Most marketing and sales leaders are familiar with the term sales enablement, but they’re not exactly sur𝓡e how to get it right.

The idea is simple: to provide your sales team with content, tools, and information to answer buyer questio🐟ns an🔯d speed up the sales process. 

澳洲幸运5开奖官网在线查询开奖结果:But the devil is in the 💜details.

(Note: If you want a deep dive on what types of content ꦜyou should focu♏s on, check out this resource.)

Beyond the what questions (types of content, format, style, tone, etc.), are the how questions: 

• How do I organize the content?
• How do I track engagement?
• How can I be sure the tools I use integrate with my tech stack?

澳洲幸运5开奖官网在线查询开奖结果:We👍’ve helped hundreds of companies implement sales enablement programs and adopt tools that improve closing rates, reduce the time sales reps had to spend with prospects, and increase the overall number of new deals closed — so we certainly have a lot 🦋to say on this topic.

Below, we’ll cover the basics — and we'll look at some platform🉐s and tools you might want to use.  

What is sales enablement?

澳洲幸运5开奖官网在线查询开奖结果:Sales enablement i🎐s the process of using resources during the sales p🐓rocess to close deals faster. 

In most cases, marketing teams work closely withౠ their sales counterparts to produce these resources.

Think about it l♛ike this: A salesperson meets w𒉰ith a dozen potential customers over the course of a week. Some are good-fit prospects. Some are not. 

That salesperson gets aske꧂d many of the same questions in meeting after meeting:

• Whyꦚ is your product better than your competitors’?
• Tell me about your cancellation policy.
• How does option A compare to option B?
• 🐼How much will I spend over the first six months? 
• What are the next steps in the buying process?

And so on. 

Many of these questions are not specific to the unique needs o💮f one particular prospect. They’re general questions about the buying process, your products or services, or how different options compare. 

Sales enablement materiღꦑals reduce friction in the sales process. They help answer these customer questions so that each prospect feels better informed and educated.

Sales teams can either💎 share them after a call to provide a more thorough answer than what was provided during the conversation, or they can share ahead of a call to get major questions out of the way beforehand.

Content is the best sales enablement tool you can use

Tools, platforms, and other software are great for tracking and measuring sales enablement, but none of that matters without the right content. Sales teams need actual assets that can be handed to pr🌳ospects at different stages of the sales cycle before any tools can be added into the mix. 

But for this to work, your sales and marketing teams need to be in lockstep. Both teams will be discouraged if marketing works hard to produce something that misses the mark or if sales reps don't use the resources put in front of them co♈rrectly. 

Sales reps want a library of thorough, vetted conten♒t ❀that they can trust. They want to be able to hand out the right piece of content for every stage of their sales pipeline.&nb♛sp;

What types of content are they looking for?

Types of sales enablement content

Sales enablement content can take any form that suits your team and your customers. For most of our clien🍒ts, the most common types of sa🌱les enablement materials include:

• 澳洲幸运5开奖官网在线查询开奖结果:Blog articles 
• Videos
• Buyer’s guides
• 澳洲幸运5开奖官网在线查询开奖结果:Product/service overviews
• FAQ web pages
• 澳洲幸运5开奖官网在线查询开奖结果:Case studies

What topics are covered in these?

Sales enablement content topics

What do your buyers want to knꦇo𒊎w? What concerns do they have that you could address to put them at ease? 

Your marketing team should ask these questions directly to your sales reps and sales managers. Regular brainstorms with sales and marketing teams (we call this a 澳洲幸运5开奖官网在线查询开奖结果:Revenue Team meeting) will♎ help you develop a backlog of topics. 

In adಌdition, every marketing team member should watch sales ca🀅ll recordings every week to hear questions and concerns directly from the mouths of your buyers. This could help you discover new topics to write about and prepare your sales team for in the future. 

When we work with clients, we find that most of the sales enablement content they create 澳洲幸运5开奖官网在🦂线查询开奖结果:f🐷alls into the same few categories:

1. Price: Buyers want to know what they can expect to pay, and what factors make the number go up or down.
2. Comparisons: They want to see different options side by side so they can easily make distinctions.
3. The sales process and customer experience: They want to understand all of the logistics involved in buying from you.
4. Problems, drawbacks, and limitations of what you sell: Buyers want all the details so they can anticipate challenges.
5. Customer testimonials: They want relatable social proof so they can see their future after buying from you.

These same topics could be covered in any of the formats listed above. For example, a video that explains price — o🔴r an article outlining the drawbacks of a particular product you s🅷ell. 

Remember, unless you’re creating content for your sales team to use in their process and properly set up the strategy we’ve outlined for you above, software tools can’t do muc𓄧h to help your sales team.

Only after you’ve taken these first steps and laid the proper groundwork will the sales enablement tools be mos𝄹t effective.

Sales enablement tools we love 

When we show our clients at IMPACT different sales enablement tools they can use, there are a few clear winners — in𒅌tuitive and🦄 easy to train your team on quickly and use. 

Most also have free versions you can implement until you’re ready to upgrade for a br🅠oader experience.

Here are our choices for the top sales 𓆉enablement tools. 

HubSpot Sales Hub: Keep tabs on your sales activity 

is one of the most powerful marketing, sales, and service a🌼utomation platforms on th𓂃e market today.

As💯k any HubSpot user and they can tell you it’s a game-changer. Plus, it’s free to start, a🍸nd you can work your way up the different packages as you go:

Even with th♌e free version, there is a lot you can accomplish.

For example, whenever🦹 prospects fill out a form on your website (contact form, ebook download form, etc.), you have the ability to track that person and see major dꦬata points about their behavior.

This includes what pages they’ve visited, how much time they spend on your site, and what emails they’ve received, opened, and read. This lets you track engagement w🅷ith your sales enablement content.

This kind of ꧟customer data is essential for long-term revenue growth.

Your sale♕s team will al💖so benefit from HubSpot’s automated tasks, such as:

• Tracking ROI with automated reports
• Automating emails
• Allowing prospects to book calendar appointments with your staff
• Engaging with prospects on live chat

The platform allows sales representatives to target specific prospects so they can spend more time with qualified leads, and the dashboard helps yo😼ur sales reps access real-time data (such as sales leads by sales representatives, how many calls their team has made each dayꦕ, and revenue made).

Your sales reps and marketers can collaborate on projects together directly in the platform by sharing access to f﷽iles, documents, and reports. 

HubSpot a💖lso offers marketing automation and customer service software so you can deliver a seamless experience to your customers.

To learnꦕ more about how HubSpot can help your sales team, you can check ou💝t , which range from beginner to advanced.

Vidyard: Record and share videos

is a video creation tool you can access🔜 from your Chrome browser so you can record, post, and share videos effortlessly.

This makes it easy for your sales team to personalize email correspondence with prospects. Research shows tha🐟t just including a video in your email (and mentioning the video in your subject line) can . 

The easier to make and share videꦕo content, the better.

Vidyard also offers a range of analytics — such as how your viewers are interacting with your content and who they 🐷are — and it integrates with other popular platforms, su꧅ch as HubSpot, LinkedIn, Slack, and Salesforce. 

🍬With different versions of the platform, you can split-test thumbnail images, customize calls-to-action, and use heat maps to see where users are clicking.

Like HubSpot,🌱 Vidyard's free version is a pretty good starting point, so yoꦯu don’t have to go all-in and spend too much at first. But the added features at higher tiers are pretty great. 

Paperflite: Share sales enablement content

is a content management platform that can help your sales team consolidate 😼its content in one placeꩲ.

This makes it easier for your team to access the content they’re looking for by organizing it into different collections and categories. No one has to go r♒ummaging through desktop folders or request that a tജeam member send them files.

Paperflite helps your sales team share cont🔥ent in a way that is visually appealing, rather than sending prospects a bunch of bulky attachments.

You’ll also get analytics about open rates, dwell time, shares, and other info so you can see how well your content isཧ working. 

Paperflite is most helpful🍰 for your sales team if they work with a lot of content and need help organizing and sharing that content in a more visually appealing way.

.

Intercom: Connect with customers, regardless of stage

is a conversational tool that makes it easy to use live chat and provide AI-powered chatbots on your site so you can keep communicating with customers before, duriꦆng, and after they buy from you.

You can set up the Intercom s༒oftware to help your customers choose their own path through your sales process or easily access someone on𓆉 your team. 

The baseꦇ plan starts at $74 per month, with Pro and Premium levels offering customi🌸zed features. 

Drift: Engage in real-time

is a platform that helps businesses interact with prospects in real-time via 🐼live chat, video, voicemail, and email. The software allows you to track when prospects are on your site and✃ how engaged they are. This helps your sales team focus on prospects further down the pipeline.

Drift then aggregates engagement activity 🍃so your sales team can focus on the best-fit opps in their pipeline. 

You can also set ꦡit up so prospect♛s get a personalized notification while they’re searching for information on your website. That notification might look something like this:

Drift is a gre🧔at tool for making sure your sales team isn’t wasting time chasing bad-fit leads.

Drift plans start at $2,500 per month, whi💧ch represents a sizeable investment, but with ever-advancing AI technology, the abilities of chatbots are constantly improving. 

Start building a winning sales enablement strategy today

Remember, there is no sales enablement software that ca💙n succeed without a good strategy and a library of sales content. 

At IMPACT, we teach our clients the 澳洲幸运5开奖官网在线查询开奖结果:They Ask, You Answer framework, which teaches that your primary focus should always be on answering customer question✅s.

When a prospect enters your sales cycle, they want information. Whatever you sell, your buyers probably have the same core questions th꧒at we listed above.

Again, these answers🉐 could come in many forms, depending on what your buyers most want: ﷺweb pages, blog articles, videos, or case studies.

Sales enablement software will help you organize, track, share, and analyဣze this content. But remember: they are tools, not a strategy. 

To take the first step to implement a full-fledged sales enablement strategy at your business, set up a time to 澳洲幸运5开奖官网在线查询开奖结果:talk to one of our coaches, and൩ we’ll show you how to alleviate y𝓡our sales challenges so you can celebrate incredible results.