Every day your sales team sends a bunch of sales collateral to your potential customers, but for most of them, they get no response. How can you get your prospects engaged?
Today’s B2B landscape has become extremely competitive, and we all know that buyer’s attention span continues to get shorter and shorter. For that reason, to increase the level of engagement with your sales collateral, and therefore the possibility of closing your deal, you have to take serious action.
What is sales collateral?
But before that, let’s clarify what we mean by sales collateral. According to many researchers, content is still king and it will continue to be so. And today, everybody has a clear understanding of what marketing content is. But when it comes to sales content or sales collateral, we sometimes get confused. Is it sales enablement material? Is it top of the funnel (TOFU) content that’s repurposed for sales teams? Is it the good old printed sales material?
In reality, sales collateral is anything that helps sales teams close more deals, faster. Companies develop this content with the aim of moving prospective buyers through the entire sales process. And it typically comes in different types, targeting every stage of the buyer’s journey, such as product overviews, case studies, ebooks, whitepapers, FAQs, fact sheets, testimonials, how-to slide decks, proposals, executive summaries, quotes, contracts, implementation guides, etc.
But more than how you define it, what matters is how it actually performs and gets your customer engaged.
1. Track performance
First things first, stop sending your sales collateral as email attachments and start tracking them with a document tracking solution that uses a link-based system for sharing. What gets measured gets improved. This will help you monitor views, reveal areas of interest by prospects, and track return visits to your content. In order not to fly blind, your sales leaders need data that tells them which content is actually driving sales engagement. So, take action right now, and stop sending email attachments today!
2. Use storytelling
Buyers like to read examples that demonstrate how someone has done what you’re talking about. They use this experience to gain trust and confidence to try what you offer. For sales collateral, storytelling typically comes in two forms: case studies and testimonials. You start by identifying your customer and defining their problems. Then, talk about their pain points caused by these problems. And finally, wrap up the story by positioning your solution as a savior.
3. Live chat with customers
When you send a document to your prospect as an email attachment, you don’t have a chance to have a live chat with them anymore. Most of the lınk-based document tracking solutions today give you the ability to chat directly on the platform, while your prospect is reading the document, with perfect timing. This will definitely get them engaged.
4. Make your collateral visually appealing
Studies indicate that our brains process visual information 60,000 faster than text. If you want your customers to engage with your sales collateral, you better make sure it has an appealing visual design, along with text that clearly communicates details.
5. Send video introductions
Video is everywhere today! When you send a sales document to your potential customer, having a personalized video introduction will instantly establish a relationship between you and your customer. Our own data indicates that our customers see a 41% increase in their conversion rates when they send a video introduction along with their sales collateral.
6. Cater to the web
Sorry to say this, but sending a PDF is not a digital content strategy anymore. You have to make sure your sales collateral can be viewed anytime, anywhere, from any device. This sounds basic, but it's extremely important for driving engagement. Today, people got used to double-tapping, swiping, and pinching their way through the content. They don’t want to be confined to scrolling.
7. Personalize your content
Last but not least, stop sending those copy-paste proposals! Your prospects know that you are faking it. Research indicates that you can have 21% stronger lead acceptance and up to 36% higher conversion rates if you use sales enablement technology for content personalization. Provide your sales reps with sales enablement platforms to enable more personalized content.
So next time you are sending a sales collateral, which tactic are you going to implement? Make a decision today, and at least start with one! If you want to know how you can drive more engagement with GetAccept, watch our demo video.
