Measuring Sales Enablement

Marketing is all about data.

And the metrics you track at the top and middle of your marketing and sales funnel are usually:

• Traffic
• Leads
• Opportunities

But further down the funnel, like with sales enablement, there’s more than one metric that tells you:

• The results of your efforts
• Where to prioritise your efforts

So in this blog post we will learn how to track these results.

Let’s dive right in.

Measuring Sales Enablement

Lead into customer conversion rate

Sales enablement helps the sales teams close more deals.

Basically, it’s to increase the lead into customer conversion rate.

So use your lead into customer conversion rate to track how effective your sales enablement is.

Note: This conversion rate is influenced by other variables like the total number and quality of leads you generate.

Remember, your sales team being good at closing deals is also a factor.

And tracking the number of leads you convert into customers also helps:

• Identify trends
• Decide which projects to do yourself
• Which projects to leave to others or outsource

For example, when creating a campaign, do it yourself if it helps close more customers because this will:

• Keep you focused on bottom funnel activities
• Give you clear reasons to leave certain efforts to others

Note: Lead into customer conversion rate is calculated using the number of leads and customers generated in a certain time period.

Win/loss rates against competitors

Tracking your win/loss rate tells you if your sales team needs more help against competitors.

Go deeper into this data from the perspective of your:

• Customer segment
• Sales team

Doing so will give you:

• A performance metric
• Ideas where your sales team needs more help

Hint: Win/loss rates can be calculated from tracking deal stages.

Post content

Your content should cater to your top-of-the-funnel goals AND include sales content like:

• Customer stories
• Product overviews
• ROI studies
• Video content

Doing so will give you data about:

• Who is viewing your content
• If it’s influencing people’s buying decisions or not

So posting your content online can help you:

• Measure email click-through rates
• Generate organic traffic

Note: Track content performance by using analytics tools with your content management system.

Attribution Reporting

After posting content online, run reports on how each content helped convert leads into customers.

Leads likely read a few of your content pieces before becoming customers but doing this will tell you:

• Which pieces of content they found
• Which content interested them late in their buyer’s journey

For example, an attribution report could tell you which customer story works well with your audience.

Hint: Marketing analytics tools can help with customised attribution reporting.

Share content with your sales team

Share your content with sales teams in printer-friendly or presentation formats on Google Drive.

But the links shared with sales reps could get outdated if you’re making a lot of updates to these documents.

And you want insight about:

• Who is downloading the content
• Which content is being downloaded
• Who they are sending it to
• Who is opening it

So use sales softwares with your CRM or marketing software platforms or cloud storage tools like Box.com.

Cloud storage tools like this will tell you:

• The number of times sales reps download your content
• Which content your sales reps use the most

But not:

• If leads interact with your content
• How leads interact with your content

Meet with sales teams

Sitting with your sales team every day will help:

• You see the content they share on their screens
• Hear what they say to prospects
• Makes you more accessible to answer questions and get feedback

Work next to your sales teams so you don’t take time out to coordinate and listen in on sales calls because you’re already there.

Hint: Buy noise-cancelling headphones for when you need to create a lot of content.

Content production

Sharing case studies with prospects allows customers to tell their stories.

You can take this to the next level by writing case studies for customers in:

• Specific geographies
• Industries
• Facing certain marketing challenges

Hint: A simple spreadsheet or document tracking and dating the content you make can help a lot.

Product demos

Sitting with your sales team tells you how they demo your product or service.

Even asking sales reps to record their demos will help you understand this.

For example, a SaaS company can see from data what sales reps are showing when demoing its product.

This way they will know if sales reps have the right sales training or content to demo the apps they are showing. 

And for companies with physical products, tracking which inventory is requested for demos or trials can give similar results.

Survey sales teams

Survey your team and find out your NPS, also known as Net Promoter Score.

This helps you measure how satisfied your team is.

So learn to calculate the NPS formula then set up a survey to ask your sales team how likely they’d recommend your work.

Surveys can also be used to get additional feedback like:

• What training topics they’d like in sales training
• Which content they think is effective
• What else they want from your team

Remember to keep surveys short and easy to fill out.

Because a sales person taking a long to fill out your survey means they are missing out on potential customers.

Hint: Set up a survey using Google forms or Survey Monkey.

Conclusion

Now it’s over to you.

Tell me how you measure sales enablement?

Let me know in the comment section below.