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Sales enablement is a term you may have heard bandied about in recent years, but what does it actually mean?
Quite simply, it’s the process of equipping and empowering salespeople to sell more effectively. But measuring the effectiveness of sales enablement can be tricky.
This article will explore some ways to measure the impact of your sales enablement efforts.
We’ll look at how you can determine whether your team is engaging with the content you’re publishing, how your buyers are engaging with that content, and how you can close in on the gaps in your sales content strategy.
We’ll also discuss how centralized access to all sales resources can help sellers better understand their prospects and address their needs.
Your sellers should be fully engaged with your content and have complete access to all the resources they need to sell more effectively.
The more they understand your content, the more capable they are to deliver value to their prospects.
You can determine how well your reps are engaging with the sales content by measuring their efforts based on the following questions:
So, what exactly are you looking for when asking these questions?
Well-produced and engaging content can help your sellers be good at their job.
But how can you be sure that your content is engaging your sellers?
One way to gauge this is to listen to what they’re asking for.
If you can answer these questions, you can tailor your content production process to ensure your sellers get the type of content they need to succeed.
Your reps could search anywhere for the information they need to engage with their prospects.
Shared local drives, online drives like Google, Dropbox or OneDrive, past emails, their own hard drive, or even asking colleagues.
Some sales reps may also use channels like Slack or Teams to collaborate and share content internally, as these platforms allow for more seamless communication and collaboration within the organization.
This creates problems because it wastes time, and the most current assets may not be used. The key to ensuring sales reps can access and share content effectively is providing tools that meet their specific needs and preferences.
Unsuccessfully searching for content is a drain on your time and resources. That’s why some sellers prefer a sales-specific solution that is more appropriate to centralize content sharing.
If your sales content is disorganized, it’ll be difficult to identify what they’re actually using.
The best method in this scenario is to review your past deals and emails sent to identify what has been shared in the past, combined with asking your salespeople what the top 5 pieces of content they use over and over.
Things you can do:
Your goal is to put together a list of the most used content you can use to input your sales content audit.
Typically, an audit of what’s being used will find many gaps you can fill with new content.
One way to measure sales enablement success is by looking at how buyers are engaging with the content you’re publishing.
Measuring how buyers are engaging with your content and noticing changes in their behavior can give you a good idea of how successful your sales enablement program is.
But what exactly are you looking for?
When you look at how your buyers are engaging with your content, you may want to ask yourself:
If you can answer these questions, you’ll have a good idea of the kind of content that resonates with your buyers and which ones need some work.
Sales enablement content is not one size fits all.
Different types of buyers will prefer different types of content. So, it’s important to track which personas engage with your content to produce more of what they’re looking for.
This will help improve the effectiveness of your sales enablement efforts and increase the chances of success for your buyers.
Sales enablement content should be tailored to the buyer’s stage in the buying process. Buyers may engage with your content in several ways, such as reading, watching, or listening to it.
You can measure their engagement by tracking pageviews, plays, and downloads.
You can also measure changes in buyer behavior.
For example, are buyers more interested in videos than written content? Have you noticed an uptick in page views for specific products or services? Are they spending more time on your website?
When you understand how buyers engage with your content, you can produce more content tailored to their needs and continue improving the effectiveness of your sales enablement efforts.
Learn more about how to deliver custom buyer experiences.
You know your content resonates well with your target audience, but is it good enough to win a conversion?
To determine whether your content is converting, some key indicators to look out for include:
You’ll need to get insights from your sales reps to fully understand your content and its impact.
Sales reps access a wide variety of content to support their sales efforts.
This includes training videos, internal-only slide decks, and pricing documents.
They also frequently consult market research reports and industry case studies, as these can provide valuable insights into the needs and behaviors of potential customers.
It’s also worth knowing what forms of content your sales reps prefer. Is your content portfolio diverse, or do you focus on certain high-performing pieces and forms of media?
Sales representatives may share several different assets with prospects as they move through the middle and late stages of the sales process.
These might include:
To ensure that reps share the most relevant information with their prospects and help them make informed decisions about their purchasing options, marketers need to have visibility into what content is being shared and with whom.
This can help them identify gaps in the content library, prioritize which assets need to be updated or created, and work more effectively with sales teams to drive success throughout the sales cycle.
The content pieces that show high engagement from prospects are likely highly relevant and win their attention.
This could include pieces like informational blogs, case studies, or video tutorials, as these types of content are more appealing and valuable to prospective customers.
Marketers can use analytics tools or heat mapping software to track which assets are receiving the most engagement from their audience and then use this information to inform their content strategy going forward.
Changes in the marketplace, shifting buyer needs, or a new product launch; the gaps in your sales content can result from any of these and more.
When you’re measuring your sales enablement, you are indirectly closing in on those gaps; when you’re asking the right questions, you are making your sellers and buyers heard.
Centralized sales content management software will enable you to listen to your sellers and buyers by giving visibility into all the content being shared and accessed.
It will also give you valuable insights on the same content and help you find answers to all the questions we discussed in this blog.
Armed with the insights and answers to your questions, you can produce more content tailored to your buyers' needs and continue improving the effectiveness of your sales enablement efforts.
Learn more! Sales Enablement Best Practices
One of the most telling metrics is whether or not your sales team is using the content you’re creating. Too often, reps have no idea a particular asset exists or don’t use it enough because they forget or can’t access it. It only leads to wasted resources as the assets keep collecting dust.
So keep an eye on how often your sales reps use a particular content asset. If something is being used repeatedly, it means that there’s a need for more assets like this. If something is not being used, it has low conversion potential or isn’t being found in the first place. Both of
Use a content analytics tool like Content Camel to monitor this metric for individual assets.
This goes beyond measuring engagement and looking into how the content is used and its impact on sales outcomes. For example, in Content Camel, your team can add additional notes such as:
It helps other representatives on the team and ensures that the asset gets used more, too.
Also known as deal velocity, this metric measures the time taken from initial contact with a potential customer to closing a sale. There are a lot of moving parts in this process, such as:
It shows how efficient your current sales processes are and how well your sales reps can move a prospect down the funnel. The shorter the sales cycle, the better your processes.
This metric focuses on the performance of your sales team as a whole. As your organization grows, it’s normal to group sales reps and expect different quota attainment rates depending on the market or product they’re selling.
Simply put, it refers to the number of sales your representatives close in a specific period. For example, if your team is asked to close $100,000 in sales in the next quarter and close $90,000 in sales, they’ve achieved a 90% quote attainment rate.
But it’s also important to look at it from an individual perspective. If few sales reps have contributed to the majority of the metric, it could speak to their capabilities more than the resources you provide. The goal is to increase this rate through a collective effort.
Your calls to action (CTA) play a considerable role in whether or not a prospect takes the desired action. For example, “Book a demo” might work for certain audiences, but some might prefer “Schedule a 30-minute call with us” better.
Monitor the click-through rates (CTR) for these CTAs and assess whether prospects are actually converting. For example, if a prospect clicks on a demo scheduling link but doesn’t sign up, it’s not an issue with the CTA. Low CTRs indicate an issue with CTA and would require extensive A/B testing to find the best alternative.
Every stage of the sales funnel needs to be closely monitored so that you know where prospects are dropping off. This means you need to measure the conversion rate from lead to qualified lead, qualified lead to opportunity and opportunity to close.
For example, if your conversion rates for qualified lead to opportunity are low, it means your business development representatives (BDRs) are unable to convince prospects effectively.
High conversion rates at each stage indicate that sales enablement tools and strategies nurture leads and guide them toward a sale. And it also speaks to the performance of your sales team.
No matter how small or big your organization is, creating a sales process that every rep sticks to is essential. Break it down depending on the sales behavior at each stage and monitor if your team adheres to the process.
While tools may not have this feature built-in, you can use a manual tracking system. The more your reps use this system, the better your sales outcomes will be.
Also known as close rate, it measures the ratio of the number of closed won deals to the total number of opportunities that were present (won and lost) over a certain period.
For example, if your team sent 100 proposals in Q1 2023 and won 75 deals, your sales closing ratio is 3:4 for that quarter. This means for every four proposals you make, you win three deals.
It tells you how effective your closing process is and lets you identify issues that lead to a loss in sale. This information allows you to rectify bottlenecks and improve the closing ratio over time.
The win/loss rate assesses the number of sales opportunities you win or lose compared to the number of opportunities in the pipeline.
For example, if you win 75 deals for every 100 opportunities, your win rate is 75%, and your loss rate is 25%. It lets you set a benchmark for comparison for future quarters and makes it easier to measure the effectiveness of your sales enablement strategy down the line.
You can also use industry benchmarks to see how you’re faring against competitors. For example, if your industry’s average win rate is 58% and your win rate is 75%, you’re performing much better than your direct competitors.
This metric refers to the average value of the sales deals closed. It’s a critical indicator of the effectiveness of sales enablement in driving revenue.
An increasing average deal size can indicate successful up-selling and cross-selling strategies or a move towards selling higher-value products or services. If your sales team is unable to do that, it suggests a need for better resources or training.
This metric is focused on individual sales reps. It measures how long it takes for a new sales rep to close their first deal from the time they start. It indicates how well you enable them to do their job.
A shorter time to first deal suggests that your sales enablement training, processes, and resources are efficient and result in productive sales teams.
However, it’s important to note that several factors play into this metric, such as rep experience, familiarity with tools and processes, and intrinsic motivation to go through the training. Measuring this metric without this context could lead to skewed results.
The time it takes to onboard a new client once the contract is signed shows you how efficient your onboarding process is. When you consider how long it takes to close a sale, you don’t want to make your new client want any longer to get started. They need to get value as soon as possible.
So, your sales enablement efforts must also address the post-purchase process. Offer training resources to your customers and systems for customer success handoff to your sales teams. The shorter the onboarding time, the better your systems. It also increases the likelihood of higher customer satisfaction.
CLV represents the total revenue a business can expect from a single customer account throughout their business relationship, minus the costs of serving them.
It determines purchase frequency, average order value, and customer retention rates. If your CLV is higher than the cost of acquisition (CoA) for each customer, it indicates that the business is doing well with healthy profits.
A high CLV suggests that sales strategies and customer engagement practices are effective in closing sales and fostering long-term customer relationships.
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is mainly used to see how satisfied customers are with your brand’s offer and customer service. However, it can also measure employees' satisfaction with the resources and training they receive.
Talk to your human resources (HR) team and ask them to share employee survey results from sales reps. Look for indicators of job satisfaction, motivation, and engagement.
A high NPS score within the sales team indicates effective sales enablement, strong product belief, and overall job satisfaction. If your reps are happy, employee turnover remains low, and you stay on track to hit revenue goals.
Get the most out of your content and deliver trackable results
Content Camel is a sales enablement tool used for sales content management. High-growth sales teams use our system to quickly find and share the right content for each specific sales situation and measure content use and effectiveness.