*INTRODUCTION:* Enabling the enablers
Between two worlds: Where does sales enablement really belong?
On paper, sales enablement should be a straightforward role.
People need information, content, and supporting documents to sell things and make buying decisions, and you provide it. Simple, right?
Well, it would be, were it not for one inconvenient factor: The ancient and perpetually present rift between sales and marketing. In a perfect world, sales and marketing should have similar priorities and work toward similar goals. But in practice, that isn’t always how things pan out.
Marketing teams want to ensure the content that’s put in front of customers is consistent, highly engaging, and aligned with the company’s key messaging and branding.
Sales, on the other hand, tend to be a lot more flexible in their content demands. A salesperson typically wants content that will directly appeal to the customer they’re talking to. And they’re not particularly concerned if that means compromising on ‘core’ messaging areas.
Those conflicting attitudes and priorities have left sales enablement in a tricky position. They’re suspended between the two, perpetually asking questions like:
- Whose needs take priority?
- Should we prioritize the personalized content sales wants, or the versatile assets marketing wants?
- How can I get sales teams interested in using the kind of content marketing teams want them to share?
- How can I work more strategically when sales processes demand I work tactically?
Since the role began, sales enablement teams have languished over those questions, finding little in the way of meaningful or lasting answers.
To help, we’re posing a different question altogether; what if you didn’t need to choose between the two?
Close the gap. Cut your costs. Boost results.
Just 32% of sales reps and marketers align on analytics and metrics - and that rift is making it harder for both teams to achieve their goals.
Meanwhile, aligned organizations save 30% on their customer acquisition cost and maintain 20% higher customer lifetime value than their unaligned counterparts.
If you’ve got what it takes to close the gap, there’s a lot of business value to be gained.
At Turtl, we’ve found that with the right approach, capabilities, and content formats, you can:
- Create content that’s simultaneously able to grab the attention of sales team members and the customers they serve
- Personalize content at speed, using marketing-approved foundations and reusable, customizable assets
- Empower the people responsible for empowering your sales teams, and increase the effectiveness of your sales enablement efforts across the board
In this guide, we’ll explore how by walking you through three focus areas that come together to make those things not only possible, but immediately achievable for you and your team.
Let's get started ➡️
Who is responsible for enabling your sales?
- We have a designated team
- There is a dedicated person
(e.g. associate or executive)
- It is a shared responsibility
- No one is really responsible
*<b>Focus #1:</b>* Understanding the attention economy
If you want content to sell, it has to be seen.
The first step toward creating sales enablement content that meets the diverse (and often conflicting) demands of both sales and marketing teams is understanding everything you need to achieve by focusing on the customer.
Ultimately, the most important thing your content needs to do is have a positive impact on customers, and naturally move them toward a purchase. But it’s very hard for that to happen if salespeople never put your content in front of a customer.
When you’re creating sales enablement content, you’ve got two jobs:
1. Create high-value content such as interactive digital documents that grab the attention of customers and convert that attention into action or intent data.
2. Flag the attention of salespeople and other areas of the business, so that they actually read and utilize the content for their conversations or prospect activities.
If the focus is on the customer, then driving reader engagement for brand building and using formats that track attention insights to close deals will become the common goal and mutual understanding for everyone in the business. That data can be used to answer valuable questions and prioritize differing requirements.
So what are the intent signals both marketing and sales teams are looking for to help win and grow business? ➡
It is only possible to attract attention if you understand the needs of your audience. Fortunately, everyone is already telling you a lot about what they want—if you’ve got the metrics in place to listen and an understanding of human psychology.
By making content engagement measurable, you can get a clear view of which content pieces audiences value, but also which ones salespeople and marketers are really using.
As an example, Turtl Docs are a content format that allows you to answer valuable questions by looking at certain trackable analytics such as:
Of course, if you can measure how your audience engages with content, you can also see if internal teams are paying attention. If they’re not up to speed with the current content messages and offerings, there’s a strong chance they won’t make the best choices in terms of what to share.
Employees and customers have one very important characteristic in common—they’re human. They’re hard-wired to respond to engaging stories and striking visuals. If you can provide content with these, you’ll be able to gain and retain the attention of both.
Whether you work in marketing, sales, recruitment, customer experience, or anything else which involves people, it is worth diving into the content science and cognitive psychology behind better communications.
If you deliver more of the kind of content your audience wants, with more of the intent data your sales and marketing team need, sales enablement content is effectively being used by all. But when it comes to grabbing attention, it’s also well worth applying a little science and making use of content psychology techniques.
You don’t need to retrain your teams from the ground up, but it’s worth taking the time to help them understand:
- The basics of effective content psychology such as tone of voice, imagery, and interactivity
- How to make the best use of all the corporate content available
- Best practices around personalization, technology, and automation tools
- How customized and modular materials can help teams balance strategic and tactical needs
A little mutual understanding can go a long way…
Only 35% of sales reps believe that marketers know what kind of content sales need to engage, nurture, and win accounts. If you can bridge that gap and create mutual understanding of content needs and audience engagement, you can make huge strides toward enabling both teams equally and effectively.
How an engaging and measurable content format led to big results for both sales and marketing teams at Willis Towers Watson
Historically, Willis Towers Watson always published its famous Industry Outlook Reports in PDF format, which left them unable to learn much about how customers were engaging with the content.
By switching to Turtl, the company was able to gather far more granular reader insights, and use those insights to make improvements to content that helped both marketing and sales teams simultaneously.
The new engaging format helped the company capture 1,200 new sales leads from just four reports, while increasing average read times and reader reach — showcasing how the right content can please customers, sales, and marketing.
Learn more about their story
