Do you need to align your sales and marketing teams? Discover how developing a sales enablement strategy can increase customer engagement and startup growth.
The sales process has officially changed. The traditional sales strategy of cold calling, slowly building relationships, and eventually capturing conversions after a long sales cycle is a thing of the past.
What has shifted? Modern consumers are more digitally savvy than ever and prefer to independently research products throughout their customer journey before purchasing from the brand. In response, organizations need to develop integrated sales and marketing strategies to build deeper relationships with the customer.
Implementing a sales enablement strategy provides your sales team with impactful content, communication methods, and training materials that help them consistently engage with customers on their preferred online platforms. After all, 80% of customers say that the experience a company provides is as important as its products and services.
Let’s dive into how your startup can develop a successful strategy that helps your sales team connect and sell to modern buyers.
What is a Sales Enablement Strategy?
Sales enablement is the process of providing your sales team with the resources they need to close more deals and boost your return on investment (ROI). The resources often include content, technology, tools, and more that help your team engage with customers.
Here's how an effective sales enablement strategy helps your startup increase sales efficiency:
- Provide sellers with relevant content for each phase of the buyer’s journey
- Offer flexible methods to deliver resources to prospects
- Deliver real-time reporting and metrics into what types of content your customers prefer
- Optimize your resources to meet customer needs
- Arm your sales team with the proper training they need to deliver results
It’s important to note that aligning your sales and marketing teams is essential to develop an effective strategy. While marketing provides engaging resources and material, sales representatives use the content to deliver conversions. In fact, 67% of businesses are more effective at closing deals when sales and marketing teams have alignment.
3 Elements Your Startup Needs to Build a Sales Enablement Strategy
If you’re interested in aligning your teams with an effective sales enablement strategy, it’s important to invest in the right tactics that boost your bottom line. Here are three important elements you need to get started:
1. Develop a Reporting and Analysis Structure
Your strategy needs to be run by real-time data. However, overloading your sales team with metrics can hurt their productivity and make your customer journey more confusing. Instead, a sales enablement strategy provides an effective way of collecting and reporting data to make it a true asset for your business.
You’ll want to utilize data to inform the following:
- Report on standardized metrics — product demos delivered, leads generated, calls made, etc.— depending on your business goals
- Identify discord in your sales process and fill the gaps to increase productivity
- Implement a lead scoring system to qualify leads with a customer relationship manager (CRM) so your sales team is focusing on the right prospects
2. Create Engaging Content
Yes, content is still king — especially when it comes to your sales enablement strategy. However, it’s not enough to create content every once in a while and hope it sticks. Instead, your marketing and sales team need to develop content that is personalized to your customers’ needs and their customer journey stage.
69% of marketers have a dedicated content strategy. You can optimize your sales content with the following tactics:
- Conduct a full audit of your sales content such as ebooks, demo decks, etc. and house it in an accessible location
- Develop powerful new content like case studies that demonstrate your startup’s value and success
- Create email templates for your sales team to quickly and efficiently send personalized messages to your leads with the new content
3. Invest in Efficient Technology
While sales traditionally depended on manual processes, it now needs to live within the digital landscape to meet customer demand. With the right technology, organizations can automate communications, score leads, and impact sales more effectively.
Consider using technology in your sales enablement strategy by doing the following:
- Create email drip campaigns that trigger when your leads complete an action or after a certain amount of time
- Use automation to prospect leads and schedule more consultation calls
- Set up live chat on your website to instantly answer customer inquiries
Develop a Sales Enablement Strategy to Accelerate Business Growth
If you’re looking to align your teams to boost engagement and ROI, developing a comprehensive sales enablement strategy is the best way to reach your customers. To get started, open the lines of communication between your teams, invest in the right technology, and produce valuable content to improve conversions. Empowering your team with effective resources, technology, and processes will increase their ability to sell and convert your customers into loyal brand advocates.
Ready to develop your sales enablement strategy? Discover Sellerant’s sales process checklist to get started.