Building alignment across sales and marketing has always been a business challenge. Sales enablement has grown as a critical business function to create alignment between sales and marketing organizations. As enterprises adopt sales enablement in greater numbers, organizations are investing in go-to-market technologies to support their enablement objectives. 

In our first Annual Sales Enablement Benchmark Report (2021), we found that companies no longer consider enablement a nice-to-have: it’s a strategic business enabler. If your business is beginning its sales enablement journey, it can sometimes be difficult to know where to start. To help you find the best solution for your business, we’ve put together a list of must-have features and capabilities to look for in a sales enablement solution. 

The solution simplifies content management and discovery

How easy is it for marketing to organize and store content? Can sellers access the right content, quickly and easily? When selecting a sales enablement platform, easy-to-use content management is first and foremost. It’s the cornerstone of a sales enablement solution. When your sellers can access the latest, most relevant content from marketing, they’re more likely to use it. Strong content management and discovery solutions also save time for sellers, which empowers them to be more productive and drive meaningful experiences with buyers. 

Your sellers need the freedom to customize content, while marketing needs to ensure that content is compliant. Your sales enablement solution should allow marketers to store content and templates that give sellers a framework to personalize content for buyers while remaining compliant. 

Seismic makes it easy for your go-to-market team to manage all of its assets from a single location. Whether your content is created, managed, and distributed in tools like Salesforce, SharePoint, or Google Drive, Seismic gives your team the ability to synchronize external content and update existing assets without disrupting day-to-day operations. From campaigns to product releases, the Seismic Storytelling Platform^TM makes it easy to communicate with the field about launches, updates, and activation activities. 

Supports out-of-the-box integrations for GTM technologies

If you build it, they will come. Members of your go-to-market team use several technologies to manage their day-to-day tasks. So, effective sales enablement doesn’t come down to just one solution. Chances are if you’re researching a sales enablement solution, your company already leverages go-to-market technologies. Whether your team uses customer relationship management (CRM) software, social engagement tools, sales intelligence, or predictive analytics, your sales enablement platform should support out-of-the-box integrations. 

Simple integrations with go-to-market technologies extend the value of your platform. Connecting your existing technology investments with a sales enablement solution can increase platform adoption. Seismic supports out-of-the-box integrations for a variety of sales and marketing technologies. Our integrations with CRMs, as well as sales and marketing automation technologies offer your team a comprehensive view of all go-to-market activities, which can help optimize strategy and tactics over time. 

Measure platform adoption and content performance with analytics

Which sellers have adopted the sales enablement platform? Which content is most shared by sellers? How do buyers engage with shared content? Valuable data captured by a sales enablement solution should answer each of these questions. In order to measure return on investment (ROI), your organization needs to understand who is using the solution and when. You also need to understand which content is popular with buyers and how that influences content engagement and, ultimately, revenue generation. 

Seismic’s LiveSend technology provides visibility and insights into how and when buyers engage with your content. When integrated with marketing automation technology like Marketo, insights from Seismic make it easier to optimize content experiences based on contextual details. Seismic Content Analytics gives sellers visibility into “last-mile” content performance so that best practices can be scaled across the organization to optimize content experiences. 

Your solution should evolve and scale with your business

There’s one last thing to consider. When you select a sales enablement solution, you’re not just purchasing for today. You’re making an investment that will empower your organization to engage buyers, make sellers more productive, and identify opportunities to optimize go-to-marketing activities and build more revenue. As you explore sales enablement solutions, it’s important to prioritize a provider that can partner with your organization and build together in the long run. 

There’s a lot more to keep in mind as you evaluate sales enablement solutions. If you’d like to learn which questions to ask for your sales enablement RFP, check out our new guide, Essential Questions for Sales Enablement RFP’s.