Or should that be "buyer enablement"?
Sales enablement is all about finding the best ways to share information that helps the buyer to buy, and – as a result – the seller to sell. Content is at the heart of that.
Sales enablement (SE) is to closing business what content marketing is to generating demand: essential strategies for growth. It's why 61% of all organizations have dedicated SE personnel or teams. That figure rises to 77% for businesses with over 500 employees (Source: CSO Insights).
Both sales enablement and content marketing come down to knowing your audience and giving them the right kind of information. In SE's case, that audience is split into two distinctive groups: your salespeople, and the buyers they are talking to. This means SE teams are tasked with equipping sales teams with two types of resources:
1. Content designed to be shared with the buyer to aid them during the decision journey, like:
2. Internal content designed to help salespeople sing from the same hymn sheet, like:
Despite the title of the discipline, sales enablement is less about helping sales and more about the buyer. It's about enabling the buyer to make a decision and arming sales with an understanding of what info the buyer needs to know, when, and how to give it to them. It's in the sales enablement purview then, to be cheerleaders of customer obsession. The right sales enablement resources are created to fit the channels and contexts of the typical buyer. With so much of the buyer journey happening online, on the buyer's own terms, salespeople are often just another channel (although I suspect they won't be thrilled by this comparison). And like all channels, the relevance and quality of the content they distribute can make all the difference. This is why a carefully defined content strategy is a key part of a healthy growth engine.
Some organizations have renamed Sales Enablement to Customer Enablement as an internal reminder of who it's all really about: the buyer.
Research by CSO Insights reveals that only 32% of sales enablement functions have a content strategy in place. They also report on the benefits of having one: a 27% increase in win rate, and an 18% increase in quota attainment.
This is impactful stuff, which is why we decided to take a look at just how to create an effective sales enablement content strategy. From content purpose to content processes, we've got you covered.
What do your buyers want to know?
Is the decision journey covered?
The mechanics of the beast
Do more of what's working
