The 4 Types of Sales Enablement Content Every B2B Sales Team Needs
Sales enablement content is one of the most powerful ways to stand out when your sales team reaches out to customers. Without sales enablement content, your sales team will have to improvise in each conversation. At best, sales will have an uneven message. At worst, prospects will be confused by different messages and decline to buy.
What Is Sales Enablement Content?
Think of sales enablement content as a toolbox that sales can draw from to move customer conversations ahead. These resources mean that sales staff have more reasons to reach out beyond asking for the sale. These resources can be significant for longer B2B sales cycles where it can take more time to convert a marketing qualified lead (MQL) to a person ready to buy.
Sales enablement content is also a powerful way to boost the productivity of the sales team. According to Salesforce, “Up to 1/3 of a sales professional’s time is spent looking for or creating content to share with prospects.”
Building Your Sales Enablement Content Toolbox
There are a few critical assets that almost all B2B sales teams need. Work with your marketing partners to make sure you have all of these assets in place.
1. Case Studies
Also known as customer stories or customer success stories, case studies are a powerful form of social proof. A case study puts your product or service into context and shows how it solves a problem for another customer. It also provides third-party proof that your products and services are valuable to other customers.
A compelling case study typically has the following elements:
- Results. When possible, cite specific numbers, metrics, and other quantifiable results in a case study like dollars saved, hours of work eliminated, or sales generated.
- Specific customer details. Include quotes from a specific individual in your case study.
- Guide the reader through a journey. A case study has a beginning (i.e., the challenges a company experienced before working with you), a middle (how the company started to work with you), and an end (i.e., the ROI from working with you
- Visual elements. A case study is more potent when you can include company logos, video interviews, and photos.
2. Ebooks
Case studies are helpful when a prospect is interested in working with you. However, some prospects may still be in the research phase. In that case, ebooks and similar in-depth resources have a role to play. There are multiple goals you can achieve with this kind of premium content.
- Align Your Offering With An Emerging Trend.
Since 2020, many companies have created resources and ebooks to show how their offerings can make remote work and the hybrid workplace more effective. This approach works because your ebook connects with a problem that your market is already interested in.
- Address Technical Concerns and Questions.
In B2B sales, it is common for sales professionals to struggle to answer technical questions. For example, a prospect might ask about the IT security safeguards in a SaaS app. Developing an ebook that addresses technical questions in detail is powerful.
- Share Original Research and Insights
Conducting a survey, interviewing customers, and gathering other forms of data can form the core of an exciting ebook. For example, Buffer has published an annual state of remote work survey for several years that offers original data about remote work. Presenting original data helps people to discover your brand and view your company as a thought leader.
3. Content For Account-Based Marketing Campaigns
Executing account-based marketing (ABM) campaign is more straightforward when you have relevant content. For instance, you might run a campaign focused on midsize banks. Support the campaign by creating custom ABM content assets.
- ABM Webinar
Create a lead generation webinar focused on a specific ABM campaign. For example, a compliance software company might offer a webinar on “emerging compliance risks for midsized banks” to attract the attention of campaigns.
- Updated Content For Specific Industries and Job Roles
In some cases, you may be able to revise and update existing content to enable a specific ABM campaign. For example, you might have existing content assets and blog posts about process improvement that you could repurpose for the midsize banking audience.
4. Sales scripts
If you’re skeptical about the value of scripts, think about your favorite movie. Nearly every moment of that enjoyable experience was carefully written in advance and rehearsed before you saw the film.
A sales script is a bit different from a movie script. You wouldn’t expect a sales professional to read a script word for word. Instead, a script is a resource to use to address common questions and objections. If one salesperson has already developed a persuasive, informative answer to a common question, that answer can be added to your sales script for everybody else to use.
Achieving ROI With Your Sales Enablement Content
After you create sales enablement content, you need to plan to use the material. Start with these ideas.
- Sales Follow Up
Few prospects enjoy being asked some variation of “are you ready to buy now?” Salespeople have more reasons to start conversations by equipping sales with a rich variety of case studies, ebooks, and reports.
- Lead Nurture Campaigns
After your SEO, social media, and advertising efforts convince a lead to sign up for more information, you need to nurture that relationship. Sharing case studies, ebooks, and industry-specific insights are good ways to nurture leads.
- Proposal Development and Sales Presentations
For some B2B sales, creating a sales presentation is an essential step in the buying process. Yet sales professionals are frequently under significant pressure to make calls, send emails and make their quota. Given all of these pressures, creating high-quality presentations with relevant information from scratch is difficult. Instead, save time by pulling relevant examples, market data, and other insights from existing sales enablement content.
Get The Digital Content You Need
Equipping sales with the buyer insights and resources they need to have deeper customer conversations isn’t easy. The good news is that you’re not alone. Contact Contrast Digital today to discuss your lead generation goals, and we’ll help you break through the noise to get noticed.
