So, your company recently invested in a sales enablement solution. Now what? Of course, there are obvious first steps like onboarding sellers and migrating content, but what comes next?
As is the case with any sales technology solution, once it’s up and running, my question as a CRO is, “Is it making my sellers more effective?” You’ll eventually need to measure and demonstrate its return on investment (ROI).
But how do you actually go about evaluating sales enablement ROI?
In the Seismic Annual Sales Enablement Benchmark Report (2021), we found that the answer isn’t always easy. Just 68% of all the companies surveyed expressed confidence in the data they use to track the effectiveness of their sales enablement efforts.
However, 94% of sales enablement Visionaries expressed confidence in their data. In this article, we’ll share how Visionaries use data to track sales enablement ROI and, more importantly, why it matters.
Understanding who is using your platform
Platform adoption is a baseline metric used to measure sales enablement ROI. Adoption helps sales enablement leadership understand how many sellers use the solution and how often.
Platform adoption can have a significant impact on a variety of additional metrics. For instance, the data that is generated by your sales enablement solution can be used to measure content effectiveness. But, in order to generate reliable data, you need more sellers to adopt and routinely use your sales enablement solution.
Platform adoption rates can also help diagnose challenges. If fewer sellers than expected have adopted your platform, you may need to revisit onboarding or provide additional training.
“If nobody is using it, you are either wasting your money or have done a poor job with rollout and training and need a reboot.”
CMO, Brand Management Company
In the survey, 52% of respondents reported that their sellers had fully adopted their sales enablement solution. That figure increases to 64% among Visionaries.
Seismic’s sales enablement solution provides robust platform analytics to monitor adoption and other critical metrics. It also captures data on content performance which provides more insight into sales enablement ROI.
How content influences sales cycles and revenue
Customers are more inclined to do business with sellers who deliver highly personalized content experiences.
The vast majority of Visionaries expressed confidence in the data they use to measure content effectiveness. So, what metrics do they use to measure success and identify areas of improvement?
These metrics contribute to a better understanding of sales enablement ROI by revealing which content is popular with buyers, as well as sellers.
Knowing what content is accessed by sellers is valuable to marketers, because it indicates the content sellers value the most. Gaining insight into what content influences opportunities and revenue empowers sellers to use top-performing content to accelerate sales cycles win more deals.
These metrics matter for a variety of reasons, but ultimately, they’re valuable because they enable sellers and marketers to make insights-driven content decisions.
Revenue is the best marker of ROI
Adoption and content effectiveness metrics help enablement leaders measure ROI. They also help other parts of the go-to-market (GTM) organization identify trends and patterns that underpin success.
Seismic’s Benchmark survey found that enablement Visionaries use these insights to scale best practices from their most successful sellers across the organization.
Organizations with more mature enablement practices track a variety of metrics to evaluate ROI. The data they capture allows them to drive new efficiencies and increase revenue.
Visionaries in our study reported that their companies achieved 121% of their quota in the past fiscal year. 43% of Visionaries also noted that their companies rated in the top 10% in their industry in customer satisfaction as measured by net promoter score (NPS).
If you’d like to learn more about how Visionaries leverage sales enablement as a strategic business enabler, check out the study results.
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Ed Calnan.
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