The sales content automation guide

What is sales content automation?

Closing a deal takes precision, attention to detail, and the ability to nurture relationships with buyers over time. Longer sales cycles coupled with ever-changing buyer preferences mean that your reps need to find and share the perfect content in order to move a deal forward. But, because reps have such a large quantity of sales collateral to choose from, this process can take up precious time. 

If this sounds familiar, it may be time to consider sales content automation. Sales content automation streamlines the content workflow and gives sellers access to all of the content they need. By deploying sales content automation software, sellers are enabled to personalize content at scale so they can spend more time on selling, which is something that should be a top priority for every organization. This software uses artificial intelligence to automate repetitive tasks and include data from other sources so sellers can craft content in a matter of minutes. 

Why sales content needs to be personalized 

Adding content automation software to your sales toolkit can help you meet a fundamental benchmark of successful sales: personalized content. Making your sales content unique to each buyer can make all the difference between closing or stalling a deal. Over 90% of consumers indicate that they feel more inclined to engage with brands that personalize content as compared to brands that only send generic content. These numbers mean that you simply can’t afford to skimp on your personalized content. 

However, creating and delivering personalized content can be overwhelming. Who has the time to produce unique content for every prospect? To reach content personalization at scale, your organization needs some level of automation that’s powered by content AI tools. 

How to automate the sales content workflow

Automating the sales content process sounds good, but how can a company actually go about integrating content management tools and artificial intelligence into their sales enablement efforts? Let’s break down a few of the tasks that sales content automation can take off of your plate. 

• Creating: The real name of the game for content automation is templates. Whether it’s a proposal or pitch deck, your reps can swap out and replace content as needed to tell the right story to the right customer. All this can be done without the hassle of manually compiling content and reorganizing it for each buyer.
• Integrating: Data can be tricky to pull together in a way that helps your reps and makes sense to your customers. Automating data organization and collection can help your sellers pull highly relevant information with the press of a button.
• Approving: Getting approval for  new content can take more time than actually sending it to buyers. With content automation, marketing and enablement teams can limit the areas of personalization to ensure that reps are staying on brand. Automating the approval process according to your brand’s standards and governance gives everyone the peace of mind that content is consistent and correct.
• Sharing: Long gone are the days of manual email and hours dedicated to rehearsed sales calls. Sales content automation allows your sellers to share personalized content widely and efficiently. 
• Reporting: The analytic and reporting features of many content AI tools lets you see which buyers are engaging with your sales content, and which may need an extra nudge. It also tracks what content sellers are using the most so teams can make informed decisions on what content marketing and sales collateral is most beneficial to move deals forward.

Benefits of sales content automation

Stress isn’t the only thing that gets better with sales content automation. Other benefits of automating your sales content workflow include:

• Improving efficiency: Save yourself and your sellers immeasurable time scouring unorganized drives and folders for helpful content, or sweating over entirely organic content creation. Content management tools and automation removes all of the muddling and allows sellers to focus on what they do best — building relationships with prospects and customers.
• Shortening the buying cycle: Now that your sellers are free from the slog of content generation, they can dedicate more time to buyers. They can dedicate their attention to the essential conversations and interactions that get buyers to move from the leads list to active customers.
• Increasing buyer engagement: We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again — customers love personalized content. In fact, 76% of consumers feel upset when they don’t experience any sort of personalization during the buying experience. Automating your sales content means that each of your prospects  gets the content they want, when they need it.
• Creating a scalable workflow: With the power of sales content automation, your sellers can mass-produce content, as well as locate relevant information with ease. Bringing your organization to the next level has never been easier.

How Seismic enables sales content automation

When you decide that sales content automation is the next step for you and your business, reach out to Seismic. Seismic’s Enablement Cloud™ features content automation tools that allow your sellers to repurpose and personalize content, integrate other sources of data, and generate highly engaging content at the push of a button. Click here to see it in action!