How To Drive SaaS Revenue Using Sales Enablement

Despite their distinct roles in a company, many SaaS businesses sometimes view product marketing and sales enablement as the same thing.

However, they’re more like two peas in a pod. They team up, create a solid game plan, and work towards hitting the company’s targets together.

In this article, we’ll dive more into sales enablement, the differences and similarities between product marketing and sales enablement, and how to use sales enablement to grow your SaaS business revenue.

Let’s first get started with what sales enablement is.

What is Sales Enablement?

Sales enablement is the process of providing your sales team with the necessary tools and resources to pitch your product to potential consumers.

The sales enablement team ensures that the company’s sales team is thoroughly familiar with the products they’re selling – not just the basics but all the features, functionalities, and how they solve customer issues.

The goal is to communicate the products’ value to the consumer confidently.

Importance of Sales Enablement

Sales enablement packs a lot of perks, making it a great move for your SaaS business. It brings in more users through your doors, lets you guide them smoothly through the buying process, and drives growth to your business. 

Here are some benefits;

#1 Collaboration

In the State Of Product Marketing Report 2021 by Product Marketing Alliance, it was discovered that about 78% product marketers were the brains behind creating sales collateral in their respective organizations. 

Interestingly, the same report pointed out that 77% of these marketers had a cozy working relationship with the sales teams.

The product marketing team must lend a hand to the sales team to enhance their skills and strengthen the bond between them. It’s a two-way street –  both teams will more likely assist each other when it comes to developing or spreading the word about sales collateral and so forth.

#2 Achieve KPIs and sales goals

Understanding how to empower sales teams to reach their full potential is important. It helps them in polishing their skills, boosting their customer acquisition and retention, ultimately allowing them to smash more sales targets.

#3 Increase customer and competitive insights

The sales squads are constantly engaging with potential clients and unraveling key behaviors and characteristics that are super helpful in tailoring marketing strategies.

It is also an effective way to gather intel on your competition based on what your potential clients are saying  about them. You’ll know what product features they prefer, the pricing they fancy, any discounts they’re buzzing about, and so forth. 

Sales Enablement vs Product Marketing

Product marketers are the masterminds behind go-to-market strategies, the creative brains for crafting content for marketing campaigns and so on. They’re also responsible for creating compelling content and resources for the sales team to hit the right target audience.

The sales enablement squad on the other hand ensures the company’s sales team is not just familiar with the product they’re pushing but are also clued in on its features, functionalities, and how its a game-changing solution  to the customer’s pain points. 

Both these roles intersect at many points along the customer’s sales journey. More importantly, they share the same goal – revenue growth. When these 2 aspects click and work in sync, they pack quite the punch in driving results.

What are the Components of Sales Enablement?

When it comes to crafting a sales enablement strategy, there are 4 key elements that can really help to arm your sales team throughout their process.

These include:

• Training and coaching in sales: Get your team up to speed with the relevant sales training.

• Materials and resources: Provide tech and other tools that can give your team an edge.

• Strategic approach: Set a game plan that’ll guide your sales process.

• Performance measurement and analysis: Set KPIs and measure how well your strategy and team are performing.

Challenges Faced While Aligning Product Marketing With Sales Enablement

In marketing and sales, achieving alignment means knitting strategic approaches, procedures, and tactics together to form a unified company income strategy. However, quite a few hurdles can make it challenging to get this strategic alignment on point.

These include:

Poor Content

Poor content is a common snag when it comes to getting sales enablement and product marketing on the same page.

Despite the product marketing team doing their homework and digging into some serious market research, sometimes they miss hitting the mark on the human touch in their content.

This gap makes it challenging for the sales enablement team to get the ball rolling with the sales team. Naturally, this starts to cause friction between the product marketing team and the sales enablement team and sometimes even leads to a finger-pointing fest.

The marketing squad stands its ground, citing its rock-solid market research as their defense. On the other hand, the enablement team argues their point based on how the content that’s been delivered doesn’t quite cut it in practical terms.

Poor Communication

You know the saying that communication is key to a project’s success? Well, nowhere is that more spot on than in syncing up product marketing with sales enablement. 

Take the product marketing team, for instance. They’re busy doing market research and crafting content for their campaigns, but they often overlook the needs and requirements of the sales enablement team.

On the flip side, the sales enablement team sometimes hits a wall or gets lost in the content given to them. Instead of reaching out to product marketing for a little help or clarity, they keep quiet or go by their version of understanding. This doesn’t exactly do wonders for the ultimate goal – boosting sales and revenues.

Communication disconnect between these two teams doesn’t just put a dent in salesforce, its a blow to the company’s bottom line. 

Best Possible Ways to Improve the Alignment of Product Marketing and Sales Enablement

Collaboration and Communication

Product marketing and sales enablement need to team up and work together, rather than try to outdo each other. The key here is to synchronize efforts, craft strategies and plans that complement each other while aligning with the bigger picture of the company’s mission and goals.

Share what each team is aiming for, plans and timelines for the upcoming year, and ensure they’re all fitting together nicely.

To ensure they’re all headed in the same direction, encourage them to have a conversation, exchange thoughts, and tweak plans as needed. That way, everyone’s on track and focused on reaching the same targets.

Mutual Content Creation

Content is king, especially for the B2B purchasing journey. Its a survival kit for sellers, packed with relevant info they need at every step of the buyer journey. 

While the product marketing squad is usually the team brewing up content, they need to rope in the sales enablement crew too since they work hand in hand with the salespeople. They’re the eyes and ears on the ground, tuned in to the buying journey and clued up on any challenges the sales teams might face.

Before the product marketing team hits the ‘launch’ button on any content strategies, they should catch up with the sales enablement team to ensure that the content created is meeting the needs of the sales teams. 

Analytics

The product marketing team probably gets a lot of comments and feedback on the product.The sales team should ask for feedback on what customers like, don’t like, and want to see more of. This feedback is valuable, but it’s difficult to determine success without specific data and numbers.

The product marketing team must also take advantage of the content analytics from the sales enablement team to figure out what product or feature is getting playtime and what’s driving up those sales numbers. 

Conclusion

The backbone of any business is its sales enablement with support from the product marketing team, given their key role in the customer’s sales journey. Hence, these 2 must sync up and work together to drive revenue success for your SaaS company.