Summary
Sales often find that the collateral created by marketing is not practical or tailored to the needs of the sales process. Marketing teams, on the other hand, struggle to understand the specific needs of sales and how to best support them. This results in underutilized and ineffective sales materials.
In this episode, Brendan Ziolo from Zinc Marketing and Peter Meyers of Portage Sales explore the common challenges and best practices for developing sales-ready collateral.
Webinar:
The Problem: Misaligned Sales Collateral
Effective sales collateral is crucial for enabling sales teams and supporting the buyer’s journey. However, there’s often a disconnect between what marketing creates and what sales needs. This misalignment leads to underutilized materials, wasted resources, and missed opportunities.
Common Complaints From Sales
Relevance: For sales, collateral often fails to address specific buyer needs and pain points.
Usability: Materials can be overly complex or not formatted for buyer conversations, quick consumption, and decision-making.
Practicality: Sales needs collateral that is directly applicable in real-world sales scenarios versus designed for broader marketing purposes.
Marketing’s Challenges
Understanding Sales Needs: Marketing teams often lack insight into the practical challenges sales faces, leading to a gap in content creation.
Resource Allocation: Marketing might not have the bandwidth to tailor collateral specifically for sales, resulting in one-size-fits-all materials.
Best Practices for Sales-Ready Collateral
Effective sales collateral is a team effort. Companies can develop materials that truly support the sales process by addressing the core issues of relevance, usability, and practicality and by fostering close collaboration between sales and marketing. Remember, the goal is to make it as easy as possible for the buyer to make a confident, informed decision.
- Easy to Buy: Address Buyer Needs and Pain Points
- Relevance: Create materials that directly address the buyer’s needs and pain points.
- Practicality: Ensure the content is meaningful and applicable to real-world sales scenarios.
- Easy to Consume: Clear, Concise, Little Fluff
- Simplicity: Simplify options and details in sales collateral.
- Clarity: Produce clear, concise, and easily digestible content that buyers can quickly understand.
- Easy to Decide: Address Concerns and Risks
- Confidence: Focus on de-risking the buying decision by addressing the buyer’s biggest concerns and risks.
- Support: Well-designed collateral should help buyers feel more confident in their decision-making process.
How Do You Conduct Collaborative Content Creation?
Companies that have implemented joint workshops and regular feedback loops between sales and marketing have seen significant improvements in the effectiveness of their sales collateral. These companies report higher usage rates of marketing materials by sales teams and increased alignment in messaging. Here are some strategies to facilitate this collaboration:
Joint Workshops: Facilitate regular workshops where sales and marketing teams can collaborate on content creation.
Feedback Sessions: Implement structured feedback mechanisms to continuously improve collateral based on sales insights.
Practical Training: Offer practical training sessions that improve the use and impact of sales collateral.
If you have any experiences or insights on creating effective sales collateral or if you’ve faced similar challenges, share your thoughts in the comments below!
