reference materials whenever a rep needs to review or refresh their knowledge.
This video provides great sales techniques based on data, such as whiteboard pitches, qualifying, conducting a two-way conversation, and pacing out objections.
11. Quizzes
You will go out of your way to get your prospect's attention throughout the sales cycle. Why not give a new rep a taste of that experience when they are getting set up?
Engage them with a few trivia questions to keep them engaged, while also showing you how well the training plan is working. This helps you figure out whether or not they are digesting the content of the training program.
Wondering how to make a training quiz for your new employees? Do not have time or resources to do an in-depth training program?
12. White Papers
A white paper is a research-backed document that does little direct persuasion. Instead, it goes deeper on the subject, deeper than the eBook, and makes its case with facts, evidence, and real-life stories.
You can use this to train your sales team or to provide valuable information to your potential customers.
The whitepaper can be used to train prospects in the area of expertise. This will help build credibility with prospects and establish you as an expert in the field.
13. Product Sell Sheet
Product sales sheets are one-page documents that provide an overview of your product's features. In other words, these sheets are concise elevator pitches designed to capture the attention of your target audience in an instant.
Successful product sales sheets are designed to be engaging and straightforward, without listing every single feature. This could be confusing for your target customers.
14. Proposals
Proposals are documents that present your company/services to potential customers. For them to get you, customers, however, you must be comprehensive when sharing about your business, customers (think: client feedback), how you can help, and pricing.
Also, you must develop these in ways that will keep readers engaged. This will help you stand out from the sea of pitches prospects receive.
If you don't have time, just get the proposal template from HubSpot, or a platform of choice and edit it.
15. Sales Presentations
A well-crafted sales pitch establishes the tone for future conversations with prospects. It also distinguishes you from your competitors and leaves customers with a favorable impression.
The key to an effective presentation is focusing on both the delivery style and the design of your slides. The tips in the video below will help you with your delivery, and be sure to put thought into the design of your slides to engage your audience.
In terms of design, choosing one template will take care of half the work. However, if you want a presentation that truly stands out, making it interactive is a great way to keep your audience engaged
16. Webinars
Another sales-enablement type of content to build is the webinar. Specifically, webinars that teach your audience how to do something with your product.
For product-driven webinars, you must be collaborating with product experts on the hosting. These can be someone on-site, such as the product manager, or outside, such as the customer using your tools.
Having experts on board increases your webinar credibility. Know what else makes it engaging? Interactive elements like question-and-answer sessions and surveys, as well as well-designed slideshows.
17. Sales Battlecards
According to a recent study, using sales battle cards can help improve your company's win rate. The study found that 71% of companies that use sales battle cards say they've seen an improvement in their win rates.
Sales battle cards can be an extremely effective tool for sales teams. If you're not already using them, consider doing so – you may be surprised at the results.
They are single-page cheat sheets full of talking points that will help your sales team get more deals done.
Battlecards can be especially helpful when it comes to complex products or services, as they can provide a quick and easy way for salespeople to explain what they're offering.
In addition, battle cards can help to level the playing field between small and large companies, as they provide a way for small companies to compete with larger companies that may have more resources. If you're considering using battle cards in your sales process, it's important to make
18. Product Comparison pages
As any serious buyer knows, it's important to compare products before making a decision. You can use this to your advantage by creating comparison pages on your site. This will show off your products in the best light and make the competition seem less appealing.
The project management software ClickUp has a compelling comparison page against Asana, its biggest rival in this space. It includes ClickUp features that may beat out its competitor, and a section about pricing.
Ready to Create Sales Enablement Content?
In summary, sales enablement is not a marketing campaign or a department made up of copywriters. Instead, it is a series of strategies that empower sales teams to be more effective and efficient, without being bogged down by bureaucracy.
As you see sales teams moving towards a more data-driven approach to adopting technology, it becomes clear that sales enablement content is crucial for building a winning sales team.
A well-crafted, relevant sales enablement piece can mean the difference between prospects moving through your pipeline fast, and prospects going MIA or sitting too long at a stage.
For creating the majority of these types of content, however, having the sales and marketing teams in sync is a must. This will ensure that the marketing team has all of the appropriate elements to create valuable sales-enablement content.
