Once you've pinned down your answers to the questions in the decision journey, you need to think about the vehicles and pathways for delivering those answers to your buyers. Which ones do you have covered, what's missing or not being used, and which gaps should you fill first?
That's right, it's time to dig into that content library of yours and find out which parts fit the decision journeys you've mapped out. What is and isn't being used? You'll likely need a combination of methods to find this out. Some of it will be evident in your content's performance data, but we'd recommend reaching out to internal users of your content to learn more about what they're using and what's working for them. Use something as simple as a spreadsheet to list everything you uncover and include as much detail as you can afford about the qualities and characteristics of the content, as well as it's engagement results and frequency of use. If you have a tagging system in place, be sure to include the content's tags in your log.
By creating a log of all the sales enablement content your business has for each stage of a buyer's decision journey, you'll be able to see which questions aren't currently being answered by existing resources. If your assets are tracked, add to your log how frequently each is sent to a buyer, and how engaged buyers are with what they receive. This will show you which of your existing assets are actually fulfilling their purpose, and which are wasted.
The formats of your buyer-facing content should be decided by what's most effective and suitable on the channels your buyers prefer. Research and list these out in order of their relative influence on your pipeline. They'll include the likes of:
YouTube
Phone calls, meetings, events, and 1:1 email are contexts in which your salespeople act as channels for delivering information. Sales enablement needs to make sure they're channeling the right information. This is why content and training go hand in hand. Once you've got the resources, you need to make sure people know how and when to use them.
How you categorize and tag content is as important in Enterprise businesses as creating it in the first place. Without clear taxonomies and management systems, your content won't be easy for sales agents to find and use. If it's not easy, it won't happen.
Ways to categorize your library vary and you'll need to spend some time working across teams to identify what makes the most sense for your business. Content will belong to more than one category. Here are a few to consider:
Once you've agreed on some kind of taxonomy, it will need to be worked into the tech stack you use to manage your content assets. More on that in the next chapter.
So by this point, you know which bits of your content library contain answers to each different question a buyer has on the decision journey. You also know from your audit whether people are actually using and engaging with those content pieces. Thirdly, you know which channels are most effective for nurturing deals.
You should now be able to spot weak points and successes in how your sales enablement content is supporting buyers. One area to pay attention to is how you cater to different learning styles. We all have our preferences. Plan a spread of media:
Then there's the sales enablement content needed to equip salespeople to deliver the right information at the right time:
If these kinds of resources don't exist or aren't being used, then it's virtually impossible to standardize sales best practices. It's also highly likely your salespeople aren't giving buyers answers that are consistent with the value propositions they've been presented with at other parts of the customer journey.
Consistency is absolutely key to building trust. This is why you need to design and orchestrate clear and accessible processes and systems that nudge sales and customer success teams to adopt the right behaviors and use the content available to them correctly. Next up we'll be looking at exactly that.
