The Secret Ways that Best-in-Class Sales Enablement Teams Use Content

In 2015, many sales teams realized that they needed to adjust to the modern buyer. As a result, interest in sales enablement exploded, and all signs indicate that sales enablement programs will continue to boom in 2016.

As more sales enablement teams pop up and as initiatives mature, sales teams face a new set of challenges. One of those involves content. How should sales teams use content? How should sales and marketing teams store content? What types of content will resonate with buyers?

The Aberdeen Group tackled those questions in a recent report. Here’s what they found.

How Best-in-Class Companies Align Sales and Marketing around Content

Salespeople are competitive. They’re always looking for ways to get an edge on their competitors, and traditionally, that competitive edge has involved refinement. Refine the company’s messaging. Then refine it again. Then refine yet again.

But sometimes, the answer isn’t refinement. Sometimes, there are other ways that sales and marketing teams need to adapt. Here are three ways that the best companies are beating out their competitors:

1. They create a central content library

Salespeople spend a lot of time looking for pre-approved content. Sirius Decisions has found that 11% of content is hard to find, and 17% of content is unknown to users. By creating a central content library, you can avoid that problem. According to the Aberdeen Group’s research, 73% of best-in-class organizations have a central library.

2. They choose a sales enablement platform that gives marketing visibility into how salespeople are using content.

At top-performing companies, marketers have more visibility into how sales uses content. Why does this make a difference? When marketers know how sales uses content, marketers can improve. They can identify topics that interest sales teams, and they can create and curate more of it. They can decide if they need to organize their content better or consider new ways to inform salespeople about new content.

3. They don’t forget about their customers.

Marketers and sales enablement teams have two audiences for their content. Internally, they need to cater to their salespeople. Externally, they need to cater to their customers. And they need to understand how each of those audiences is engaging with the content.

A mature sales enablement program will connect the dots like this:

In other words, marketing, sales, and the customer are closely aligned.

Want to Learn More Secrets about Sales Enablement Content?

67% of best-in-class organizations report that they support their sales enablement efforts with content. Find out how by downloading this report.

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