and Strategy Messaging Go to Market Enablement • Market drivers • Personas (development and maintenance) • Use case development • Target markets • Value propositions • Differentiation • Frameworks • Product and thought leadership content • Go to market strategy • Launch plan between product and sales • Customer development • Value of new capabilities • Training and development • Sales support content • Sharing of channel and field requirements • Competitive intelligence • Continuous support of sales cycle Based on Pragmatic Marketing Framework, Gartner, Product Marketing Debunked by Yasmeen Turayhi
Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Phase 5 Intervie w, Intervie w, Intervie w Key Use Cases and Competiti ve Market Content Inventor y Formaliz e Resource Repositor y Enable on Formalized Resources Continuous Alignment with Sales and Marketing Leadership
talk to them! • Expand interviews beyond sales • Ex. presales engineers, business development, demand generation • Keep record of core themes from each interview in Excel • Consider teams outside your immediate geography • Leave the building if possible and keep interview short • Best success = 20 minutes of time • Keep questions focused on their concerns, what they need
ended • Listen more than question • Record interviews if possible Sample questions: • How can I help you? • Tell me about your sales process • Can you tell me about your biggest competitive loss? • What resources do you wish we had?
if use cases and competitive information are formalized • Resources to building use cases and competitive information: CRM, sales interviews, and market research • What content is needed to support current sales goals? • SWOT analysis, battle cards, internal product sheets that are use case focused, reference guides • Look for partners in your company to help you create these resources Remember: Competitive information and use cases are living
out parent company website and look for 10- K • Get Techie: help pages, product release pages, release notes, user groups • Employee sentiment: Glassdoor, Indeed, LinkedIn, job listings on website (sign up for alerts) • Check out the noise: social media, trade shows, press releases
of the buyer’s journey Plan out content Measure success of current content Determine gaps • Write briefs • Keywords • Presentations should align with current sales process • Quota attainment • Content usage • Sales time (decrease)
be found! • Clear folder structure • Naming convention • Version control rules • Keep file sizes low Based on Best Practices from Sesmic Software, The DAM Book by Peter Krogh
you are doing needs to live somewhere • Doesn’t have to be fancy – look for something everyone can easily access • Think through structure of content within resource repository • Make sure to align structure with sales leadership
aka Problem Trying to Solve Competitors Customer Type (B2B, B2C) Use Case Content (Product Centric) General Product Content (product sheets, presentations, reference guides) Top level
hard work is useless if no one uses it! • Think of ways to engage sales to use resource repository • Align the release of the sales enablement resource repository with a major sales event • Ex. Bootcamp or Sales Kick Off
hires 7 new sales representatives • 8 existing sales representatives • All sales attend a January sales bootcamp and are tested on their knowledge of the company, products, and strength of pitch • Sales representatives need a minimum score to keep their jobs • Average score lower than desired, decided to retest lowest scores in 3 months
Competitive Market Content Inventory Formalize Resource Repository Enable on Formalized Resources Process 3 weeks of sales, sales engineers, and customer service interviews 15 interview total Competitive market defined – top competitors narrowed Discovery of most sold use- cases with least content 2 days of working across sales, CS, and marketing to determine what content was already produced Built in Confluence Launched “Spy Game” 3 week game with clues and challenges centered around the enablement center (new reps only) Findings and results Resources were scattered Lack of competitive information ELT agreed on 3 competitors to target first Product specific content needed Lacking: • Battle cards • SWOTs • Use case product content Structure defined in lock step with sales VP and marketing leadership Sales able to practice their elevator pitches before re assessment Weekly progress meetings with Sales and Marketing Leadership
weeks, 3 missions + final • Highest average out of all 3 missions won Gift Card • Mission 1: Cold call “prospect” with competitive solution • Mission 2: Use Confluence to look up a competitor and recall prospect • Mission 3: Build a value pitch based off of personas found in Confluence • Final Mission: Final pitch to group using as many resources from Confluence and they liked