Most marketing and sales leaders are familiar with the term sales enablement, but they’re not exactly൩ sure how to get it righᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚt.

The idea is simple: to provide your sales team with content, tools, and information to answer buyer questions ꦅand speed up the sales process. 

168极速赛车平台:But the devil is in the details.

(Note: If you want a deep dive on what types of content you sᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚhould focus on, check out this resource.)

Beyond the what questions (types of content, format, style, tone, etc.), are the how questions: 

• How do I organize the content?
• How do I track engagement?
• How can I be sure the tools I use integrate with my tech stack?

168极速赛车平台:We’ve helped hundreds of companies implement sales enablement programs and adopt tools that improve closing rates, reduce the time sales reps had to spend with pro𝓰spects, and incrꩵease the overall number of new deals closed — so we certainly have a lot to say on this topic.

Below, we’ll cover the basics — and🐬 we'll look at some platforms and tools you might want to use.  

What is sales enablement?

168极速赛车平台:Sales enablement is the pro𝔍cess of using resources during the sales process to close deals faster. 

In most cases, marketing teams work closely with their sales counterparts to produce thes💎e resources.

Think about it like this: A salesperson meets with a ꦇdozen potential customers over the course of a week. Some are good-fit prospects. Some are not.&n𓄧bsp;

That salesperson gets asked many o💜f the same questions 🤪in meeting after meeting:

• Why is your prod﷽uct better than your competitors’?
• Tell me about your cancellation policy.
• How does option A compare to option B?
• How much will I spend over the fir🐈st six months? 
• What are the next steps in the buying process?

And so on. 

Many of these ques🌃tions are not specific to the unique needs of one particular prospect. They’re general questions about the buying process, your products or services, or how different options compare. 

Sales enablement materials reduᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚce friction in 𝕴the sales process. They help answer these customer questions so that each prospect feels better informed and educated.

Sales teams can either share them after a call to provide a more thorough answer than what was provided during the conversation, or they can share ahead of a call to get major questions ouꦚt of the way beforehand.

Content is the best sales enablement tool you can use

Tools, platforms, and other software are great for tracking and measuring sales enablement, but none of that matters without the right content. Sales teams need actual assets that can be hand🃏ed to prospects at different stage🏅s of the sales cycle before any tools can be added into the mix. 

But for this to work, your sales and marketing teams need to be in lockstep. Both teꦦams will be discouraged if marketing works hard to produce something that mis﷽ses the mark or if sales reps don't use the resources put in front of them correctly. 

Sales reps want a library of thorough, vetted content that t♏hey can tru✨st. They want to be able to hand out the right piece 💯of content for every st🌟age of their sales pipeline. 

What types of content are they looking for?

Types of sales enablement content

Sale🎶s enablement content can take any form that suits your team and your customers. For most of ou🃏r clients, the most common types of sales enablement materials include:

• 168极速赛车平台:Blog articles 
• Videos
• Buyer’s guides
• 168极速赛车平台:Product/service overviews
• FAQ web pages
• 168极速赛车平台:Case studies

What topics are covered in these?

Sales enablement content topics

Wha♚t do your buyers want to know? What concerns do they have that you could adౠdress to put them at ease? 

Your marketing team should ask these questions directly to your sales reps and sales managers. Regular brainstorms with sales and marketing teams (we call this a 168极速赛车平台:Revenue Team meeting) will help you develo🔯p a backlog of topics. 

In addition, every marketing team member should watch sales call recordings every week to hear questions and concerns directly from the mouths of your buyers. This could help you discover 🌠🔜new topics to write about and prepare your sales team for in the future. 

When we work with clients, we find that most of the sales enablement content they create 168极速赛车平台:falls into the same few categories:

1. Price: Buyers want to know what they can expect to pay, and what factors make the number go up or down.
2. Comparisons: They want to see different options side by side so they can easily make distinctions.
3. The sales process and customer experience: They want to understand all of the logistics involved in buying from you.
4. Problems, drawbacks, and limitations of what you sell: Buyers want all the details so they can anticipate challenges.
5. Customer testimonials: They want relatable social proof so they can see their future after buying from you.

These same topics could be covered in any of the formats listed above. For example, a video that explains price — or an article outlining the drawbacks of a par♏ticular product you sell. 

Remember, unless you’re creating content for your sales team to use in their process and properly set up the strategy we’ve o𒀰utlined for you above, softwarღe tools can’t do much to help your sales team.

Only after you’ve taken these first steps and laid the proper groundwork will the sales enablement tools be most 💜effective.

Sales enablement tools we love 

When we show our clients at IMPACT different sales enablement toﷺols they can use, there are a few clear winners — intuitive and easy to train your team on quickly a♐nd use. 

Most als𒁏o have free versions you can implement until you’re ready to upgrade for a broa𒆙der experience.

Here are our choices for the top sales enableme✃nt tools. 

HubSpot Sales Hub: Keep tabs on your sales activity 

is one of the most powerful marketing, sales, and service automation platforms on the market toꦛday.

Ask any HubSpot user and they can tell you it’s a game-changer. Plus, it♌’s free to s💧tart, and you can work your way up the different packages as you go:

Even with the free veꩲrsion, there is a lot you 🌄can accomplish.

For example, whenever prospects fill out a form on your website (contact 🅺form, ebook download form, etc.), you have the ability to track that pers𒊎on and see major data points about their behavior.

This includes what pages they’ve visited, how much time they spend on your site, and what emails they’ve received♊, opened, and read. This lets yo𝔍u track engagement with your sales enablement content.

This kind of customer data is♔ essential for long-term revenue growth.

Your sales team will also benefit from HubSpot’s auto🎐mated taskಞs, such as:

• Tracking ROI with automated reports
• Automating emails
• Allowing prospects to book calendar appointments with your staff
• Engaging with prospects on live chat

The platform allows sales representatives to target specific prospects so they can spend more time with qualified leads, and the dashboard helps your sales rep꧂s access real-time data (such as sales leads by sales representatives, how many calls their team has made each day, and revenue made).

Your sales reps and marketers can collaborate 🦹on projects together directly in the platform by sharing access to files, documents, and repo༺rts. 

HubSpot also offers marketing automation and customer servi🍨ce𒁏 software so you can deliver a seamless experience to your customers.

To learn more aboဣut how HubSpot can help your sales team, you can check out , which range from beginner to advanced.

Vidyard: Record and share videos

is a video creation tool you can access from your Chrome browser so you can record, post, and share v🐼ideos effortlessly.

This makes it easy for your sales team to personalize email correspondence with prospects. Research shows that just including a video in your email (and mentioning the video in your 💞subject line) can . 

The easier to make and share video content, the🦩 better.

Vidyard also offers a range of analytic🦄s — such as how your viewers are interacting with your content and who they are — and it integrates with other popular platforms, such as HubSpot, LinkedIn, Slack, and Salesforce. 

With different versions of the platform, you can split-test thumbnail images, cu🥂stomize calls-to-action, 🌃and use heat maps to see where users are clicking.

Like HubSpot, Vidyard's free version is a pretty good star🌄ting point, so you don’t have to go all-in and sp🍷end too much at first. But the added features at higher tiers are pretty great. 

Paperflite: Share sales enablement content

is a content management platform that can help y🏅our sales team consolidate its content in one place.

This makes it easier for yo𝄹ur team to access the content they’re looking for by organizing it into different collections and categories. No one has to go rumma🐟ging through desktop folders or request that a team member send them files.

Paperꦕflite helps your sales team share content in a way that is visually appealing, rather than sending prospects a bunch of♓ bulky attachments.

You’ll also get analytics about open rates, dwell time, shares, and other info so you can see how well your content is ✅working. 

Paperflite is most helpful for your sales team if they work with a lo𝐆t of content and𓄧 need help organizing and sharing that content in a more visually appealing way.

.

Intercom: Connect with customers, regardless of stage

is a🍸 conversational tool that makes it easy to use live chat and provide AI-powered chatbots on your site so you can k🐭eep communicating with customers before, during, and after they buy from you.

You can set up the Intercom software to help your customers choose their own path through your💛 sales process or easily access some🐟one on your team. 

The base plan starts at $74 per month, with Pro and Premium levels🧸 offering customiꦺzed features. 

Drift: Engage in real-time

is a platform that helps businesses intera𓆏ct with prospects in real-time via live chat, video, voicemail, and email. The software allows you to track when prospects are on your site and how engaged they are. This helps your sales team focus on prospects further down the pipeline.

Drift then aggregates engagement activity so you🌜r sales team can focus on the best-fit opps in their pipeline. 

You can also set it up so prospects get a personalized notification while they’re searching for information on your websiꦅte. That notification might look something like this:

Drift is a great tool for making sure your sales team isn’t wasting time chasing bad-fi🍌t leads.

Drift plans start at $2,500 per month, which represents a sizeable investment, but with ever-advancing AI technology, the abilitie💯s of chatbots are co🌱nstantly improving. 

Start building a winning sales enablement strategy today

Remember, there is no sale🍸s enablement software that can succeed without a good strategy and a library of saꦐles content. 

At IMPACT, we teach our clients the 168极速赛车平台:They Ask, You Answer framework, which teaches that your primary focus should always be on answering cus🔜tomer questions.

When a prospect enters your sal𝓰es cycle, they want information. Whatever you sell, your buyers probably have the same 💃core questions that we listed above.

Again, these answers could come in many forms, depending on what your buyers most want: web pages, blog articles,♔ videos, or case studi🙈es.

Sales enablement software will help you organize♛, track, share, and analyze this content. But remember: they are tools, not a strategy. 

To take the first step to implement a full-fledged sales enablement strategy at your business, set up a time to 168极速赛车平台:talk to one of our coaches, an🌄d we’ll show you how to alleviate your sales challenges so you can celebrate incredible results.