How do you assess which sales enablement materials are the most effective?

This is always a difficult one. Sometimes it can be easier to solve with technology, while other times it's a bit more difficult to track/measure.

With technology:

• You can track which content is being sent out/used
• You can track how many reps are 'customizing' a deck in their workspace
• etc.
• However, the issue with this is that you might see a pitch deck you worked hard on isn't being used at all. In that case, you need to evalutate whether its an adoption issue or a quality issue (ie. not the right pitch)

Without technolgy:

• You really need to rely on feedback loops and finding sales champions to work with
• Meet regularly with those champions to review assets and listen to them on what's working, what's not, and what they'd suggest improving
• Ask your reps to surface and share with you the assets they're creating on their own. Oftentimes reps are creating materials on their own, because they have a need and don't want to wait for marketing. So ask them! Then take those materials as guidance for how you can optimize, improve, and standardize them as 'approved materials' that are on-brand.

At the end of the day, every company and sales team will need the same core assets/materials. Things such as an approved pitch deck, a few core one-pagers, a pillar page on your website, or a tool such as an ROI calculator. So it really comes down to a matter of quality over trying to figure out 'which materials to create' and this can only be figured out through sales rep feedback and working with them.

So in short = work with your sales counterparts to listen, learn, and then create.

There is no single golden arrow. Every piece of material has its role in the process. I look at effectiveness from two perspectives. One - did the salesperson use it? Two - did the prospect use it? Fortunately, there are tools for this today. You should be using a tool like Seismic, Highspot, or Docsend. These tools also allow for a third important measure - did the prospect pass it around to the buying group? Now you’re hitting the right notes.

If the salesperson doesn’t use something, it doesnt necessarily mean it’s an ineffective asset. Sometimes it means they need more awareness and training on the value an asset can add to their sales process.

On the other hand, more usage by sales doesn’t necessarily mean it is effective. It is important to track what role the asset played in the prospect’s buying journey.

The best way is to use tools that give you these analytics. I have used tools like Highspot and Guru that make this much more automated.

The other way to do that is using some sort of intranet, like Confluence to host this content so you can track use.

At the end of the day, you always want to augment any of that with actual sales feedback. You can run monthly or quarterly sales feedback surveys and directly ask the team which pieces of content have been the most effective and why.