How much time are your reps spending on finding or creating content?

Sales and marketing teams know that high-quality content takes buyers through a journey that ideally results in winning new sales opportunities. 

But where do reps get the high-quality content they need? 

Are your reps getting timely and relevant content from marketing, or are they creating content on their own?

If the reps are developing the content themselves it takes time away from selling and pursuing new opportunities.  Besides, content developed by your reps may not be on brand or consistent with the brand voice.  The content may not be up-to-date, or may not present the right image or value of your product or service.  Worst case the information developed by your reps could be inaccurate. 

If your reps are searching for content, and the content is stored across five or six different content platforms, reps will sometimes waste a lot of time looking for what they need.  There are market studies and surveys that indicate that as much as 1/3 of reps time is spent searching for or creating content. 

The challenge of providing relevant content to sales teams, while minimizing or eliminating the time reps spend creating or finding content is widespread.  In a recent survey, 84% of respondents indicated that content search and utilization was the number one area that could improve sales productivity, yet only 35% of companies are actively working on ways to improve how reps find and utilize content to drive new sales. 

So what is the best way forward?

Ideally, marketing teams work closely with the sales team to create compelling content that drives sales.  Marketing then organizes the content into a sales enablement content library and makes it easy for reps to access the content.  The salesperson accesses the system and searches for relevant assets based on specific criteria such as the buyers current stage in the buying journey. 

What type of assets resonates most with buyers?

That depends on the person who is receiving the content, their role in the organization, and the stage of the buying journey.  In the early stages content that is informational and educational helps prospects to become aware of better ways to get jobs done.  As the buying journey advances, prospects are trying to determine the solution that’s right for them.  At this stage, buyers are looking for details to understand how your product or service solves their problem, and how it compares to alternatives.  In the later stages content that helps justify the investment and case studies validating the outcomes help prospects make decisions to go ahead.

Having a sales enablement content management system offers functionality that can help you determine when it’s time to refresh or replace content.  When a specific piece of content is no longer used, or no longer helping sales professionals move customers forward on their buying journey path, that’s a good sign that the asset has outlived its usefulness.  Replacing or refreshing old content, such as an out-of-date case study, improves sales productivity because sales professionals will be using up-to-date content.  It also gives them a higher level of confidence in the quality of the materials in the system.

Sales teams need actionable content that's centralized and trackable. The Brand Wings content management system provides a single point of access that saves time for reps before and after every sales call and helps improve the productivity of every interaction with prospects.