Sales content management guide

Sifting through pitch decks, updating old one-pagers, and locating the most relevant white paper can take a lot of time for sellers. In fact, recent studies show that sales reps spend an average of 440 hours each year trying to find the right sales enablement content to share with prospects and customers. This ongoing search for the best content impacts seller productivity and puts reps at risk of stalling, and even losing, an important deal.

What is a sales content management strategy?

Because sales content is so important, organizations need to have a well-designed sales content management strategy in place. Sales content management is the process of creating, organizing, storing, and sharing content in one central location. This ensures that sellers can easily find, personalize, and share relevant content with buyers at the right time.

Why sales content management is important

Sellers are working in a more competitive and ever-evolving sales landscape. Because of the transition to remote and hybrid workforces, along with changing buyer preferences, go-to-market teams have to embrace virtual selling to find new ways to connect with buyers and create meaningful relationships.

Buyers are also researching products and services, comparing competitors, and looking at customer reviews before they talk  to a sales rep. So, when they finally engage with your sales team, they expect to receive useful information that answers their specific questions. The ability for sellers to address a buyer’s needs and deliver relevant sales and marketing content at the right time is the one of the best ways to keep them informed and moving through the sales cycle.

Benefits of content management

Creating a single source of truth for your sales enablement resources is extremely valuable. Not only will it help sellers become more successful in their roles, it can also:

Improve productivity

Sellers currently spend nearly 70% of their time on non-selling activities and that includes searching for content. But when sellers know where to find  sales collateral, they spend less time looking and more time focusing on their top priority: selling.

Promote accurate messaging and content usage

On average, 65% of content that’s created by marketing goes unused by sellers. Instead, reps spend time crafting their own content which increases the risk of delivering inaccurate information or inconsistent brand messaging. Sales content management increases the likelihood that marketing-produced and approved content will be seen and used by sellers.

Streamline and accelerate the sales process

By giving sellers access to relevant content that can also be personalized, they can better provide prospects with content that’s engaging, relevant, and useful. This can accelerate deal cycles and move prospects through the buying process much more quickly.

What is a sales content management system?

In order to create an effective content management process, more organizations are turning to sales content management systems (CMS). A content management system is a type of software that stores sales and marketing content all in one place. This provides go-to-market teams the ability to search and find the right collateral right within the sales enablement app. The best content management software also does more than store content; it also automates processes, provides reps with customization flexibility, and recommends additional pieces of useful content. This functionality helps sellers quickly provide the most relevant information to buyers and move deals forward.

How to use sales content management tools

Sales content management systems are a great way to streamline the sales process and create a simplified workflow for your sales team. Here are just a few other ways that go-to-market organizations can use this type of sales enablement tool.

Engage with buyers before and after meetings

In the world of virtual selling, every moment sellers have with a buyer matters. Sellers can easily access and share relevant content before and after meetings so they can spend that time asking and answering questions and building meaningful relationships. Buyers can revisit and share that content with other stakeholders as much as they like.

Maintain compliance

Content management systems also ensure that the content sellers send is up-to-date, on-brand, and compliant with industry or company regulations. CMSs give sellers as much or as little flexibility for content customization as sales leaders want them to have. Teams can also use this sales enablement software for content approvals before it’s shared with both internal and external audiences.

Define user permissions

A sales content management platform also gives administrators and leaders the ability to create user groups and set various permissions across each group. First, this ensures that users only have access to the content they should. For example, a sales team that is responsible for selling a specific product would only see the sales collateral that’s been assigned to their user group instead of seeing content for each and every product your company offers. This also makes it easier to organize content so that sellers have quick access to the most relevant content. Additionally, administrators can determine how sellers can save assets and share content with prospects.

Update content assets automatically

Because a sales content management system creates one golden source for sales enablement materials, teams can easily update content in one place instead of tracking down each location where it may be stored. The updated content is then pushed out to those who have access to it as a way to ensure that everyone has the latest and greatest version.

Track content usage and engagement

Marketing teams spend a lot of time and resources creating high-value sales collateral but ,oftentimes, they don’t know if or how that content is being used. Content management systems are a great resource for tracking the content sellers search for and share. It also provides sellers with data on how buyers engage with the data. These insights are a great resource for organizations as they plan and strategize their sales enablement content strategy over time.

Features and functionality to look for

If your organization is ready to implement or update your sales content management system, there are a number of things to consider before making a purchase. The best sales enablement software for your team needs to solve the challenges that your sellers face while also optimizing the sales process. Here are just a few features we recommend reviewing.

• File support: Your sales and marketing content likely lives as PDFs, slide decks, documents, videos, and more. Make sure that whatever sales content management system you move forward with supports all of the file types that your organization uses.
• User settings and controls: Some content management systems also let leaders and administrators set specific permissions for content customization. If your organization is part of a highly-regulated industry or wants to ensure content remains on-brand, look for a tool where you can update settings that give as much flexibility for editing as you need.
• Accessibility: The shift to virtual selling also means that the mobile workforce and use of mobile devices has increased. Look for a management tool that gives sellers easy access from both computers and mobile devices.
• Integrations: Your CMS is likely only one part of a much larger sales enablement strategy. Be sure the tool you select integrates with the other tools in your sales tech stack to ensure a seamless workflow for your go-to-market teams. Or, look for a unified platform that includes all of the tools that your team needs to use on a daily basis.
• Analytics and reporting: It’s essential to review how your content impacts sales deals and revenue. Be sure your content management system provides robust data and reporting capabilities so you can track the content sellers use, what type of content engages buyers most, and how content is performing throughout the sales process.

Manage sales content with Seismic

Is your organization ready to improve its sales content management process? Seismic’s leading sales enablement software features the CMS you need to easily create, store, update, and share content. This provides sellers with the right content that they need for every interaction which improves the time spent selling and overall win rates. Read how one customer improved the likelihood of a deal closing by 35% by delivering content with Seismic. Or, get a demo to learn more about Seismic’s sales enablement and content management tools.