Achieving business success is a goal that depends on a lot of different factors. Naturally, your company must be able to analyze the market and offer services and products that can make a difference to the public.
Further, you must provide your sales team member with the strategic resources they need to excel.
The concept of sales enablement comes from that idea. We can define the activity as an effort to equip the sales department with the right tools, content, and technology, seeking the improvement of its results.
Therefore, identifying the best approach and platform to execute the enablement process can be a real difference-maker.
To help you understand the subject, we have prepared this post. We will detail how sales enablement works, list the benefits it brings to the company, and highlight the role of interactive marketing in this process.
Finally, we will list the best tools for you to optimize your sales department. Keep on reading!
How does sales enablement work?
Did you know that, according to a study by Aberdeen, sales reps spend up to 43 hours a month just looking for information that’s useful for their tasks?
This is a long time. Actually, it’s time that could be spent more productively on activities that are beneficial to the company’s bottom line.
This is just one of the types of bottlenecks that can form without having a strategy focused on sales enablement. The good news is that, with the technology available in the current scenario, there are several practical ways to optimize the sales department.
The first step is to analyze the company in general.
Understanding the main characteristics and needs of your business is paramount to developing an effective approach.
Therefore, it is relevant to adopt the use of standardized reports and review the entire sales process thoroughly. In many cases, one detail makes all the difference.
Imagine, for example, that sales reps contact a large volume of leads but have a hard time achieving conversion.
This situation can be a sign that the leads are not qualified, which you can resolve by producing content that educates prospects and makes clear to the team which ones are ready to be approached.
As you can see, this is a process with medium and long term results, which implies that it should be applied structurally. It starts at the recruitment stage: in addition to finding talented and experienced sales reps, it is crucial to have a professional to lead the sales enablement.
The chosen person must have must have an analytical profile and advanced communication skills, since maintaining an excellent organizational climate is key to the smooth running of any business.
The sales enablement manager must be able to invest in the training of their managers, identifying the tools, technologies and content that can maximize results.
What are the benefits of sales enablement?
One of the great benefits of sales enablement is the opportunity of personalizing the sales process with the characteristics of the persona and the stage of the journey in which she is.
This allows salespeople to apply the most appropriate techniques for each case, directing the lead to the next stage of the funnel.
Building lasting relationships
By appreciating the consumer’s experience in the shopping journey, the company paves the way for building long and valuable relationships.
With an efficient sales enablement strategy, sales representatives can identify the needs of a lead and then provide relevant information and content.
This nurturing process generates an engagement that brings customers closer to the brand. They see your company as an authority on the issue, which makes them prioritize it in future purchases and, at some point, become brand advocates.
Don’t forget that for this process to be successful, the production of relevant materials is essential. Your content should be interactive so as to capture the attention of visitors, stimulate their engagement and create a truly valuable experience.
Increasing the conversion rate
Building relationships is essential, of course, but the significant metric of sales team performance is the conversion rate.
The good news is that the two things relate: the more effective your company is in nurturing and informing leads, the more conversions are likely to be achieved.
All of this, however, depends on the manager’s ability to analyze sales enablement. The professional must be able to identify problems that hinder the conversion and find practical solutions.
The strategy may be failing in something dull, such as capturing the attention of visitors who access your landing page.
It is a common problem, which is already leading many businesses to invest in interactive landing pages in order to enhance the prospect’s experience and increase their chances of conversion.
Soon we will talk more about the role of interactive tools in this process.
Improving the organizational climate
There is no point in having well-structured processes if the teams are not able to work together. As you know, the integration of different departments, such as marketing and sales, is crucial if all the stages of the consumer journey are to be properly addressed.
From sales enablement you can bridge the gap between different sectors by letting them share intelligence data and methods.
Also, brainstorming the best techniques is a good way to optimize results. In the end, you achieve an extremely productive organizational climate.
How interactive marketing helps sales enablement
Interactive marketing is a resource that is becoming more and more relevant to the strategic planning of any company.
By creating engaging experiences, it is possible to optimize the relationship with the customer in all phases of the funnel, facilitating its nurturing and eventual conversion.
But, after all, how does all this apply to sales enablement? The answer is quite simple: investing in the production of interactive content provides results far superior to the outdated static content. Want to see an example?
In a study conducted with several professionals in the area, 90% of respondents said they believe in the efficiency of interactivity to educate leads.
Also, 96% showed confidence in the use of interactive content to impact customer decisions throughout the consumer journey. Only 65% showed some degree of trust in the efficiency of static content.
So to make use of the benefits of sales enablement, you must invest in interactive marketing. E-books, quizzes, landing pages and infographics are examples of content that can perform much better with the addition of interactivity.
What are the best tools you can use for sales enablement?
The practical application of a sales enablement strategy depends on the smart choice of tools that will be used. Below, we list some of the main ones.
Seismic
Remember we talked about the importance of collaboration between marketing and sales departments? Seismic is an essential tool for you to achieve this kind of integration.
Practical and intuitive to use, the software allows teams to create and share sale enablement content to reach and convert leads.
The tool also optimizes internal communication, as it facilitates the exchange of messages between teams and managers.
In addition, Seismic simplifies the development of effective training for sales representatives and provides data to evaluate strategy development.
Zendesk
Zendesk is a tool that records every interaction of your sales reps with the leads throughout the customer lifecycle journey.
This way, professionals can access all content and resources that have been used since the discovery phase and can incorporate them into future interactions.
Highspot
Highspot is a software that allows integration of all contents, resources and marketing tools, facilitating the whole sales enablement process. Featuring a modern design, Highspot offers AI-powered search, analytics, guided sales, as well as in-context training.
Using Highspot benefits both marketing professionals, who gain valuable insights to optimize strategy, and sales reps, who can access and customize the most relevant content for each situation.
Ion Interactive
Ion Interactive is a complete platform for producing and launching interactive content, becoming a key ally for any marketing strategy.
When applied in the context of sales enablement, the tool feeds the sales department with content that engages and converts.
The great differential lies in the simplicity and agility of processes. In up to 60 minutes, you can develop various types of interactive content, such as quizzes, infographics, eBooks, and white papers. All this without need for any training or experience in design.
Besides facilitating the production of interactive content, Ion makes it easier to analyze the data obtained through interaction. The user is able to know who is engaging with their campaigns and which formats are showing the best conversion rates.
All this increases the understanding of the journey and enables improvements to the strategy.
The company’s ability to create an appropriate experience for the consumer is an essential factor in achieving positive results. By using sales enablement tools, you ensure that your sales reps have the resources they need to attract, delight and convert leads.
Want to learn more about how offering interactive experiences can positively impact your results? In this case study, we show how FedEx used the strategy to increase revenue by 82%. Check it out!
