Marketing, Sales
Sales collateral best practices
By Seismic On October 14, 2022
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Marketing, Sales
By Seismic On October 14, 2022
Sales collateral is essential for sales reps and prospects. We'll share best practices for creating high-quality sales collateral, discuss how to effectively organize it, and explore the benefits of using a sales collateral platform.
Sales collateral comes in many different shapes and sizes, depending on the buyer's journey. Because every buyer journey is unique, your sales reps need a variety of content they can use to address their prospects' most pressing needs. To do so, it's important to always keep content fresh, easy to access, and tailored to your buyer's needs. In this post, we'll cover the meaning of sales collateral, how to create the best sales assets, and how to organize sales collateral so it works for your sellers.
It's no secret that sales content is one of the most important tools sellers use to engage prospects. A 2020 Demand Gen report found that 67% of buyers now rely more on content to inform buying decisions than they did in the previous year.
Buyers also want the content they receive to be personalized and informative. Content that is irrelevant to a buyer will simply be ignored. So, to get the content experience right, organizations need to create content that helps them to build relationships with buyers and, ultimately, generate more revenue.
Sales collateral includes any document or materials that sales reps use throughout a deal cycle. Examples of sales collateral can be brochures, case studies, demos, etc. These sales materials teach, inform, and interest potential customers to help them decide to buy. Effective B2B sales collateral offers buyers detailed information about your company, its products and services, and demonstrates how you solve their unique business challenges.
Before we dive into examples of common collateral, it's important to understand the difference between sales collateral and sales enablement collateral.
Sales collateral includes the sales and marketing materials that are designed to support the sales process. Sellers use sales andmarketing collateral with buyers and customers to educate them on your products and services. These are intended to be external-facing and aimed at engaging prospects directly.
In contrast, sales enablement collateral is broader in scope. It includes materials, tools, and resources that empower and enable sellers to perform at their best. Sales enablement assets equip and support sellers with the knowledge, skills, and resources they need to succeed. This category includes both customer-facing materials (sales collateral) and internal resources like training content, sales playbooks, messaging desks, and competitor analysis materials.
You may be wondering, what's the difference between sales collateral and marketing collateral? Is there even a difference? In our opinion, marketing collateral focuses on creating brand awareness and generating leads. Sales collateral is specifically tailored to educate and move prospects through the sales funnel. Sales and enablement collateral are equally important because they both help sellers do their jobs quickly and effectively. In this post, we'll dive into specific examples of sales collateral and how they impact your company's bottom line.
of purchasing decisions are directly influenced by content.
Regardless of the type of collateral you send buyers, it should clearly convey useful information that addresses their questions and needs. Creating effective sales collateral involves understanding the needs of buyers. It also involves utilizing tools such as sales content management software to streamline the process. By understanding what buyers want and utilizing the right tools, you can make the process of creating sales materials more efficient. Some of the most common collateral materials include:
Blog Posts
Blog posts are one of the most effective formats for building awareness with new buyers. They showcase thought leadership, provide valuable knowledge, and demonstrate expertise on a variety of topics. Blog posts are highly shareable, making them ideal for distribution on social media and via email campaigns.
Ebooks
Case studies
Research reports
Product demos
Personalized demos provide a direct and interactive way to show buyers the features and benefits of your product. By demonstrating how your product can address and solve their specific challenges, product demos help to build confidence and drive purchasing decisions. Tailoring demos to the unique needs of each buyer makes them more relevant and effective.
Knowledge bases
Newsletters
Sales collateral is an important tool in the sales cycle. In fact, 95% of purchasing decisions are directly influenced by content. Sales collateral helps sellers:
Build credibility
Sales content that provides relevant and personalized information adds an extra layer of credibility for your sellers and organization.
Drive engagement
A great piece of sales collateral paired with a friendly seller is a powerful combination that leaves a lasting impact on buyers. As a result, they’re more likely to engage with a seller and continue the conversation.
Close more deals
82% of buyers review an average of five pieces of content before making a purchase. Without the right content delivered at the right time, deals will stall and potentially end as closed-lost.
Today's buying process is more complex than ever. The best sales collateral aligns with the buyer's journey and supports buyers as they move from stage to stage. Let's take a closer look at these stages and what types of sales collateral are most effective for each.
The first stage is awareness. Buyers have identified a challenge they want to solve and are actively researching information to understand the problem and possible solutions better. Awareness-level content brings buyers to your site, introduces your company and products, and provides helpful information. This type of collateral often includes eBooks, blog posts, and webinars.
Once a buyer discovers your business, you need to deliver relevant collateral that keeps you at the top of their consideration. This is when sellers start conversations, build relationships, and learn more about the buyer. Because they're likely to consider multiple vendors or options, sales collateral needs to show how your product can fit into their business and help them reach their goals. This is when case studies and personalized demos are useful.
Over time, buyers will narrow down their options and make a final decision. So, it's important to provide materials that facilitate conversations, foster authentic relationships, and reinforce the benefits of partnering with your organization. Pricing guides, case studies, and competitor comparisons are essential during this stage of the deal cycle.
The buyer's journey doesn't stop once a prospect becomes a customer. Now, it's time to drive satisfaction to encourage retention and growth. By providing FAQs, newsletters, and customer-only events, your organization will build stronger relationships and encourage customers to become advocates.
Now that we've covered the meaning of sales collateral and the value it brings, let's look at some best practices to help your organization leverage collateral as much as possible.
First, take inventory of your current sales collateral library. Gather all your content, then take a step back to review each piece. Consider if it supports your organization's goals and objectives. This will help you identify what type of collateral is missing. And remember, if one part of your collateral becomes outdated, it doesn't mean the entire piece is useless. Search for ways to keep the parts of content that work while discarding anything that's no longer relevant or up to date.
It's important to understand the process your buyers take to make a purchase decision so you can customize your collateral accordingly. Remember, personalized sales content is far more engaging than generic marketing materials. Give your sellers the ability to quickly and easily customize content for each buyer.
The people who have the best ideas and feedback about your content are the ones who use it each day. Ask your sellers what content they find most useful or used most often. At the same time, find out what they rarely use or would like to see created to better address their needs.
Monitor content analytics such as open rates for email attachments, engagement with digital collateral, and conversion rates at different stages of the sales process. This will help you refine and improve your collateral over time.
Let technology be your partner! A dedicated sales content management system organizes, stores, and manages sales collateral. Let's learn a bit more about the value of an enablement tool and how it helps organizations manage collateral.
A sales collateral platform is a dedicated system that organizes, stores, and manages sales content efficiently. This platform centralizes all sales materials in one accessible location to ensure sales teams can quickly find and utilize the content they need. Key features of a sales collateral platform include:
A recent survey of more than 1,200 full-time sales, enablement, and customer service professionals found that enablement tools, including various sales collateral tools and platforms, help organizations effectively manage and use their sales collateral. In The 2023 Value of Enablement Report, 9 in 10 respondents report using enablement tools in their job, and 99% of them agree that it makes their jobs easier. Let's look at why organizations need enablement technology.
Sellers in organizations without an enablement tool or dedicated sales collateral platform spend an average of 10 hours per week searching for and updating sales and marketing materials. However, respondents at organizations that use an enablement tool save 13 hours each week.
It's also worth noting that quick access to sales collateral enables sellers to not second-guess themselves. 97% of sellers say that quick access helps them speak to buyers from a more informed standpoint. Comparatively, 51% of respondents at organizations without an enablement tool say that they have misspoken during a sales or customer call.
88% of respondents say that an enablement tool allows them to be more productive in their roles. When sellers can quickly locate the right content at the right time using sales collateral tools, they can shift their focus to other high-priority and revenue-generating activities. However, productivity significantly decreases at organizations without enablement technology. 91% of respondents agree that not having access to the content they need makes them feel less productive.
Sales collateral only works if it's easy to find, personalize, and share with buyers. Effectively storing and organizing sales collateral is crucial for ensuring that your sales team can access, use, and distribute materials effectively. Here are some tips organizations can follow to streamline sales collateral management and organization.
Create a clear folder structure
Implement metadata and tagging
Establish version and access controls
Audit and clean content
Build a content approval workflow
Sales collateral is a valuable tool for every go-to-market team. But for sales content to be as effective, it must be easily accessible, engaging, and personalized. Sales and marketing teams use Seismic's sales content management tool to power content accessibility and personalization at scale. With Seismic, sellers can find useful collateral, customize it for each prospect, and share it in a matter of seconds. The result is faster deal cycles and more engaged buyers. Want to learn more? See Seismic's content management platform in action.
