SALES ENABLEMENT. Marketing Software Survey 2014

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1 Marketing Software Survey 2014 SALES ENABLEMENT A snapshot of the current software products & platforms made for and used by marketers across industries

2 CONTENTS The Equipped Salesman : Mini Report 2 on Top categories of Marketing Experience 3 The Sales Enablement Stats: Sales teams that are switched on and tuned in 24X7 5 What is out there: Enabling sales personnel from onboarding to closure 6 What marketers are saying: Listed by our Survey Respondents 7 Key Takeaways 8 Footnotes 9 About MTA 10 Page 2

3 This is the third set of our Mini Reports series on the 5 most important ¹ sub-categories of Marketing Experience. Our focus here would be on the aspect of empowering the sales people to seamlessly deal with opportunities anytime, anywhere and in the process make the sale happen. It is no wonder that B2B organisations that want to set their sales people up for success in today s dynamic environment are scrambling to invest in sales enablement technologies. Even a 5% improvement in conversions can have a big impact on the bottom-line. The average sales enablement budget in B2B organizations has doubled between 2012 and 2014 Amongst the best in class companies surveyed by QEDbaton, the visible trends was to increase investment quite considerably in Sales Enablement. According to a SiriusDecisions report, the average sales enablement budget in B2B organizations doubled between 2012 and 2014, and there has been a 69% increase in sales enablement technology spends. Increasingly, sales enablement is becoming a centralized function, delivering productivity tools to the field across geographies, but also measuring metrics and gathering feedback, best practices and market intelligence to input back into the system and improving overall productivity. Page 3

4 79% of marketing leads never convert into sales. Lack of lead nurturing is the common cause of this poor performance. By 2020, there will be more than 6 million inside and outside sales reps in North America. Sales enablement tools are popular at the moment, but imagine how much their necessity will grow once the population of salespeople increases. The misalignment in sales and marketing is causing the typical company to under perform by 10% An average sales person spends 7 hours per week finding relevant information to prepare for sales calls Fortune 500 companies that report having a strong Sales Enablement program are witnessing 15.35% growth. Page 4

5 SALES TEAMS THAT ARE SWITCHED ON AND TUNED IN 24X7 Technology and the internet have enabled prospects to search for information and make buying decisions anytime, anywhere. Salespeople too need to be equipped, then, to make a sale anytime and anywhere. They need access to the latest market intelligence, updated product and customer knowledge, access to materials, literature and sales tools anytime and anywhere that the prospect dictates. Sales enablement is the term for technology solutions that keep sales teams switched on and tuned in 24X7. Sales enablement solutions can potentially deliver a host of advantages to the sales driven B2B organization, including: Ÿ Anytime, Anywhere: Ensuring that sales personnel are always prepared and ready to discover an opportunity and close a sale, whether virtually or offline. Ÿ One Language: Sales people speak in one voice and say the same thing that is already out there on various platforms, in order to maintain brand consistency. Sales enablement solutions help sales people to be anywhere anytime, speak one language, focus only on selling, learn & train faster and stay connected from even the most remote locations Ÿ Priority: Empowering sales people to focus on selling and spending less time on non-core activities. Ÿ Learn: Capturing best practices and leveraging them across the organization. Ÿ Support: Recognizing and supporting sales people who are at different stages of the learning curve or sales cycle at the right time with the right tools, knowledge and materials. Ÿ Training: Minimizing costs related to off-site training by enabling access to all training and evaluation online, in real time, including over mobile devices. Ÿ Connected: Sales people in remote locations should not use obsolete materials or worse, create their own sales tools and literature. They remain connected to and aligned with central sales messages, collateral and resources at all times. Page 5

6 WHAT IS OUT THERE? ENABLING SALES PERSONNEL FROM ONBOARDING TO CLOSURE. Comprehensive sales enablement technology solutions streamline marketing, sales and training to equip sales people with the latest, real time resources, skills, tools and knowledge they need to close sales quickly and effectively. In other words, they facilitate optimum productivity of each sales person. Typical solutions enable: Ÿ Aligning marketing and sales so that prospects and customers hear one consistent voice of the organization at every stage of the sales cycle. Ÿ On-boarding resources to get sales people working faster and smarter. Ÿ Real time repositories of dynamic sales literature, tools and presentations accessible on mobile devices, allowing B2B sales people to build their case using relevant and specific content. Ÿ Integration with sales force automation platforms, CRM systems and marketing automation platforms so sales people have real time insights to help close sales, upsell, cross sell and resell. Ÿ Measurement and analysis to track closure rates, sales cycle times, and other custom metrics; identifying insights and contextualizing data and tracking overall impact of the system. Page 6

7 WHAT MARKETERS ARE SAYING: LISTED BY OUR SURVEY RESPONDENTS An online survey ² conducted by QEDbaton polled over 250 senior B2B sales and marketing executives from around the world on their use of sales enablement solutions. Here's what they had to say: Do you use a Sales Enablement Solution? Large Business 88% Usage 45% Don t Know NO YES Small Business 45% Usage Salesforce 8% In-House Solutions Yesware Knowledge Tree Mind Matrix Pipeliner A significant number (8%) have in-house custom built systems. The results also indicate a strong opportunity for sales enablement platforms to deploy solutions within smaller organizations. Page 7

8 KEY TAKEAWAYS Sales enablement is an evolving field, especially as it is driven by customer behavior online and offline. Marketers investing in developing in-house solutions could consider more cost effective, scalable and market driven solutions that specialist sales enablement platforms offer. Perhaps the biggest opportunity for B2B marketers is to create more awareness and adoption of existing sales enablement tools in the organisation. Of those respondents having a sales enablement solution in place, a significant set did not know or were unsure about the exact solution deployed. If the users of the system do not know the specifics of the system, it is bound to under deliver on ROI and may create a misperception about the usefulness of the system itself. Page 8

9 FOOTNOTES 1. Key areas of marketing technology: Our report built upon Scott s work, which divided marketing technology into 6 key areas, each of which was further divided into sub-categories. The 6 areas were: Marke ng Experience Marke ng Opertaions Middleware Backbone Pla orms Infrastracture Marke ng Enviroment 5 most important sub-categories of Marketing Experience: technologies serving the key area of Marketing Experience are further classified into 18 sub-categories. These are: Social Media Marke ng Events and Webinars Cotent Marke ng Sales Enablement Marke ng Communi es and Reviews Video ads and Marke ng Marke ng Apps Calls and Call Centers Search and Social Ads Mobile Marke ng Loyalty and Gamifica ons Crea ve and Design Display Adver sing Customer Experience/VoC SEO Tes ng and Op misa on Loyalty and Gamifica ons In the survey conducted for the QEDbaton B2B Marketing Technology Spend Report 2014, 5 of these subcategories (in bold) enjoyed the most investment or intent to invest, as well as seemed the most crowded in terms of technology products available. This series of mini reports delve deeper into these 5 subcategories to understand why they are attracting the maximum B2B marketing investments and what the wide ranging solutions encapsulate. 2. About the survey: an online survey with 250 plus responses. Respondents profile: Ÿ Senior sales and marketing professionals or senior management executives. Ÿ Primarily based in USA, UK, Canada, Australia, India, Germany. Ÿ Organizations are either B2B or B2B and B2C marketers, ranging from small to medium and large firms Ÿ (<$10 million to over $1 billion ), seen as either dominant or leading players in their domain. Ÿ Primarily in the IT/Software, manufacturing, advertising or media/pr, construction/ engineering or telecom sectors. 3. The technology brands mentioned are indicative only and QEDbaton does not in any way endorse the named services. This is not an exhaustive list. Page 9

10 ABOUT MARTECH ADVISOR MarTech Advisor is the world s Leading Source of Marketing Technology News, Unbiased Research, Product Reviews & Expert Commentary. MarTech Advisor reaches and informs a world-wide audience of over 250,000 sales & marketing professionals via its newsletters and LinkedIn group. Our focus at MarTech Advisor is to help the sales & marketing professional stay on top of the multitude of rapidly evolving marketing software products. Our content assists our readers in comparing, researching and selecting the right products and platforms to meet their marketing objectives. Contact Us: On the web info@martechadvisor.com Twitter: Twitter.com/MarTechAdvisor Join the world's leading sales & marketing group on LinkedIn: Page 10