With the increased prevalence of CRM software and Marketing Automation Platforms (73% of companies use a CRM and 49% use a MAP), the barriers between Sales and Marketing should be dissolving. These robust tools aim to improve processes, provide valuable information, and serve as one-stop repositories. So why do these systems – even when they’re integrated – fall short of providing Marketing with necessary and vital insights about the content they create?
The lack of knowledge often comes from what happens when a prospect is handed off from Marketing to Sales. As Sales moves to close the deal, Marketing becomes unaware of which content is being used in what stage, how effective particular pieces of content are, and Marketing’s overall contribution to closing deals.
When Marketing doesn’t have access to this information their efforts are being wasted and unnecessary work is done. Consider, nearly two-thirds of marketing collateral goes unused by Sales (SiriusDecisions). Whether this is because Sales can’t find the collateral, the content isn’t relevant, or Sales isn’t aware it exists, when content isn’t being used Marketing is letting Sales down.
Unlock Insight into the Entire Buyer’s Journey
A sales enablement solution bridges the gap between a CRM and a MAP and gives Marketing a better idea of how (or if) their content is being used. The specific spots where these two platforms and their integrations fall short – providing contextually relevant content at every stage of the buyer’s journey, in-depth content analytics, and uncovering Marketing’s contribution to won deals – are made whole by a sales enablement platform.
A Sales enablement tool specifically uncovers these insights by:
- Allowing Marketing to have a single solution for content storage that is easily sortable by persona, buying stage, industry, and showing when Sales is using that content.
- Serving up context-relevant content for Sales to use at each stage of the buyer’s journey, from pitch to close, through integration with the CRM.
- Providing in-depth, detailed analytics on exactly how prospects and leads engage with specific content to feed smarter lead scoring and marketing campaigns, through integration with the MAP.
Sales enablement allows Marketing access to areas they never had the ability to see before. Using only a CRM and an MAP, Marketing loses sight of what happens to a lead when they’re passed over the wall to Sales. With sales enablement, all of this information is available to Marketing allowing them to craft and refine their content based on real-world data.
Using sales enablement, Marketing is keyed into important statistics such as how long prospects spent engaging with a piece of content, down to a page-by-page level. Combining these engagement analytics with knowledge of when in the buyer’s journey Sales uses a piece of content gives Marketing an illuminated picture of the audience they are trying to reach and ultimately helps to drive winning sales interactions.
Serving as the bridge between a CRM and a MAP, sales enablement allows a free flow of information between both departments. Sales and Marketing alignment is crucial for any organization’s success, and sales enablement is key to the heightened effectiveness of both groups, providing the missing piece to better leads and increased revenue per sales rep.
To learn more about gaining a better understanding of the entirety of the buyer’s journey check out this guide:
