Salespeople depend on marketing to deliver sales content they can use to tell a compelling story while addressing the problems buyers are facing. However, even with the plethora of content available to salespeople today, many still struggle to find exactly what they need, when they need it.
Content might be disconnected from the realities salespeople actually face. It might be difficult to find. Regardless, when salespeople don’t have the content they need for their various interactions with buyers, they resort to developing their own content. The result is not just rogue messaging but also a divide between the content creator and the content consumer.
So how can marketing approach content to best align with the needs of sales? The answer is simple: Produce content that sales can use! With insights from our customers, we’ve compiled the following “wants” that top a salesperson’s content wish list:
One Source of Truth for All Sales Content
Salespeople don’t want to have to dig around through a bunch of files and folders to find what they need. They’re usually pressed for time, especially when they’re on the road. So they need to be able to pull up different pieces of content on whim—whether it’s in the middle of a meeting with a prospect or while they’re prepping for their next big presentation. As a marketer, it’s your job to support and empower sales. Having one organized repository for content benefits both departments, making it easier for sales to access content while keeping marketing in control of the messages that are delivered.
Confidence in the Content
What’s worse than not being able to find the right content? Using the wrong piece of content. Whether it’s an outdated version of a presentation or just the wrong file altogether, salespeople dread that feeling of embarrassment when they’re finally face-to-face with a potential customer and they find themselves without the information they need. Marketers can fix this by making sure salespeople have access to the most up-to-date information at all times. Well organized sales content that is accessible online and offline on any device means salespeople don’t have to worry about not having access to the information they need, ever.
Prepare, Conduct and Follow Up All In One Tool
When your office is the airport or back seat of a taxi cab, accomplishing day-to-day tasks can be daunting. More and more salespeople rely on mobile devices and laptop computers when they’re on the road, but what if they could do away with lugging all of their devices everywhere they go? Having the ability to accomplish everything—from building and conducting a presentation, finding the right content to include in a post-presentation and follow-up email—all from the same device makes everything more organized and efficient. This creates a productive and successful sales environment.
Contextual Content
Many salespeople insist on creating their own materials even when the content they need is available to them. This is inevitable when content is too rigid to work for all of their various needs and sales scenarios. Salespeople don’t want to feel constrained by content—they want to deliver the company’s message in their own way. They need content to be contextual so they can adapt their sales conversations at any moment. Beyond just clicking through a PowerPoint deck, this requires the ability to combine and leverage all types of content—slides, videos, charts, graphs, images, text, etc.
At the end of the day, empowering sales with the tools they need to effectively tell their sales story is a marketer’s first step in supporting sales transformation. Mobile sales enablement tools bring new levels of flexibility and convenience to sales teams. With greater access to different types of content that can be assembled and tailored in real time, salespeople can move seamlessly through their sales conversation.
Melissa Andrews
VP of Marketing
Melissa became a “Flyer” in 2013. As VP of Marketing, she drives B2B marketing efforts through a comprehensive and agile marketing strategy, allowing her to enhance brand awareness and grow inbound lead generation. She is a key liaison and expert on combining creative, technical, and effective sales-generating customer engagement strategies, which has helped solidify Mediafly as a technology leader. She has over twelve years of experience in results-oriented marketing, customer relationship management, customer communications strategy, and B2B sales operations support across a variety of industries. She joined Mediafly from Ariba (an SAP company). Melissa graduated Cum Laude from Rollins College with a B.A. in Organizational Communications and International Relations and holds a Master’s Certificate in Project Management.
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