Sales reps are the representatives of your organization and they must be efficient in convincing the audience to make the purchase. For an effective sales enablement process, the sales reps must be backed up with the right resources, like sales collateral.
With this article, we will be discussing in detail what is sales collateral and how it will benefit your sales reps in performing tasks better.
The collateral depends upon the needs of the sales reps and the buyers, and the content varies according to that. It can also take many forms, depending on your customer’s requirements and where they are on their sales journey.
To help you curate the best content, we have come up with different sales collaterals and how you can utilize them for that purpose.
1. Persona documents
Every organization has different verticals and industries. Creating personas for these customers will help you deal with them better. A “persona” document is a breakdown of the characteristics of these employees. This helps in the better engagement of the employees and customers, as the document contains the buyer’s specific background and attributes. The things that can contain in your persona document are:
- General background
- Age
- Gender
- Job role
- Industry
- Size of the company they work for
- Common tasks and daily activities
- Their role in decision-making for the company
2. Product document
It is a detailed guide about the product and the benefits a product will give to customers based on the common challenges they face.
3. White papers
This is a detailed study for the sales reps. They can look into any topic they need assistance with, and they will find the answer.
4. Case studies
It helps in understanding how other organizations have benefited from using your product, and it gives a better path for your success.
It is also a great resource used by the sales reps to share with the audience so they will be encouraged to use your product.
5. Internal success videos
These are used for internal team success purposes, as the name suggests. In these videos, the sales reps explain how they onboarded a particular client or how they portray how smart selling is.
6. Datasheets
These documents comprise all the details of the product. It includes all the specifications that a sale may require to sell the product. It includes all technical and non-technical details explained in easy language for the employees to understand.
7. Buyer’s guide
It helps to push your users closer to the sales funnel. Also, the seller guides the buyer throughout the process and helps in making the best decision.
8. Newsletter
These are the monthly or weekly letters that are sent to the buyers, so they will be connected to you. It is the best way to tell the buyers about your products or services that will benefit them.
9. Sales scripts
These are utilized by the sales reps to have more productive conversations with the users. It helps them with every stage of the selling process and has better conversations to convert prospects into clients.
10. Email templates and call scripts
It helps in giving uniformity to the conversations with the customers and prospects. It standardizes the conversations and how they engage buyers.
11. Multimedia, customer stories, product demos, etc.
These are the assets that employees can use to establish better relations with the customers or teams. It helps in putting forward the product in a better way.
12. Sales playbook
This is an engaging resource to help the sales reps to understand the sales process better. There can be different sales collateral for every stage that will help them acquire more customers.
13. Sales battle cards
Battlecards will help your sales reps to give fire responses. These comprise information on your products, existing marketing customers, and their jobs.
14. Pitchbooks
These are the pictorial forms of your verbal messages.
Different stages for ideal sales collateral!
Every stage of the sales process is unique and requires different resources. Every buyer has a different journey to buy the product and it has to be assisted differently by the sales reps.
1. Awareness stage
This stage refers to when you have to tell people about your brand or services. When prospects know they have a problem and start finding solutions to it, this is when you have to pitch your product.
You can present them with blog posts, articles, videos, press releases, infographics, and social media posts.
2. Consideration stage
This is the stage wherein the buyers are searching for options, researching to select the ideal vendor with the best pricing. You have to build relationships with your customers as you find they are seeking the solutions that you can provide.
Resources that you can provide: whitepapers, eBooks, research reports, and webinars.
3. Purchase stage
When the customer is ready to purchase, he needs information about the product or services to make a decision. Start with your welcome message and provide whatever information is required to your customers to make a firm decision about choosing your product or not.
Resources you can provide are product information sheets, data sheets, testimonials, case studies, product reviews, ROI business cases, and product demonstrations.
4. Retention stage
Onboarding an employee is not sufficient and you need to retain your employees. After you have onboarded your client, you must have constant communication with them and build customer loyalty. It is important at this stage that you educate your customers and provide them with the necessary resources.
These are the resources that you can provide: FAQs, knowledge base, onboarding and user guides, workshops, product updates, and newsletters.
5. Advocacy stage
When you have convinced the customers to buy your product and they start liking your product and advocate it to others. This is what will help your business to scale. When they will give positive feedback to other businesses and people, your product or service will be promoted organically. At this stage, your content should help you in building trust among the audience and create a faithful community.
At this point, you can provide your customers with feedback forms, events, and surveys to help gather their views on your product or services.
For an effective sales strategy, it is important that you know your employees and what they require at each stage. You must prepare content according to what you think will provide the most value to your customers.
