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Destination CRM Features CEO, Chanin Ballance, on Maximizing Content ROI

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According to a new report by the Content Marketing Institute, 70 percent of surveyed marketers say they are creating more content than they did just one year ago. Yet only 30 percent of the content that marketing teams put together is actually used by sales. With this divide between content creation and use, it’s no wonder that sales and marketing have been searching for ways to better understand and measure the effectiveness of their content.

There are ways to directly test which pieces of content are being used by sales, and, as a result, which pieces are most commonly linked to a purchase. You can read Chanin Ballance’s three tips for measuring content ROI here at CRM Magazine’s website, Destination CRM.

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3 Steps to Link the Tech and Human Sides of Sales Enablement

There are two challenges to Sales enablement: the technical, and the human. The technical challenge has largely been solved: sellers now have tools that let them access content in real time, push out educational material to potential buyers, and obtain data/analytics on performance and use of resources. The human side, however, has been largely lost in the tech frenzy.

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Having access to content actually means very little in terms of having an educated seller. In fact, it creates an illusion of education, wherein sellers/managers believe that they know more than they do, when in reality there’s very little connection between having the content and knowing its substance. People are not more effective just because they have more resources; it’s about understanding the relevance of the content, retaining the information, and being able to apply it in real selling situations. In fact, too much content can actually be detrimental- it overwhelms people and causes them to shut down and not absorb any of it. The challenge that Sales enablement now faces is that of helping people learn how to learn.

We’ve put together a list of three things you can do to link the tech side and the human side of Sales enablement:

    1. 1. Use Guided Selling A Guided Selling system intelligently recommends playbook modules, job aids and marketing collateral, etc. at different stages in the buying cycle. An add-on to your CRM, this technology ensures sellers get support relevant to their prospect type and sales situation at the time they need it. Sellers are more likely to engage and learn information that is immediately applicable and in context.
    2. 2. Keep Content Short. Make it Interactive People don’t learn well when they’re being taught through whitepapers and data sheets alone. Taking web-based training is often a bore and impractical. Augment your collateral with short interactive bursts of knowledge. Include multisensory aids with video, audio and touch and include short exercises and games that reinforce what they need to know.
    3. 3. Spacing for Memory Retrieval Practice Humans learn best by practice and reinforcement. Sellers are the same. They must engage with information multiple times in order for it to really stick. For topics of high importance, consider adding one of the oldest learning techniques in the book. Space refreshers and practice at 2, 7 and 30 day intervals: a quick question to help them recall what they learned previously or apply it in a new way. This helps refresh the seller’s memory and strengthen the path to retrieval in their brain.

It’s important to remember that Sales enablement is about enabling humans, not robots. So, even though the tech side of enablement is flush with tools, technology must be designed with the human brain in mind if it’s to have any meaningful impact on sales learning, retention and day-to-day success. To help you out even more, we’ve made a webinar on the science of sales enablement, which you can watch here.

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Relevance and Context: The Keys to Knowledge Transfer

Knowledge Transfer: the act of sharing information from one part of the organization or source to the user, in an effort to communicate job-relevant knowledge.

Every company- from two-person startups to global corporations-have the need for knowledge transfer. Whether it is in the process of onboarding new employees, or transferring knowledge about new products or services, knowledge transfer is key to business success.

Yet, because every department has its own set of tribal knowledge and training approach, is run under separate management, and has different approaches to helping the company achieve its goals, customers and prospective customers don’t always have a seamless experience with a brand. Separating departments is, however, necessary, and companies need to devise quick and easy avenues by which departments can communicate.

Marketing and Sales are a prime example: There’s a significant gap between the two departments through which a huge number of prospects fall, and neither department has much visibility into the other which creates a knowledge discrepancy between them. There is a way to unlock the door that separates the two departments however, and it’s rooted in retention science.

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Retention science directly addresses how sellers learn, retain and apply information. Used in a sales and marketing setting, tools rooted in retention science, guide marketers to create sales support materials that are short, easy to digest bits of information. By packaging and delivering information to sellers in consumable pieces, marketing aids sales in learning, remembering and applying information.

These Paks of information can then be paired with guided selling tools which make sales support content available to Sales at precisely the moment when Sales needs it. With different pieces of knowledge useful at different points in the buying cycle, guided selling tools push out assets to reps at the point in the cycle when they need it most.

Retention science based content can also benefit from a relevance engine which executes knowledge transfer at the time when Sales requires it most. Context is important to this equation. Driven by who the prospect is (e.g. their demographic information, history with the brand, and company type), it’s necessary for Sales reps to have context-based knowledge for both where the prospect is in the buying cycle and who they are. Studies show that learning context is hugely beneficial to retention and performance. In fact, active involvement with material is proven to boost retention from 10% to 70% after two weeks. Not only does retention grow significantly, but storing this information with the cues from context, makes it easier to retrieve or shake loose later.

Relevance is a sales rep’s Holy Grail. Marketers can help sellers deliver relevant sales conversations by using retention science in their content creation and delivery strategies. Giving sales situational context through short training bursts, content, and other assets that sellers need at particular stages in the buying cycle, helps them retrieve and apply knowledge when it’s needed will make the ultimate difference in enabling sellers to have quality conversations that convert prospects to customers.

For additional background on retention science and sales enablement, check out our presentation on the Science of Sales Enablement.

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Brief: How to Increase Lead Conversion Through Better Sales Effectiveness

What is marketing’s role in guiding the sales team to better sales effectiveness? That’s a question we tackle in our latest Brief on how to improve sales effectiveness.

When marketers are doing well, they have a large stack of leads to give the sales team. However, large numbers of leads don’t necessarily produce increased revenue, which can result in one of the most fundamental Marketing/Sales conflicts: Sales bemoans the poor-quality leads, while Marketing assumes Sales dropped the ball.

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Oftentimes, low lead conversions are the result of the lack of contextual information and support material that need to accompany the lead handoff. Left to their own devices, sales reps might research the lead, or search the portal for a case study or proof point to use as reference—or they might just wing it. The lead handoff marks not the end of Marketing’s involvement, but the beginning of a new phase—one that requires its own content strategy to ensure sellers maximize lead conversion.

As a result, we’ve assembled a list of concrete steps marketers can take to improve sales effectiveness and ultimately help increase revenue. You can read them all here.

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MobilePaks Announces Advanced Reporting for Sales Enablement, Training and Marketing Efforts

Quantifiable Evidence of Sales Enablement, Training Effectiveness and Marketing Contribution now Available within Salesforce

Portland, OR–November 6, 2014 – MobilePaks, an award-winning cloud-based marketing and sales enablement tool, today announced the addition of advanced reporting within Salesforce, giving visibility into marketing asset contributions, sales onboarding success and seller competency.

“We heard from our customers the need to more closely analyze a variety of sales metrics, such as time-to-competency and its correlation to sales pipeline. As a result, that’s exactly what we’ve built in our new reporting capabilities – along with many other elements, such as the ability to more closely monitor marketing asset contributions to sales success,” said Chanin Ballance, CEO MobilePaks.

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Advanced reporting allows marketers and sales managers to better understand content ROI and content usage tied to sales performance; the success of sales onboarding activities; and ongoing training efforts. Whereas sales operations would traditionally spend hours with a spreadsheet calculating important aspects of sales efficiency and effectiveness, MobilePaks users can now instantaneously measure, track and analyze:

  • Sales Onboarding – Sales managers can now track and manage seller competency, correlating onboarding and training effectiveness with sales and pipeline performance.
  • Sales Enablement – Tracks which marketing assets sales shares with prospects and which are most used by any given sales rep. Further, MobilePaks now reports asset engagement and use history by rep. While MobilePaks has always provided a mechanism for sellers, teams and groups to provide feedback on individual assets, this feedback can now be analyzed alongside other MobilePaks metrics.
  • Content ROI – Gives visibility to asset usage at each stage of the buying process and asset contribution value to closed business. MobilePaks’ advanced reports within Salesforce can also now report on total closed deals and their associated revenue by asset as well as views and shares by prospects.

All new MobilePaks reports can be viewed directly in Salesforce. MobilePaks also features deep integrations and report availability with Marketing Automation tools like Eloqua and Marketo.

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MobilePaks Offers Enhanced Sales Onboarding and On-Demand Knowledge Support to Increase Sales Efficacy

Speed time to competence and quota achievement with MobilePaks

Portland, OR–November 5, 2014 – MobilePaks, an award-winning cloud-based marketing and sales enablement tool, today announced the addition of new features to enhance MobilePaks On-boarding/On-demand Knowledge and Guided Selling products. While the ultimate goal of onboarding new sales hires is to maximize their yield as quickly and efficiently as possible, follow-on training and support is a challenge for many organizations. According to a 2013 study by AA-ISP, it is the top challenge facing Inside Sales leaders today. With MobilePaks, learning and support is extended into the daily workflow of sellers, improving learning retention and performance.

MobilePaks technology extends the onboarding process to a scalable, just-in-time support model for sales organizations, with its features rooted in the science of retention to strengthen retention and recall in sales situations.

“When we made a corporate acquisition last year, we were faced with combining two sales teams who both needed to be educated about the others’ product lines. MobilePaks allowed us to create easily digestible Paks for real-time support and delivery within Salesforce.com, including interactive job aids and training bursts to improve onboarding, sales training and productivity,” said Elizabeth Fox, Senior Manager, Sales Enablement and Communications, Tripwire. “The sales team and content creators really like the interactive environment, and we now have one true source of sales training which reps can access whenever they need it from any device.”

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Enhanced features of the MobilePaks On-boarding/On-demand Knowledge set include:

    • Memory building features such as “Spacing” to automate refreshers, reminders and memory retrieval practice at specified intervals.
    • Question bank functionality added to Quiz and Test Features, allowing for randomized questions among like users, providing content creators with the ability to easily choose and edit or add new questions to the bank.
    • Advanced features for sequencing assignments, reminders, level locks and advancement.
    • Real-time monitoring and insight into learning participation and retention for sales coaching opportunities.
    • Integrated reporting with CRM data to correlate training completion and competency to pipeline velocity and quota achievement.
    • Improved navigation making it even easier to manage seller curriculums and reference assets, including a tab with content and onboarding aids tailored for the specific seller.

“MobilePaks is the only solution that addresses both the technology and human memory challenge of scaling an effective onboarding and real-time support process for sellers today,” said Chanin Ballance, CEO MobilePaks. “By applying retention science that directly addresses how sellers learn, retain and apply information, we help organizations accelerate revenue through sales effectiveness.”

About MobilePaks
MobilePaks helps companies improve selling effectiveness and productivity with tools for developing and delivering sales content and support. Using an exclusive Retention Science-based approach, MobilePaks is the only system that helps organizations create content based on the way sellers learn, retain and apply information. The MobilePaks Relevance Engine™ automatically delivers this dynamic content and support based on the sales stage, prospect type and preferences of sellers and managers, measurably improving selling conversations. Based in Portland, OR, MobilePaks can be found at www.veeloinc.com or @mobilepaks.

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