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Four Step Process to Measure Sales Content ROI

Most B2B marketers struggle with the measurement of their sales content ROI. Lots of content gets created and tossed into some sort of content repository. Does it get used? According to Sirius Decisions, only 30% of marketing content created is actually used by sales. Wow. Don’t tell the CFO. That is a lot of wasted time and money. Now, it’s probably not that all your content is bad. Chances are you have good content, but no one in sales can find it, and let’s be honest, they don’t have the time to go searching for. Solving the problem is no easy task, but here is a 4-step process you can follow to begin improving and tracking your sales content ROI.

1. How much / what contentsales content roi

First, start with an honest look in the mirror and ask yourself how much content your sellers truly need. Also take a close look at length and detail. Most sales collateral should quickly convey the key message and value.  50 page documents are rarely useful to anyone other than as a reference document. Probably the most important thing to look at is do you have content for each of your sales stages. As your reps move from discovery to evaluation and eventually to the close, the content needs to be changed. Are you arming your reps at every stage? (hint: most companies don’t)

2. Content usage

After you put your content on a diet, it’s time to move to the next phase: Usage. Chances are, the more content is used by sales, the more valuable it is. If something is never downloaded by sales, it’s either impossible to find, or it’s not good. Use technology to help you track content usage and get rid of 50-60% of it.

3. Feedback – what works?

Usage data surely be a part of your sales content ROI equations, but to take your content to the next level, wouldn’t it be helpful if you could figure out why something is or is not working?  Also, you probably have content that is good but could be taken to the next level with a little advice.  Some companies that we work with here at Veelo allow their sellers to rate their content with a 5-star scale. Anything below 3 star gets a detailed evaluation and either gets improved on eliminated. Allowing sales reps to provide comments and suggestions can be useful as well. You’ll hear directly from the people using your content in front of customers.

4. Empirical data – what moves deals?

The final stage represents the “holy grail” of measuring sales content ROI. Which content moves deals through your sales stages? Which content helps shorten sales cycles? Which content closes deals? This data is not only extremely beneficial to marketers creating the content, but also to the sales reps themselves. As reps have success using certain pieces of content, it’s easy to then propagate the best practices to other reps. Everyone can benefit. To reach this 4th and final stage, technology is a must have.  The ROI from making the investment in technology can be quick and large. Shorten sales cycles, better equip your reps, eliminate marketing content waste and much more are tangible benefits you can proudly show your CFO.

Regardless of which stage your company is at, it should be the goal of every organization to improve its sales content ROI.  You don’t need to tackle it all at once.  Set a plan.  Take it one step at a time.  Achieve small wins along your journey to the “holy grail” and in no time you’ll be proudly bragging about the value you are delivering through your sales content.

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Hey Marketers! It’s About Revenue

DemandGen Report recently featured a new article by sales funnelVeelo’s VP of Marketing, Brian Fravel titled “It’s About Revenue: Marketers Head Directly Into The Sales Funnel”

The trend is clear. The role of marketing is changing and expanding to encompass revenue accountability. In the not-so-distant past, the sole goal of many B2B marketers was focused on building awareness, creating desire and generating leads. Once initial interest was generated, sales took over. Sales leads were handed off to sales teams, and the marketing team could scoot back to their creative dens to plot the next campaign. No longer. Marketing is not limited to brand awareness and lead generation anymore and is becoming more directly responsible for revenue generation. That job doesn’t end with dropping the leads off at the sales funnel entrance.

Read the entirety of “It’s About Revenue: Marketers Head Directly Into The Sales Funnel” at DemandGen Report.

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6 Tips for More Effective Sales Onboarding

If you’ve ever hired for a sales position, or even interviewed for one, you know that attracting the right candidates is no easy feat. And once you do find those great sales reps, keeping them happy and getting them to peak performance is even harder. According to a PwC study, one in three newly hired employees leave before the end of their first year, which means companies aren’t seeing a return on their investment. One of the biggest keys to getting reps to peak performance and in turn reducing turnover, is better onboarding.

Here are 6 tips for better sales onboarding to help you get the most from your new sales reps.

1) Make onboarding an ongoing process

Far too often, companies treat onboarding as a one-and-done event, holding some type of boot camp or one-day training session. The reality is that onboarding should be continuous until sales reps hit full productivity. And with more consistent, engaging onboarding, the time it takes for reps to reach peak performance will decrease which means quicker time to value from your reps.

2) Keep track of your metrics

Most companies don’t track onboarding metrics and lack insight into sales rep cost and ROI. It’s important that sales leaders understand the costs associated with hiring and onboarding a sales rep, average ramp time to full productivity, average time to break even, and what the average tenure is of a sales rep. You should also measure scores and completion rates to determine correlations between certain training programs and overall performance. Identify your benchmarks and optimize.

3) Include sales skills training

Onboarding isn’t just educating reps about the company and the product. Actual sales training should also be included as part of the onboarding process. For seasoned reps, this will act as knowledge reinforcement on key sales tactics; and for newer reps, it will give them the confidence they need to hit the ground running. Of course, product training is important, but including fundamentals around relationship building, qualification, closing, etc., will help reduce ramp time and maximize value.

4) Leverage brain science for better knowledge retention

Understanding how people retain and retrieve knowledge is an important, and often underused tactic to improving onboarding effectiveness. Using short video snippets, reinforcement quizzes, and other bite-sized training material can drastically improve knowledge retention and retrieval, not only reducing rep ramp time, but also improving overall performance.

5) Have a single content repository for sales content

By now, we’re all privy to the fact that sales reps spend nearly 1/3 of their time searching for content. Much of that time can be saved by using a single repository that allows for tagging and filtering of content. This will help sales reps find what they need, when they need it, much quicker than before. Whether it’s training material, playbooks, or content for prospects, this will give your reps the productivity boost they need to deliver value quicker.

6) Train reps on technology

Technology can be an invaluable tool to improve everything from productivity, to overall effectiveness of your reps. But for reps to fully utilize the tech resources at their disposal, they’ll need proper training. Without it, all of those shiny, expensive tools your company invested in will not only go to waste, but will slow down your reps as they spend valuable selling time figuring out how to best navigate a piece of software.

At the end of the day, keeping your reps engaged will lead to happier reps that perform better and stick around longer helping you maximize the investment you’ve made in them.

For more tips on better sales onboarding, download our guide “Onboard Smarter, Not Harder”

onboard smarter not harder

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Veelo Adds Gmail Integration

Saves sellers time and improves their ability to follow-up on sales opportunities

April 13, 2016 – Portland, Ore. – Veelo released the capability to integrate with Gmail to its award-winning sales performance platform.   Aligned with its mission to improve the performance of salespeople, Veelo added Gmail integration, making it even easier for salespeople to share content and monitor prospect engagement with the content.

“Some of the most valuable things you can do for a salesperson is to give them more time back to sell and more visibility into their prospects’ activities,” says Veelo CEO, Chanin Ballance.  “This new Gmail integration saves reps time because they can share content from Veelo directly within Gmail, where they already spend hours per day.  In addition, Veelo provides instant alerts when prospects interact with content, so reps can follow-up immediately.  Industry statistics show immediate follow-up improves a seller’s ability to move a sale forward.”Veelo Gmail integration

The new Gmail integration further enhances Veelo’s sales performance platform that makes a sales person’s job easier, more effective and more productive.  Some highlights of the new integration include:

  • Share content from Veelo directly within Gmail – Sales reps can find and share the perfect piece of content with prospects without ever leaving their daily workflow in Gmail.
  • Instantaneous alerts – When a seller shares content from Gmail, they are immediately notified when the prospect interacts with the content. Sellers can be notified directly in their company’s CRM or via email.
  • Single sign-on (SSO) with Salesforce CRM – SSO makes getting to the tools and content sales rep need easy and instantaneous. With a single login with one userid and password, sales reps have access to the CRM data and Veelo content.
  • View of just the content they need – Within Gmail, a sales person’s view isn’t cluttered with content that is not permissioned to share, making it easier and faster to find what they need.
  • Content synch available with Google Drive, in addition to many other content repositories, making the implementation of Veelo fast and easy.
  • Interaction history – Sellers have a running history of prospect engagement with content, so they can formulate the perfect follow-up strategy.
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The Brain Science of Storytelling

Understanding the brain science behind stories offers salespeople a powerful tool to improve their sales conversations.  Research shows the human brain is more open and receptive to hearing what you have to say when told through a well constructed story.  A few tips and questions you can ask to better engage your prospects.  Learn more in this article by Veelo CEO Chanin Ballance on the Salesforce sales blog.

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