Integrating content automation with your sales enablement approach is the best way for your organization to free up time that’s typically dedicated to personalization, administrative details and data procurement.
Not only can content automation have a positive impact on your bottom line, but it can also streamline and simplify customer outreach within your sales funnel.
When expertly implemented, content automation has the power to improve personalization, establish effective communication, and foster one-on-one relationships among sellers and their customers.
According to research from McKinsey, early adopters of sales automation have seen a consistent increase in “customer-facing time and customer satisfaction”, as well as “efficiency improvements of 10 to 15 percent and sales uplift potential of up to 10 percent”.
But while the advantages of content automation are wide-reaching, this resource is still being overlooked and underutilized by numerous companies who could stand to benefit from it.
What is content automation for sales enablement?
Content automation is a digital strategy that seeks to eliminate the need for human intervention within the content lifecycle. To achieve this, content automation aims to automate a company’s most expensive, repetitive and time-consuming tasks. Generally speaking, content automation helps to consolidate workflows and manage content pieces for easier collaboration among different roles and departments.
In the context of sales enablement, content automation can be used to handle all the manual, administrative responsibilities of the sales team, so they can spend more time and energy engaging with their customers instead.
How does content automation differ for sales and marketing?
Even with a solid understanding of what content automation is, there’s often confusion around where this strategy fits in with your existing sales/marketing tech stack. Simply put, content automation tools are appropriate for sales teams and marketing executives alike, though how they are put into practice by each group will certainly differ.
Essentially, marketing automation platforms facilitate communication between marketers and customers through designated landing pages, emails and more. By contrast, sales enablement automation assists with communication between sales reps and marketing teams, and between sales reps and prospective clients.
In that same study from McKinsey, it was revealed that nearly one third (31%) of all sales tasks can be automated. Common examples of sales enablement automation include things like logging data – i.e., leads, opportunities, contacts – into your CRM system, and connecting multiple data sources to deliver personalized content that is tailored to your distinct audience.
Why is content automation so important to sales enablement?
The goal of sales enablement is to provide your team with a unified platform that has all the resources they need to sell effectively and secure more deals – and content automation plays right into that objective. That is because sales enablement automation frees up countless hours in the workday and allows reps to devote more attention to improving customer engagement. And when your customer interactions are elevated, closed deals won’t be far behind.
In other words, automation tools help convert potential customers into signed contracts, which drives revenue for your organization (without adding extra admin work to the team’s to-do list).
Top 5 benefits of implementing content automation
1. Improves communication across the board
One of the primary functions of content automation comes in the form of improving communication across diverse channels and clientele. As mentioned above, sales enablement automation positively affects the lines of communication between sales and marketing teams, as well as between sellers and prospects.
More specifically, content automation can be used to engage prospective clients through personalized content recommendations and customer-centric insights (all of which can be connected to your preferred CRM). This way, reps can tailor their messaging to your target audience and receive the support they need throughout the entire sales funnel.
2. Increases visibility to help close deals
It is easy to infer that the more visibility reps have around customer engagement, the greater their chances of transforming opportunities into done deals. What might be less obvious, however, is how content automation factors into this visibility.
Because advanced automation software can collect, convert and distribute content from a myriad of sources, sellers have access to data and insights they might have otherwise been lacking. In turn, they can use this visibility to connect and resonate with customers on a deeper level – and ultimately, close more deals.
3. Fosters one-on-one customer relationships
Whereas marketing automation likes to open up communication with numerous leads at the same time, sales enablement automation supports (and manages) one-on-one customer relationships. In fact, the best sales enablement automation tools will help your reps handle these relationships at scale without the addition of more manual work.
So not only can your sales team avoid a number of tedious and time-consuming tasks, but they can also make sure they are sharing the right content with the right prospect (to move them onto the next stage of the funnel effectively).
4. Enhances workflows and team productivity
Sales teams from every industry likely have room to improve their daily workflows and/or boost their productivity levels. Fortunately, sales enablement automation makes enhanced productivity very possible, by uncovering valuable customer insights, recording sales activities on your behalf, and even notifying you which prospects to reach out to.
Ultimately, content automation software stores client information right at your fingertips so you can find exactly what you’re looking for (rather than wasting time digging through irrelevant or gratuitous details).
5. Saves significant time, better used for selling
Ramping up your team’s productivity goes hand in hand with saving a significant amount of time in both the short and long term. It’s no secret that content automation is a major timesaver, seeing as there isn’t a scenario where performing manual tasks would be simpler (or more efficient) than automating those same responsibilities. And when your team spends as little time as possible on these admin endeavors, it opens up ample possibilities for prospect engagement.
For example, when you automate common, yet necessary functions like locating an email or logging a meeting, those minutes saved will translate to more time for client calls and outreach.
What kind of technology supports content automation?
To leverage all the benefits content automation offers, sales organizations must take intentional steps to adapt their ways of working and interacting with their prospects. Similarly, product-led companies must also make adjustments to their technology, as a way to ensure their sales reps and automation solutions are operating in harmony with one another.
The best content automation systems will personalize, track and measure the impact of your sales content so you know exactly where you are winning versus where you need to reassess. What’s more, you are wise to look for software that combines advanced communication with product usage data – thus giving you the visibility needed to convert or retain your target customers.
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