Examples of Sales Enablement Content

From sales training materials and competitive intelligence battlecards to resources that answer buyers’ questions throughout the sales process, content plays a key role in sales enablement. Effective sales enablement content helps sales people attract and engage buyers, address their concerns, handle objections, and ultimately close sales.

In some organizations, it can be difficult to define sales enablement content — and who owns it — since many sales enablement content assets are also used as buyer-facing content in marketing and lead generation programs.

In this article, we go in-depth on sales enablement content to clear up any confusion and share examples of proven sales enablement content strategies used by brands of all sizes.

Sales Content Versus Marketing Content

Though both marketing and sales enablement teams focus on content creation and management, they differ when it comes to their primary audience. Marketing teams focus on creating assets for buyer audiences while sales enablement teams focus on assets that help sales people understand and distribute that content to engage buyers.

Buyer-Facing Sales Enablement Content

With so much of the modern buying process happening digitally — and independently of sales people — sales and marketing teams are coming together to find more ways to understand and influence buyers online.

The modern buyer wants to engage with more content throughout the sales process. 95% of buyers choose a provider who delivers the content to help them navigate through each stage of the buying process (see the Sales Enablement Content Mapping section for more on buyer journey stages).

Effective buyer-facing sales enablement content includes:

1. eBooks, whitepapers, webinars

eBooks, whitepapers, and webinars address the needs of high-potential prospects and often contain valuable information including industry trends, research and statistics, best practices, and technical solutions architectures. Sales people can leverage ungated versions of these assets in customer emails and follow up conversations to add value during the sales process.

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2. Blog posts

Blog posts are typically used to attract top-of-funnel prospects. They are optimized for search so Brands often create pillar and cluster strategies to optimize their blogs to appear in top searches for certain keywords. In the sales process, sales people can use blogs similarly to eBooks and whitepapers. They are excellent conversation starters and provide a good reason for a sales person to re-engage via email or phone.

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3. Guides, checklists, and infographics

Guides, checklists, and infographics are great tools for a sales person to use in the consideration stage of a buyer journey. They are typically more visual than eBooks or whitepapers and offer practical advice and tips for potential buyers to solve their problems.

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4. Case studies/testimonials

Case studies (video, PDF, or web format) are the most valuable tools in a sales person’s belt. They can be even more valuable when they focus on a specific use case, industry problem, or persona.

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5. Analyst reports

Other than customer case case studies, the most validating content comes from third-party experts and analysts. Analyst reports help sales people communicate the industry trends and best practices and position their solution as the best to solve the buyer’s problem.

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6. Product one-pagers

Product one-pagers clearly articulate the benefits of a product or service and how it acts as an effective solution to a challenge faced by a high-potential prospect. They are ideal tools for sales people to boost their knowledge or to send to prospects who are currently in the decision-making process.

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7. Business case templates and ROI calculators

When a buyer is in the consideration stage of their journey, tools that can help them convince other people in their buying group are very helpful. Return on investment calculators or templates to help them build an internal business case can be valuable assets. These tools position a sales person as a trusted advisor to their buyer.

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8. Decision-stage content

Decision stage content includes assets like demo videos and technical reference architectures that provide buyers with a “look under the hood” of your product. They are used by sales people (or sometimes by technical sales engineers) to show how a solution works. They are most effective when they can be tailored to a specific use case.

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9. Retention-stage content

Once the sale is closed, content plays a key role in customer retention and loyalty. Some examples of powerful retention content include:

• Onboarding guides
• How-to videos
• How-to blog posts
• Quarterly/annual business review
• Newsletters

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Sales-Facing Content

1. Competitive positioning tools

Competitor research and analysis (sometimes called battlecards or cheat sheets) gives sales people insights into how their competition is connecting with their target audience and highlights the areas where they are lacking.

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2. Sales nurture emails

Email is still the most effective tool for sales outreach. According to Hubspot, email is 40 times more successful for acquiring new clients than Twitter or Facebook. However, poorly composed email copy can negatively affect the results. By providing nurture email templates, marketers and sales enablement teams can ensure sales people have clear, effective communications tools to engage buyers.

3. Sales scripts

Sales scripts are a prescribed set of talking points used by sales people. They should be aligned with the information a buyer has already consumed while also providing new educational content to persuade them to make a final purchase decision. They provide the correct voice and tone and help guide the conversation.

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4. Proposal templates

Proposals and quotations are the final hurdle for a sales person. However, they can create the biggest hurdle. A poorly composed or sloppy proposal can undo all the good work performed in the earlier stages of the sales process. Arm your teams with beautiful proposal templates and draft content snippets for them to use where appropriate.

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5. Sales playbook

A sales playbook is a complete how-to manual for sales people. It covers everything from the ideal customer profile and buyer personas to messaging and positioning, competitive analysis, and objection handling FAQs.

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Sales Enablement Content Mapping

To determine what sales enablement content already exists within your organization and identify gaps, consider conducting an audit and mapping your content as follows:

Managing Sales Enablement Content

Because s​ales enablement content is created and managed by multiple teams, it can easily get out of control. Think about it. Your marketing team creates many assets and stores them in a content management system (CMS) to track performance during lead generation efforts. Sales teams download these assets to use in their own outreach campaigns.

However, when marketing updates the assets on the CMS, removes old material, or changes direction on brand designs or messaging, sales people still circulate the older versions — creating an inconsistent experience for buyers.

Intranets and sales enablement platforms are essential tools for marketers and sales teams to host and manage all sales enablement content. Highspot and Seismic are just two examples of effective sales enablement platforms that can provide visibility across the sales content lifecycle. They have powerful search, scoring, and syncing capabilities that keeps marketing and sales organized, aligned, and on-brand.

Keeping Sales Enablement Content Fresh

Organizations will often outsource the development of sales enablement content creation to expert third-party agencies like Total Product Marketing. This frees up marketing teams to focus on lead generation or other revenue generating tasks and frees up sales enablement teams to focus on training strategies and performance metrics.

Third-party agencies also bring a fresh perspective on creating and testing buyer personas, buyer journeys, content mapping, and sales enablement. TPM works with organizations of all sizes to help them shore up their sales enablement content and processes.

Organizations like PayPal, for example, work closely with Total Product Marketing to build creative sales enablement materials that are aligned with the organization’s sales framework and methodology.

Total Product Marketing builds everything from interactive sales playbooks and presentations and sales sheets and FAQs for product launches and updates to internal and external communications. If you’d like an expert opinion on your own sales enablement content strategy, don’t hesitate to reach out.

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