Sales enablement is straightforward in concept. As the name indicates, it is the process of enabling sales teams to close more deals by providing them with the resources they need to be more effective. Resources may include tools, technology, training, content or actionable strategies to sell your product or service to customers. 

High-performing sales enablement functions provide specific resourcing and supporting tools to simplify the selling process and reduce the burden on the salesperson. This leads to increased conversion rates.

Identifying key gaps in sales processes and resources is vital. Much like marketing operations, sales enablement requires oversight into the existing processes, talent, sales techniques and available tools to find efficiencies and improvements. 

Focus on three key areas to build an effective sales enablement strategy:

1. Manage enablement strategy, tools and resources: Optimize sales enablement strategy and design to arm frontline sellers and managers with the collateral, tools and technologies needed to sell more effectively and efficiently.
   
2. Develop frontline talent: Strengthen sales enablement functions with the knowledge, frameworks and tools necessary to develop frontline talent skills and improve training, coaching and onboarding effectiveness.
   
3. Attract- and retain- sales talent: Provide the tactics and strategies needed to hire high-quality frontline talent and lower attrition in the current selling environment.

Organizations need to invest in sales enablement content that supports the goals of the business and effectively improves—or at least supports the improvement —of sales conversions. A salesperson relies on purpose-built content as a reference or evidence to persuade their potential buyer or customer of the benefits of buying the product or service.

Essential types of sales enablement content include: 

• Informative blogs/articles: Information-dense written pieces outlining all critical information about the product or service, as well as the benefits and potential uses for the product/service.  
• Case studies: Outlines real-world experiences of your product/service from those who have invested in the purchase and examines how the product/service has enriched or impacted their lives/business. 
• Customer testimonials: Grabs of content operating as positive reviews for your product/service/organization. These need to be authentic and should not be paid or fictional, as testimonials are one of the highest builders of trust in your product/service/organization.
• Interactive content: Bundled content in packs or microsites that are specific to a customer or audience segment to drive greater engagement with on-site content. This drives longer on-page time spent, as the content is designed to keep readers on-site longer through recommended content segues and related information.  
• Email campaigns: Integral to each specific phase of the sales funnel journey. Targeted email campaigns can be the clincher in securing a sale. Whether it’s an email at the initial “research” phase of the funnel that outlines the background of your organization and product or a customer-retention email after the sale, these campaigns must be purpose-built for specific audience segments. 

Content is an integral element of an effective sales funnel or customer journey map. This audience-specific content is strategically designed to push potential customers through each phase of the sales funnel journey.

Deploying an operationalized sales force will improve efficiencies within your sales department. It’s key that all members of the sales force be equipped with vital information about the product or service and adhere to the strategic processes designed to enable them to close deals. 

It’s also imperative that leadership teams and executives buy in to the importance of sales enablement. Without these decision makers on board, deploying a sales enablement program in your organization will be difficult. Sales deployment decisions can often be made in silos without a thorough understanding of the return on investment of the enablement program. Chief sales officers (CSOs) need to communicate and diagnose the challenges faced by their sales forces on areas like role clarity, strategy or KPI designs.

The size of your sales force is also critical to its success. If you’ve got an audience or potential customer base that requires 20 salespeople, you cannot be successful with having only 15. 

Organizations usually make cuts to staffing in sales departments if bottom lines aren't being improved and KPIs aren't met. Businesses cannot afford to have sales forces that don’t close deals. The top two drivers of sales force size are financial constraints and economic outlook, ranking higher than customer needs and market expansion.

Sales enablement is about equipping your sales force with the right resources and tools to more effectively close deals. 

Of the demographic surveyed, 89% of customers reported that the information they encounter during purchase decisions is of high quality. While this is fantastic feedback for the content creators in your organization, having it all so readily available can be damaging. 

This high-quality information overwhelms buyers, as each source of information provides equally trustworthy information that is often conflicting.

This is where strategic sales funnel/customer journey mapping content is vital. Overwhelmed customers find it hard to make informed trade-offs and are 153% less likely to make a high-quality, low-regret purchase.

Ensuring that your content is strategically aligned with the relevant phases of the funnel will ensure customers are receiving the right information at the right time in their decision-making process. Even if they’re consuming trusted or “good” information, if it is received at an inappropriate phase of the sales funnel, it can significantly reduce the likelihood of a sale.