Diving into your digital marketing platform without having your salespeople on board is like going to war without your troops. Your boots on the ground need to know what’s expected of them and what they’re trying to accomplish. Otherwise, their efforts are futile, and they won’t want to rush into battle.
Besides letting them in on the mission, you should learn what your salespeople want and need to succeed. They’re the ones in the trenches, doing the legwork, getting down to the nitty-gritty. Buy-in from your team is more likely when they have the right weapons early on.
A combination of your sales representatives knowing the plan of attack and being equipped with the right tools upfront makes going all-in from the start worth their while. They know what they’re up against and can clearly see the path to victory.
Your account representatives want to be kept in the loop from the get-go. They want to know what’s happening, what is being asked of them, and what kind of outcome is expected. The more information they have, the more they’ll feel inclined to participate.
Knowledge breeds confidence.
Your sales team wants the answer to that universal question: why? Explain why the digital marketing platform should matter to them and why they are vital to its success.
Then, there’s the ultimate motivator: What’s in it for them? How is this plan relevant to their sales goals? How will they absorb this marketing strategy into their everyday routine? How will they put what they’ve learned into practice?
The folks who close the deals need great material to work with. One way to get your sales team to use your marketing content is to know the buyer’s journey, and know it well. It’s not about being product-centric; it’s about being buyer-centric.
Sales reps armed with content that solves a client’s problem or creates an opportunity is much more attractive to the buyer than a list of fancy features and doo-dads.
Anyone can Google what the product does; the selling point is how the product can make the customer’s life easier. Put things into context.
While we’re on the subject of coming up with great content, don’t make your sales team work too hard to find it! If it’s accessible and well-organized, buy-in is virtually guaranteed. If they have to take several steps to locate the material or hunt you down with an issue, their incentive weakens.
A plan to get your sales team the exact content it needs includes making content-triggering a habit, creating a marketing and sales roundtable (as well as a resource library), and keeping communication open.
Account representatives need to be heard. They should have a channel to provide feedback on what you’ve presented to them. Meet with the sales team regularly and offer several methods of communication.
Most importantly, listen! They can tell you what’s working and what’s not. Don’t forget, they want to be able to personalize your content in order to build trust and strengthen their relationship with their client.
The benefits of getting salespeople to buy into the digital marketing platform early are increased engagement levels of training participants, improved accountability and reinforcement from sales managers, reduced disruption of day-to-day operations, and faster skill adoption and implementation in the field. Simply put, everyone is working toward the same goal, and they know their role.
If you can make things easy and create a seamless integration, the end result could lead to a lasting behavior change between the two departments. It all comes down to empathy: The salespeople need to recognize the marketing team’s goals, and the marketing gurus need to understand the sales team’s metric of success.
This can be achieved by making use of sales analytic tools and poring over that data together along with the aforementioned continuous, open communication.
When you get your sales team to buy into your digital marketing platform, the war is all but won. Everyone working together with their needs being met and having the same goal in mind empowers the team as a whole. From top-level executives to sales leadership to account representatives, the entire group can see the big picture and their place within it.
Explaining the plan of action to your sales troops and deploying them with support gives them the best chance of bringing back a win. When they see value in what they’re being asked to do, the motivation will come easily.
Then, all the hard work to create a battleplan filled with great content will manifest itself into victory.