Marketers at organizations of all sizes are tasked with promoting the company, building the brand and generating awareness. But beyond that, all too often marketers are asked to adjust and respond to the demands of a sales team, many of whom don’t understand or appreciate the value of marketing content in the first place.
When marketers spend valuable time and company resources on creating content the sales teams say they need, they rarely get more than a ‘thanks for that new product deck’ at the next kickoff. Further, the use of CRM and marketing automation tools has kept marketers data rich when it comes to an understanding of how customers interact with public-facing materials, but those tools are not delivering an understanding of what is happening in the field during direct sales interactions with customers.
Today, marketers have a unique opportunity to change all that – to take advantage of new suites that have become known as sales enablement platforms (like Bigtincan Hub) to help build integrated and symbiotic relationships with sales. These platforms can finally help marketers understand how sales works (and vice versa) without having to send out tedious surveys or schedule lunch meetings to get insight into the sales process.
However, it's been all too easy for marketers to just leave the management of the sales enablement program to the sales ops team. But Bigtincan believes that with a bit of time and focus – and a thorough understanding of sales enablement tools and the results that they can deliver – marketing teams can tap into what is happening in the field like never before.
Don’t believe us? Here are our top five reasons why marketer should care about sales enablement. We are sure you can think of five more – leave us your thoughts in the comments section below.
Creating the right content, every time
Marketing departments often have limited understanding of what materials sales teams actually need to be successful. With next-generation sales enablement software, marketers can understand exactly how the sales team works in the field – how they engage with customers, what materials they are using and how long they are engaging with customers. Plus, with smart sales enablement tools, marketing can even understand what content was shared by the sales team and whether that content provided valuable insights to prospects.
Understanding how marketing is impacting the top line
Marketers are often left in the dark about sales – they hear how sales is doing, like impressive close rates, but it can be hard to know whether marketing is helping (or not helping) to close those deals. Sales enablement software empowers marketers with details into the daily use of content by the sales team, and when combined with CRM software like Salesforce.com, provides direct insight into what content is helping to close specific sales.
And what's more, marketers can start to see how the sales team and the customers interacted with that content, leading to the creation of more content that actually works. From this knowledge, marketers also have the numbers to show how important content is to closing deals.
Moving the needle on adoption and use of content
Just creating and refining content isn’t enough – the sales team needs to adopt that content and use it in their everyday selling processes. Sales enablement software can do just that. Modern sales enablement tools can get the sales team using devices like iPads and smartphones to provide a new way of engaging with their customers that can deliver increased levels of engagement and, of course, more sales.
By using tools like Bigtincan Hub, which is powered by AI technology, marketers can have a helping hand in ensuring that sales people have access to the right content at their moment of need, helping to drive forward the selling process.
Modernizing a company’s image at the touch of a finger
Empowering sales teams with mobile devices like iPads and smartphones, in conjunction with smart sales enablement software can help reps present the right image. This means showing prospects and customers what the business is all about – modern, technology savvy and leading in presenting and sharing as real thought leaders in the market.
With the sales enablement tools now available, this can become a transformational approach that can help every sales person to be more effective, present better, and be guided to sell the right products at the right time – all without the complexity of legacy portals and Intranets from yesteryear.
Using machine learning and AI to increase selling and productivity
At the end of the day – the top reason why marketers need sales enablement is to help sales teams be smarter. Imagine having an assistant that could work with salespeople to help them to improve how they work, recommending the right information and content to send to the customer, and even assist them to more effectively log their actions into tools like CRM. That vision is now within reach, with smarter AI-powered sales enablement software like Bigtincan Hub. Software that can recommend actions to a sales person, and keep both sales ops and marketing in touch with exactly what is happening in the field.
Of course, there are a lot more reasons than just our top five points, but we believe that for marketers, the time is right to consider sales enablement software as a new kind of information weapon that can be used to help close the gap between how marketers create materials and how the sales team uses that content.
With the power of sales enablement tools, marketers can now start to think differently, create more effective content, and get an understanding of exactly that content is helping sales teams close deals and the impact on the organization's bottom line.
