The good news is sales people notice when materials are out of date, and will let you know it is time for a refresh. :) Joking aside, here are some proactive tips on how to keep materials up to date.
Market research: With Google alerts, you can capture trends, survey results and news for the topics your personas care about. If you subscribed to analyst research, be sure to have a look at new research on a regular basis. As PMMs, we write about many of these trends in blogs, and use updated stats in sales presentations and prospecting emails. You could make it a policy to refresh sales content on a quarterly basis (or at least check to see if you need to) and then communicate to the field the new changes.
Personas: In my opinion, persona research needs to be refreshed less frequently. Some triggers that could require a refresh:
- Your product has a major new feature that could serve a different persona
- In analyzing wins/leads, you find that your primary persona has shifted
- There is a disruption in the market which could cause responsibilities/buying centers to shift
Competitive: Competitive should be kept up to date as much as possible. You don't want your sales team caught off gaurd. Competitive intel often comes from your field teams, so it is critical to have good relationships with the field and a mechanism to capture this intel. Usually the best way to capture sales intel is via 1:1 interviews or having monthly listening meetings. (We are implementing a listening tool soon, so that might provide additional insights.)
It's also beneficial to have a person or team focused on capturing competitive insights from across the organization (PM, PMM, field, and external research such as product reviews and documentation). At Snow we are blessed to have someone on our product insights team focused on doing just that. Publishing up to date battlecards and competitive newsletters are ways to keep the field informed. It is even better attend sales meetings to review recent findings and have the field share their win stories with their colleagues.