In response to changing buyer behaviour in B2B, marketing now has the opportunity to take more ownership of the funnel and provide buyers with relevant content earlier in the buying process. The above document summarises what can be achieved with a joined up sales and marketing approach.

1. Paul Everett, Director of Marketing Strategy, The Marketing Practice +44 (0)1235 833233 peverett@themarketingpractice.com www.themarketingpractice.com Marianne Lord, Managing Director, BeClear Ltd +44 (0)7817 716841 marianne@beclear.com www.beclear.com
STRATEGY
SOLUTION
SELECTION
SCOPE
SALES ENABLEMENT: THE NEW BATTLEGROUND
BENEFITS OF COMBINING PROPOSITION DEVELOPMENT, SALES ENABLEMENT AND MARKETING PLANNING
Improved upfront planning and proposition development
• Similar questions at the heart of both sales
enablement and marketing campaigns
• Proposition creation benefits from early thinking
about how it can be communicated
1 Sales enablement materials
benefit from greater creativity
• Why should all the excitement
and engagement be restricted
to marketing campaigns?
2 Marketing programmes benefit
from quality content
• Marketing can use the depth
of educational content usually
only seen in sales enablement
3 Marketing generates better early-stage
opportunities
• Campaigns can be more specific about
the value that sales are equipped to add
(teeing up the right engagements for sales)
4 Sales teams
are equipped to
convert more
marketing leads
5 It all happens
more quickly and
with no insight lost
between proposition
and execution
6
SALES
MARKETING
SALES
What if your salespeople could be ready
to sell propositions in half the time?
MARKETING
What if you were producing sales enablement
materials that actually got used?
THE BUSINESS
What if you could be confident that your
propositions will really stand out to buyers?
Marketing needs a new kind of content to support
buyers who want to educate themselves
B
BEFORE
NOW
Everything starts
with better, clearer
propositions
A
C
Salespeople need more support to add value in early consultative engagements
— only 36% of execs believe interaction with vendor sales people is valuable
Source: Forrester Survey of over 500 global executives purchasing (IT and business)
D
Marketing can do more to sell the value that sales will
add and create early opportunities — 50%–90% of
content created by marketing is never used by sales
Source: IDC
THE MARKETING FUNCTION NOW PLAYS A BIGGER ROLE IN THE OVERALL PIPELINE PROCESS
STRATEGY
SOLUTION
SELECTION
SCOPE

2. Paul Everett, Director of Marketing Strategy, The Marketing Practice +44 (0)1235 833233 peverett@themarketingpractice.com www.themarketingpractice.com Marianne Lord, Managing Director, BeClear Ltd +44 (0)7817 716841 marianne@beclear.com www.beclear.com
AUDIO FILES:
Product Managers,
CIO interviews etc
DELIVERING WINNING GO-TO-MARKET PROGRAMMES
THE SALES ENABLEMENT PROGRAMME
THE COMPELLING PROPOSITION
THE INTEGRATED MARKETING PROGRAMME
1
2
3
HOSTED VIDEOS:
Sales and Product
Managers, client stories
LIVE WEBINARS:
Both internal education
and external-facing versions
MEETING TOOLS:
Physical and digital
NURTURE ASSETS:
To drip feed through
the sales process
DETAILED DOCUMENTATION:
Proposition overview,
competitor insight, analyst
CONSULTATIVE PROCESS:
Decision-trees, battlecards,
assets to ‘sell’ the process
PRESENTATIONS:
From basic PowerPoint to
interactive formats
SALESPEOPLE CONTENT:
Encourage/
reward sharing
REAL PROJECT EXAMPLES:
Business cases, project plans,
delivery roadmaps
TALKINGPOINTS
DEAL
ONGOING DRIP-FEED
SALES ENABLEMENT
OPPORTUNITY
ACCELERATION
INSIDE SALES
AWARENESS/INTEREST
Direct mail/email
Web content
Thought
leadership
papers
Integrated
events
Chat mats
Battlecards
Presentations
Product sheets
Blue Door
executive forums
Case
studies
Expert opinion
articles
Inside Sales
telephone
follow-up
CAMPAIGNEXTENDINGTHROUGH
THESALESPROCESS
Social media content
Special events/webinars
LEAD GENERATION
• An ongoing campaign (not a one-off activity)
• Atomised (same content available across different media assets)
• Refreshed at planned stages
• A single, intuitive source of content: today, 50% of the
information needed by the sales organisation is pushed
through email (Source: IDC)
• Available on mobile devices to suit a mobile sales team
• Tracked to see what’s being used and interactive so sales
can rate/share assets
Speed to productivity of a new
salesperson (e.g. from 6 to 3 months)
THE SALES ENABLEMENT PROGRAMME IS:
THE SALES ENABLEMENT PLATFORM IS:
THE BUSINESS CASE
Conversion rate from leads to
deals (e.g. from 10% to 20%)
Volume of sales-accepted leads (e.g. 7x increase
from 10% to 70% of marketing leads being accepted)
Time to market for a new proposition
(e.g. from 3 to 1 months)