Solid sales enablement collateral is necessary for sales reps to sell products and services effectively. It’s how sales teams keep customers engaged at each stage of the buyer's journey. Without it, you're doing a disservice to your company and its solution. After all, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
Sales enablement material is integral to every business' inbound marketing strategy because it helps prospects make informed decisions. Effective collateral enables your sales team to leverage valuable and reliable information and helps keep your team knowledgeable, aligned, and better set up for success in all interactions with prospects and customers.
Here are 14 examples of strong collateral that help boost sales.
1. Sales Playbook
Sales playbooks are pivotal educational tools for sales teams. Why? Because they contain valuable, easy-to-read information for various sales situations. Think of the playbook as your sales team’s go-to resource for sales enablement best practices, content, and other information. It’s a manual for delivering quality customer experiences and maximizing your team’s sales efficiency by guiding them in their interactions with prospects and customers.
So, who makes the playbook? A great place to start is with your marketing team and sales team leaders. Work together to create straightforward, valuable content that assists your sales team with strategies, best practices, and tactics at every stage of the sales process.
2. Sales Deck
A sales deck can highlight two very important things: your product or service and a peek into what you represent as a brand. It's a visual sales pitch presentation, such as a slide deck.
Research shows that our brains process visuals more quickly and easily. Typically, they're more memorable and engaging. They can help keep the audience engaged, which is why they can be so helpful in sales processes. In short, they tell a story.
Wondering how to tell your story? A great way to start is by looking at proven-to-work decks made by other companies like yours.
3. Case Studies
Case studies detail real-life examples and experiences, highlighting how a company’s products or services have helped or improved other businesses or organizations. They’re an excellent tool for showing leads how your solutions can help their businesses improve.
Case studies should always include a problem or challenge, the solution, the results, and a testimonial. The testimonial might be a quote from your customer praising the product or service that solved for their particular challenge.
4. Infographics
Like moths to a flame, humans are drawn to visual learning. Infographics offer visual representations of data or other information. They appeal to prospects by relaying a message in an easy-to-understand format.
Infographics are an excellent way to break down technical or difficult-to-digest information around a more complex solution.
5. Explainer Videos
Explainer videos are quick and engaging informational videos that explain a product or service. They can prove to be one of the most successful pieces of collateral for converting leads. Video content can include:
- Customer testimonials
- Company overviews
- Product demos
The beauty of video content is that you can take so many different avenues. While some companies opt to feature live-action company figures in their videos, others use animation or creative tools to explain their solution.
6. Webinars
Webinars help sales in a few different ways. First, they're a great way to generate leads through outlets such as email marketing or social media. They can also be used to show users how a product or service works. This can be especially useful when a solution is more technical, particularly concerning the B2B sales process, and when you want to answer any specific complex questions.
Webinars are a great way to establish your sales team as knowledgeable thought leaders. They help strengthen your team's credibility and reputation by providing valuable insights and information.
7. Blog Posts
Blog posts provide valuable sales enablement content, especially when they solve customer concerns or questions. In other words, blog posts must have the right intent.
While blog posts written for SEO strategy are intended to capture web traffic, blogs written with sales enablement in mind are created to drive prospects through the sales cycle.
Need inspiration? Start by answering pertinent prospect and customer questions. Your sales team members can relay these commonly asked questions to your content team, who can then write the blogs.
High-value blogs help your sales team save time by pointing prospects in a direction that continues taking them through the buyer's journey without having to relay the same concepts repeatedly.
8. Battlecards
What do you do better than the competition? Battlecards do just what they say: prepare you for battle. They provide an excellent way to showcase your company's edge.
Battlecards are one-pagers. They include copy and graphics to compare your solution and its features to your competitors. Especially in a highly competitive market, they're a great way to overcome prospect hesitation.
It's common to see charts, diagrams, and tables on battlecards to showcase what makes your business unique.
9. Buyer Personas
Understanding your customer provides value for anyone in your company. Your strategy inevitably falls apart when salespeople lose sight of their target market. And why wouldn't it?
Every type of customer must have a persona, from underdog advocates to prominent decision-makers. Building personas takes time and requires both qualitative and quantitative data. In developing personas, you'll identify information and ask questions about:
- Age
- Geographic location
- Pain points
- Motivations
- Job title/position
Each persona should be 1-2 pages, complete with a hypothetical headshot.
10. Customer Journey Maps
Customer journey maps reveal every stage your target audience goes through on their customer journey. They can help sales reps understand the customer's needs, pain points, and motivations to tailor their approach to meet those needs effectively. Journey maps can also help sales reps identify touch points where customers want value. Email marketing, social media, and phone calls can all be helpful tools to use at these identified touch points.
By better understanding the customer's journey, salespeople can increase customer retention too, as they build stronger relationships. Doing so can lead to those existing customers becoming advocates for your business.
11. Sales Scripts
Sure, you want each one of your sales team members to be personalized in their approach. But you also want to maintain consistency within your sales pitches.
Hopping on a sales call without a plan isn't a good move, especially if you aren't a seasoned salesperson. Sales scripts are effective and inexpensive tools for boosting your sales.
Sales scripts don't have to be robotic word-for-word scripts. Seasoned salespeople should be encouraged to change the script if the conversation calls for it, but they should still have something to fall back on. A bulleted list of talking points is a beneficial tool for your team. Be sure to include any potential prospect objections so that your team is better prepared to answer questions.
If you notice a consistent customer issue or objection, you can dedicate an entire section to helping your sales reps overcome these common obstacles.
12. White Papers
White papers provide in-depth and research-backed content about a particular solution, product, or service a company offers. The intent is to educate prospects about the features and benefits without being too persuasive.
It may compare your solution to others in your industry or provide charts, graphs, or other visuals to back up key points. A white paper remains relatively objective, as it's meant to give the stats without bias, but the idea is still to drive interest or a call to action from the potential customer.
A white paper delves deeper into topics compared to an ebook, for example, and uses evidence, facts, and real-life examples to convince. It helps educate the sales team and customers alike.
13. Email Templates
Email is an excellent medium for your salespeople to connect with customers and prospects. By writing and providing a variety of template types, you'll help your reps save time and focus on what they do best – connecting with buyers.
When you design your email templates, remember to leave room for flexibility so that your sales team can make changes as needed and provide a personal touch.
14. Product Sheets
Product sheets summarize the specific selling proposition of a product or service. They also provide answers to critical questions about your solution, such as:
- How does your product or service help the customer?
- What does it do or offer?
- Who is the ideal user?
- How much does it cost?
Product sheets help onboard new sales reps and aid in the first interaction between the rep and a prospect. They're also great tools when introducing a new product or service to existing customers.
Begin Where It Makes the Most Sense
Sales enablement collateral is integral in driving sales and improving the customer experience. Every piece of effective collateral helps to build credibility around your company and your product or service.
By leveraging the sales enablement content examples above, businesses can create cohesive, streamlined sales enablement programs that provide their sales team with the tools they need to optimize engagements with prospects and close more deals.
