Barcelona vs. Real Madrid. Boston Red Sox vs. New York Yankees. Baltimore Ravens vs. Pittsburgh...
The days of handing out some brochures and flyers might have been simple ways to boost marketing efforts, but they wouldn’t thrive in today’s world. For your sales team to stand any chance of closing the best leads possible, they need to work hand in hand with your marketing team.
Your marketing team needs to create valuable and impactful content that your sales team can use for extra support when trying to move prospective buyers through the sales process. Now that we’re in 2019, start fresh by implementing these 10 sales collateral ideas.
1. Email Templates
Emails might not be great for every single prospect, but it’s vital your sales team always has email templates ready to use for whenever they need them so that they’re not wasting valuable time creating emails from scratch.
When your teams are developing email templates to use, make sure to remind them about carefully drafting each subject line, the opening of the emails and the body as well as the signature. Most importantly, remind your sales team to adjust the content of the email to meet the requirements of each prospect.
2. Videos
There needs to be a massive emphasis on inbound video this year onwards, even when it comes to sales collateral. Video is quickly claiming the majority of views online, but that doesn’t mean you should stop your written content right away.
Instead, do both so that your sales team can give prospects options as to which content to digest.
It can be an explainer video for your sales team to use, for example. They can be really short and simple so that it’s easier for them to describe what you’re offering and how you can help. It gives prospects a demo of how your service or product will impact their life but most importantly, it makes you more human.
By giving prospects an insight into who you are, they’ll relate more to you as videos feel more personal and they help put a face to your brand. That means valuable video content will not only raise awareness and traction but also help to push prospects through the buying journey.
3. Downloadable Content
Case studies, eBooks, guides and more. They’re all super popular marketing materials that your sales team can take advantage of. Who doesn’t love free things that can be both entertaining and educational? Rather than send out poorly-designed and never-ending Word documents, use expertly-designed and beautiful PDFs.
When they look good and are packed full of actionable and useful information, these downloadable guides can help your sales team gather contact information and leads. Considering that prospects are likely going to have pain points that need to be tackled, downloadable content can be packed full of information that helps them along the way.
It’ll be free, which is probably enough to entice prospects to download and hand over some contact details so your sales team can reach out later to continue nurturing them.
4. Blog Content
As important as video content is going to be, make sure your content team continues to produce quality blog content as they’re a great way of providing prospects with a lot of value. It’s all about focusing on solving their problems to help them rather than forcing sales which can drive them further away.
This allows your sales team to send them in the right direction where prospects can read in-depth blog posts written from authority. With every challenge given a solution, prospects will be more likely to trust your sales team, especially since blogs are a great way of nurturing prospects in a non-salesy way.
5. Awards and Recognition
If your company has won awards, then it’s a good way for your sales team to demonstrate your quality of work to prospects - as they’ll obviously want to work with a team that’s proven to be successful.
If you have been given some recognition or won awards, then you can place them on your website so they can bloom into results to convince potential clients or even write up press releases or blog posts that your sales team can share.
6. Background and Biographies
A lot of prospects will want to know the people behind the screens helping them along the way. Sales collateral can be something as simple as sharing biographies of team members or meet the team videos.
Some members of your team might have accomplished something great, another might have an area of expertise that the prospect loves. It shows a more human side to your company and prospects will be more willing to work with you if they can relate to your team.
The same can apply to company background marketing materials, such as highlighting how you were founded, the progress you’ve made, important milestones and how you’ve continued to evolve. This makes prospects more familiar with your company and as the sales team can use that collateral to tell an interesting story, it’ll help prospects learn more about you over time as they're being nurtured.
When you compare it to competitors that aren’t as transparent, it’s easy to see what the prospects will prefer.
7. Testimonials and Reviews
Prospects don’t just want to hear how great you are through your sales team - they’ll believe the sales team is just looking for a quick sale.
Instead, they want to read the experiences other people in their position have had with you. If other customers have written rave reviews about you, then share them with other prospects so that your sales team can upsell your services even more.
Putting them on your website and having your sales team redirect prospects to that page is a good starting point. These trustworthy testimonials and reviews look good and will further convince prospects to choose your expertise over someone else.
8. Portfolio
A portfolio is a very creative way of showing some of the work your company has done for other clients.
For example, you might be building websites for clients. Rather than your sales team sending clients a list of links to websites your team has designed, collate them all into a beautiful portfolio. It's a lot more eye-catching and enticing for prospects.
It gives them a better feel of what you can help them achieve by working together rather than leaving it all as guesswork. When it’s easily accessible online after prospects give your sales team their contact details, they can continue sending great examples of more work to nurture them even further.
9. Newsletter
When your sales team manages to bank together an email list of recipients, a newsletter is a great way to further upsell your services in a regular newsletter which contains both valuable content and interesting news about your company.
It’s another sales collateral idea that can entice prospects into finding out more, staying in touch or even taking the plunge and wanting to work with you.
Obviously, that doesn’t mean overload their inbox with daily newsletters so they unsubscribe. Be smart with it and produce enough so that they don’t forget your services and always keep you in mind.
10. Sales Presentations
A sales presentation can help your sales team sell a certain product or service by stressing its benefits to the prospect to grab their attention. Rather than being too heavy on products and services, the primary focus of the sales presentation should be to solve the problems of your prospects.
If prospects have displayed an interest in your product or service, then a sales presentation can convince them that you can solve their specific problems. It’s even better when your sales team can adjust each one every time and personalise it to meet the needs of every prospect.
These Ideas Are a Start. Now Find Out More About All Things Sales Enablement
All of the sales collateral ideas above are a good start, but there are more ideas and more things to consider when it’s time to do sales enablement in 2019. Sales enablement is a process featuring tools and techniques that will help your sales team close more leads and successfully engage buyers - starting with the sales collateral ideas above.
From sales trigger events to aligning your sales and marketing teams, there’s a lot to digest. That’s why we’ve created an in-depth sales enablement eBook for you to download and understand the process much easier.
The eBook covers a range of topics, from how you can align your sales and marketing teams, tips on increasing sales productivity, how sales enablement actually works and so much more.