A key component of your sales enablement strategy should focus on providing your salespeople with the right resources, content, and tools in order to effectively close deals. Sales assets come in a variety of flavors, so it’s important to focus on sales enablement content that engages your target audience, guides them through the buying journey, and ultimately closes more deals. But what exactly is sales enablement content, and how can it help your sales team succeed?
This chapter will explore the different types of sales enablement content, their importance, and how businesses can leverage them to improve sales performance and increase win rates.
What is Sales Enablement Content?
Sales enablement content (both internal and customer-facing) are the resources, content, and tools that help sales teams effectively communicate value to prospects and customers throughout the sales process. These materials, often developed by marketing teams, are designed to educate, engage, and move prospects through each stage of the buyer’s journey—from awareness to decision-making to closing the deal.
Sales enablement content can come in many forms, including product brochures, testimonials, webinars, case studies, email templates, sales scripts, demo videos, and more. The key is that they provide sales reps with the information they need to tailor their conversations to the prospect’s needs, address objections, and ultimately drive the deal forward.
Why Sales Enablement Content Matters
Effective sales enablement content plays a critical role in a company’s ability to close deals. Here’s why they matter:
- Consistency in Messaging: Sales enablement content ensures that all reps are delivering a consistent message to prospects, which helps build trust and credibility.
- Personalization at Scale: By equipping sales reps with the right content, they can personalize their outreach and interactions with prospects based on their unique pain points and needs.
- Efficiency and Productivity: With access to the right materials, sales reps can spend less time searching for content and more time engaging with prospects, improving productivity.
- Better Buyer Engagement: Sales enablement content helps sales teams engage with prospects throughout every stage of the customer journey by delivering relevant, timely information that speaks directly to the buyer’s challenges and needs.
Most Common Types of Sales Enablement Content
Now that we understand the importance of sales enablement content, let’s dive into the different content types that can drive success at various stages of the sales process.
1. Product and Solution Brochures
Product brochures and solution sheets (otherwise known as one-pagers) provide an overview of your products or services, including value propositions, key features, benefits, and use cases. This piece of content is typically used early in the sales process to help prospects understand what your business offers and how it can solve their problems. This type of material is great for reps who are out in the field, participating in tradeshows, and crafting email pitches.
Why It Matters: A well-designed product brochure helps sales professionals clearly communicate the value of your offerings, making it easier for potential customers to grasp how your solutions can address their needs.
2. Case Studies
Case studies showcase how your product or service has helped other customers overcome challenges and achieve success. They often include specific results and measurable outcomes, making them powerful tools for building credibility and trust with prospects.
Why It Matters: Case studies provide real-world proof of your product’s effectiveness, helping prospects see the tangible benefits of working with your company. They can be especially helpful during the consideration and decision-making stages of the sales cycle.
3. Sales Playbooks
Sales playbooks are comprehensive guides that outline the sales process, provide detailed information about the buyer persona, and offer strategies for overcoming common objections. Playbooks also include messaging frameworks and best practices for engaging with different types of prospects.
Why It Matters: A sales playbook gives reps a roadmap to follow, ensuring that they are aligned with the company’s sales strategy and delivering a consistent message to all prospects.
Related Resource: Top 3 Sales Playbooks to Improve Sales Performance
4. Email Templates
Email templates are pre-written emails that sales reps can use to reach out to prospects at various stages of the sales funnel. These templates can include outreach emails, follow-ups, nurture sequences, and more.
Why It Matters: Email templates save reps time while providing a proven framework for engaging prospects. They ensure that messaging is consistent across the team and tailored to the prospect’s stage in the buying journey.
5. Sales Scripts and Discovery Call Guides
Sales scripts and discovery call guides provide reps with structured talking points when speaking with prospects. These materials typically include key points to cover, objection handling techniques, and strategies for steering the conversation toward a successful outcome.
Why It Matters: Scripts help reps stay focused during sales conversations and ensure they cover all necessary product information. They also provide guidance on how to handle objections and keep the conversation moving in a productive direction.
6. Explainer Videos and Product Demos
Explainer videos showcase how your product works and highlight its key features, functionality, and benefits. Live product demos allow sales reps to walk prospects through the product in real-time, demonstrating its value and answering questions as they arise.
Why It Matters: Product demos are crucial for giving prospects a hands-on look at your solution, helping them visualize how it will work for their specific needs. Explainer videos, in particular, can be shared with decision-makers who weren’t part of the initial conversation.
7. Whitepapers and Ebooks
Whitepapers and ebooks are in-depth, educational resources that provide valuable insights into a particular industry challenge or trend. These long-form assets are used to position your company as a thought leader and build trust with prospects during the awareness and consideration stages.
Why It Matters: Whitepapers and ebooks offer value to prospects by educating them on topics relevant to their business. They help establish your company as an authority in the industry and nurture prospects toward a buying decision.
8. Battlecards
Battlecards are cheat sheets that provide sales reps with competitor research, including key differentiators, common objections, and strategies for positioning your product as the better option.
Why It Matters: Battlecards arm reps with the information they need to effectively handle competitive objections and demonstrate why your solution is the best choice.
9. Pricing Sheets
Pricing sheets offer a clear breakdown of your product or service pricing, including any tiers, packages, or discounts available. These materials are typically used later in the sales process when the prospect is ready to discuss financials.
Why It Matters: Transparent pricing helps build trust with prospects and allows them to make an informed decision. Pricing sheets also make it easier for sales reps to present cost information clearly and confidently.
10. Proposal Templates
Proposal templates provide a structured format for presenting a formal offer to a prospect. These templates typically include an overview of the solution, pricing, timelines, and next steps.
Why It Matters: A well-crafted proposal helps reps present a compelling case for why the prospect should choose your solution. Proposal templates save time and ensure consistency across the sales team.
11. Training Materials
Training materials provide your sales reps with everything they need to quickly grasp the product, tools, and everything related to your sales process. Training content improves the onboarding experience while helping reps develop new skills and stay on message.
Why it Matters: By providing training materials for your reps, they will better understand how to utilize your sales methodology, as well as the tools (like your CRM) that make them productive.
How to Create An Effective Sales Enablement Content Strategy
To maximize the impact of your sales enablement content, it’s important to follow best practices for creating and distributing these resources.
1. Align with the Buyer’s Journey
Each piece of sales enablement content should align with a specific stage of the buyer’s journey—awareness, consideration, or decision. For example, you wouldn’t want to send a prospect who is in the awareness stage a pricing sheet. Ensure that your content addresses the needs and pain points of the prospect at each stage by providing them with relevant content that will engage them.
2. Collaborate with Sales and Marketing
Forrester reports that nearly 65% of marketing content goes unused by sales reps. Why? It’s either irrelevant or it’s difficult to find. The best sales content is created when marketing and sales work together. Schedule quarterly meetings with sales and marketing to ensure that sales has a say in what content needs to be produced and what works well for reps in the field. This will help ensure that content is relevant and is being adopted.
3. Keep Content Up-to-Date
Sales enablement content should be regularly updated to reflect changes in your product, market trends, and buyer needs. Outdated materials can lead to confusion and lost opportunities, so make it a priority to review and refresh content as needed. Work to establish a rigorous content governance strategy.
4. Make Content Easily Accessible
Your sales team should have easy access to all enablement materials through a centralized platform or repository. Organize content by category or sales stage to make it simple for reps to find what they need when they need it.
5. Measure Content Effectiveness
Use metrics to track which sales enablement content are being used and how they impact deal success. By measuring content effectiveness, your sales team will have a better idea of what content to start using, and equally important, what content isn’t resonating with buyers and should be recycled. This level of understanding allows you to continuously refine your sales enablement content strategy.
Create, Manage, and Optimize Sales Enablement Content with Highspot
Sales enablement content is the backbone of a successful sales strategy. By equipping your sales team with the right resources, you empower them to engage with prospects more effectively, overcome objections, and close more deals. Whether it’s product brochures, case studies, sales scripts, or demo videos, having a well-rounded set of sales enablement materials ensures that your team is always prepared for every stage of the buyer’s journey.
With Highspot’s sales enablement platform, you can effectively create, manage, and analyze the usage of all of your sales enablement content, ensuring they are being adopted, up-to-date, and driving better sales performance.