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The sales team is the driving force behind growth at any company — which is why it’s imperative that the sales representatives are provided with the resources they need for success. According to studies, 58% of pipelines stall because sales reps are unable to add value. This is where sales enablement content comes into play. Sales enablement content is content created with the purpose of adding value to sales reps’ pitches and motivating buyers to continue along their buyer’s journey toward purchasing. 

In order to drive sales and increase win rates, it’s vital to provide sellers with the right content. So, what’s the best practice for creating a library of high-quality sales enablement content? Let’s count the ways.

Examples of Sales Enablement Content

Before beginning to create sales enablement content, it’s key to understand what this type of content includes and how sales reps can leverage it to make an impact in their sales interactions. Let’s explore just a few types of sales enablement content:

1. Case Stories / Testimonials 

A case story allows reps to share customer success testimonials with their buyer. Real examples of customers with a similar use case help the buyer gain a better understanding of precisely what your product can help them accomplish.

2. ROI Calculators

For key decision-makers in a deal, the ROI of the product is one of the main determining factors of whether or not a purchase is made. Offering an interactive ROI calculator can help the buyer determine how much they are likely to gain from their investment and better understand the product’s value. 

3. eBooks

An eBook provides in-depth information about the product that the buyer is able to access and read independently. Often, eBooks focus on a specific aspect of the product, such as its main value prop or how the product works. 

4. Video Content

Video content, such as a product demo, is one of the most impactful pieces of content. 80% of marketers report that video content improves sales. The direct impact of video on sales makes it a crucial form of sales enablement for any business. 

5. Datasheets

Datasheets detail the features, benefits, and pricing of your product in a single, informative 1-pager. Datasheets are consumable, high-impact, and easily shared among multiple buyers within a large B2B buying committee.

When developing sales enablement content, creating a diverse range of content for reps to use ensures they have adequate resources for each step of the buyer’s journey. Below are the steps necessary to collaborate, build, and provide sales enablement content to support the sales team.

1. Audit Your Existing Content

The first step to creating sales enablement content is to audit all of the existing content sales reps are currently using. It’s important to note that not all of your current collateral makes for effective sales enablement content — or is even worthwhile to share in a sales interaction. 

To delineate the high-impact content from the least, it’s important to identify the content that addresses key questions and pain points buyers typically have throughout their buying journey. Ask yourself:

  • Does this content address a key pain point?
  • Do we have enough content for each buyer persona?
  • Are there areas where content can be improved?
  • Are there gaps in our sales enablement content library?

For example, once content has been audited and organized, you may find that there is plenty of content detailing the product’s functionality, but very few resources helping buyers determine their ROI. These gaps in the sales enablement content library could be inhibiting sales reps from closing deals.

2. Map Sales Enablement Content to the Buyer’s Journey

Sales enablement content should be aligned to each stage of the buyer’s journey. This is because, in order to be effective, reps need to know when to share content so that it’s most impactful and relevant to the buyer at each stage. Thus, each piece of content should align to the buyer’s journey and your organization’s associated sales cycle. 

Mapping content to the buyer’s journey allows reps to understand when it’s best to share content for it to have the most impact on the buyer’s current frame of mind. Below are descriptions of just a few types of sales enablement content for each stage:

  • Prospecting: This phase is the very beginning of the sales cycle and includes all of the lead generation done by marketing. During this stage, the buyer should be presented with high-level information about the product that piques their interest. A blog is a good resource to create for this stage.
  • First contact: Another early stage of the sales process, a buyer reaches this stage once a sales rep has made first contact with them. For buyers in this stage, high-level awareness content is still the best resource to share. An educational explainer video works well here. 
  • Discovery Call Scheduled: At this stage, the sales rep has scheduled an initial discovery call with the buyer to help share more information about the product. This is when content such as sales decks and 1-pagers specific to how the product works provide more information to prep the buyer for the call. 
  • Live demo: A live demo provides additional insight into the product, how it works, and precisely what it can do for the buyer. At this stage, to complement the demo itself, customer testimonials help push the buyer to the next phase of their buyer’s journey. 
  • Verbal Confirmation: Once the buyer has given verbal confirmation of purchase, the sales process still isn’t over. In this stage, the buyer needs information to validate their decision, such as competitor comparisons and customer case studies.
  • Negotiating: Throughout negotiations, sales reps should continue communicating the product’s value to the buyer with additional resources, like an ROI calculator that proves the impact and can help negotiations go smoothly and result in a closed deal.
Sales experts, consultants, and clients gathered around a conference table discussing strategy.

3. Leverage Analytics to Understand What’s Working and What’s Not

Once sales enablement content has been created and mapped to the sales cycle, it’s key to leverage data insights to track the efficacy of each piece of content. This can be done by implementing the right sales enablement software. Data showing what content buyers look at and how long they look at it informs reps of the content’s effectiveness. Additionally, sales enablement software can record the forwarding of content, uncovering insights into buying committees. Generating content performance data and regularly monitoring the analytics will help show:

  • Where the sales enablement content library is lacking
  • Which pieces of content are most impactful
  • Which pieces of content can be improved
  • Which pieces of content are most forwarded and to who

For example, data insights may show that buyers consistently view product videos. After viewing, they make an inquiry about pricing. This tells reps that the product videos are getting the buyer to take the next step in their journey. With these insights, it’s obvious that video content is effective for the target audience and it’s key to continue creating more educational videos for each stage of the buyer’s journey.

Final Thoughts

Sales enablement content helps reps provide buyers with the information they need to reach an informed purchase decision. When reps have the right sales enablement content, they can move buyers through the sales pipeline more efficiently, helping to increase your sales velocity and drive revenue. 

Empower your organization’s sales team with the resources they need. Get in touch with us and discover how we can help you develop strategies and best practices to create effective sales enablement content.