Marketers: How to get Sales to use more of your assets
You are wasting your time if you’re creating Sales collateral that’s well thought-out, perfectly executed but the Sales team doesn’t actually use it.
I’ve worked on both sides of the fence — in Marketing and Sales roles. I’ve experienced that sinking feeling when my great marketing collateral is left to rot, and also been fed up receiving marketing material that doesn’t meet our needs while heading up a Sales team.
I want Sales and Marketing to work hand-in-hand, I want to involve the sales reps in the marketing process and I want to make sure they see me and my team as a force for good.
That way I can sit back at the end of the day satisfied that the Sales team sees us as the guys that get things done. So, here’s how I go about doing that.
1. Engage Sales
It sounds like an obvious place to start, but are you really grilling Sales to find out what they need from you?
I know from experience that a bad Sales and Marketing relationship is toxic. During my Sales leadership roles, the requirements of my team differed at each stage of the buying journey. Fluffy content designed to drive product or brand awareness was no good for me when my customer was close to a buying decision. They needed something more actionable.
Content must also be relevant to the job role of the customer: for example, the enterprise CMO; or an SMB owner or IT Manager.
So, speak to the Sales team… regularly. If you’re not giving them what they need at each stage of the buying journey, you’re not really helping.
2. Make your content easy to find
For your Sales partners to use the marketing material you generate, they need to locate the right assets at the right time — and the latest, up-to-date versions. It needs to be simple to locate at any time, on or offline and on any device.
One horror story I heard recently from a customer was that their sales teams had previously been spending 30% of their time whilst on the road, trying to locate content.
Just think of the cost of that?
This is particularly useful if your content can be discovered and recommended through the Sales team’s familiar CRM system.
3. Get personal
The Sales team deals with clients who are much more informed than ten years ago. As a result, Sales leaders need to be more consultative than ever before. This means they need the best content, personalised for the client, at their fingertips.
The truth is, the onus is on the Salesperson to handle much of the personalisation. So, first and foremost, make it easy for Sales reps to mix and match Marketing-approved content to create the perfect pitch. You should provide an easily accessible content library with assets broken down by category — perhaps by industry, product feature or pain point.
4. Deliver shorter assets
Stop thinking in terms of whitepapers, case studies and datasheets. Think about how Sales people actually use information, and how clients consume it.
Don’t forget, we are consumers too — would you read a 12-page white paper?
Many prospects are time poor; they’re looking to pick up product information, intelligence about your business, statistics or trends quickly, and from multiple sources.
Consequently, it’s essential to complement your more in-depth material with shorter assets: powerful phrases, punchy lines and memorable hashtags designed for the new generation of digital, social marketing platforms, to raise awareness, deliver information and build brand.
By offering these shorter assets to your Sales team, they can find plenty of timely content to share.
5. Make it mobile
Finally, make your content easy to access, edit and collaborate whilst mobile. This could mean Sales and Marketing need to have a good cloud-based content and collaboration platform in common, so salespeople can get hold of the latest assets more easily and Marketing can share more readily.
Or it might mean optimising content for your sales team’s small screen-mobile devices.
If you keep these five points in mind when creating content for the sales force, you will see the usage rates for your assets improving significantly. Measuring usage rates is a whole piece in itself, but I’m happy to give you some tips if that’s an issue for you. Connect with me on LinkedIn or just add a comment below.
In the meantime, have a look at this customer story about analytics software specialist Fico, which illustrates how Box improved mobile collaboration and efficiency across the Sales and Marketing departments, while keeping data safe.
