2015 Content Automation Trends Report

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Content overload is a thing of the current and the future for organizations in 2015. Selling and marketing content, in particular, is intended to drive your organization forward through strategic alignment to customer needs and pain points. Unfortunately, with too many cooks in a typical sales organization’s kitchen, content touch points fast become blurred, and newly created content is either buried or made stale – creating declines in the bottom line and customer value. Today’s buyers tend to change their minds as often as new data is loaded upon clicking “refresh” – so it’s critical to keep up in order to continue and sell effectively.

Qvidian’s first edition of the Content Automation Trends Report comes at a trying time in the selling ecosphere. Rapidly changing buying patterns are affecting company growth and the way sales reps sell, but it’s difficult to pinpoint where sales content fits into what’s either succeeding or failing. With this survey, Qvidian sheds light on what’s broken in the content creation, delivery, and management processes by taking a thorough look at current industry trends, persons and departments involved, as well as additional components – ultimately diving into possible solutions for successful selling. Over 300 respondents took the survey, revealing some thought-provoking trends on the state of selling content today.

Top Objectives & Challenges Facing Communication Channels in Sales Organizations

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Utilizing the most relevant content is imperative to virtually any sales and marketing initiative. The right content, however, takes a good deal of time to create, store, and update in such a way that it is easily accessible across the necessary teams in an organization. When thinking of content as a key asset, or an essential attribute in a selling strategy, it’s not surprising to see that over 78% of survey respondents feel sales content is VERY important to the effectiveness of their sales reps.

At the same time, close to 50% say that their data and content in sales assets is only somewhat accurate. Change in today’s buyers’ market is and will continue to be a constant, with buyers quick to take notice and call out the flaws in an outdated pitch. And with proposals (67%), presentations (63%), and RFPs (60%) cited as the top 3 most used pieces of content, it’s important to make sure these contributing assets are relevant and personalized according to each deal at hand, as well as readily available to reps.

Interestingly, over 83% of respondents have trouble easily accessing messaging and related content just-in-time based on the selling situation. Conversely, only 17% say it’s easy for sales reps to locate relevant messaging and content they need in each selling situations. These findings alone expose a very real chasm in an organization’s content output and the ability, or lack thereof, to use content effectively in each selling scenario.

Building on the difficulty of finding created content, the majority of survey respondents cite that sales content creation and distribution is managed by more than 3 people, with 17% selecting 20 or more people playing a major hand in the process. Content is not just a prerequisite to smart selling, it’s also pervasive and involving; so much so that it takes a village to handle the ongoing and ever-fluid complexity, communication, and synchronization of content creation and management.

Executive Summary

83% of respondents have

trouble easily accessing messaging and related

content

17% say it’s easy for sales

reps to locaterelevant messaging

and content

2015 Content Automation Trends Report | Qvidian

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cite that their data

and content in sales assets is

only somewhat accurate

Aligning with Buyers Today’s savvy buyers are armed with more information than ever. They know, or they’re convinced they know (in cases like this, it’s the same difference) what they want, rejecting a sale that’s perceived as different from pre-defined needs.

Thus, in order to sell effectively, sales reps must first align with buyers quickly in lockstep with where that buyer is in there buying process, in order to serve up the most compelling selling assets that immediately starts building the fundamental relationship of trusted advisor. Having that alignment, and the timely and relevant content available at their fingertips, enables sellers to stay one step ahead of the buyer. This can only be achieved if all content assets are up-to-date and remain compelling. Unfortunately, over 75% of survey respondents say their frequency of reviewing and updating sales content is only somewhat, not very or not at all sufficient.

Moreover, 49% cite that their data and content in sales assets is only somewhat accurate, while nearly the same percentage of respondents (48%) say content is reviewed and updated on an as-needed basis. This incongruity calls into question the reliability of selling content. And with the majority of respondents reporting that sales content creation is managed by more than 3 people, what exactly determines a content refresh need? More importantly, is anyone ever notified of the update? In addition, and even more troublesome, is that content updates are often not targeting unique buyers, let alone are set up to be easily personalized. So while you should always personalize your selling content, doing so is only worthwhile when you’re personalizing appropriately, to each particular buyer, in each particular selling situation.

49%

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Dude, Where’s My Content? You can’t use what you can’t find. Because 17% of survey respondents are easily accessing the right content for each particular selling situation, it leaves some 83% of sales people that are left struggling to locate the content they need, likely abandoning their search and relying on outdated content instead.

Accordingly, with proposals (67%), presentations (63%), and RFPs (60%) cited as the top 3 most used pieces of content, assembling the various pieces involved in each of these is difficult at best and fruitless at worst.

Furthermore, while 78% of respondents feel that sales content is very important to the effectiveness of their sales reps, 60% say that their content only somewhat or not very well impacts their sales team’s ability to close deals. This gap in selling effectiveness is comparable to trying to drive a car with four flat tires. It boils down to this – in order to sell more effectively, sales teams need to know where buyers are in their buying journey, align with them quickly, and deliver the most relevant and personalized content assets that delivers the most compelling value proposition. This better equips sellers and enables them to have deeper and more fruitful conversations with buyers. Further to reiterate the gap that exists in sales organizations, 71% of survey respondents state that their content only somewhat, not very well, or not at all helps sales teams have more effective conversations with their buyers.

67%PROPOSALS

60%RFPS

Top 3 Most Used Pieces of Content

63%PRESENTATIONS

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Content Management is Not Your Enemy – a Lack of It Is

The process to manage, update and distribute content is also cumbersome and can be draining on an organization. And with so many hands and departments involved in the process, a poorly organized content strategy is almost the same as having no strategy at all; the potential for mass disorder affects content output in a very real way. What’s more, a whopping 77% of respondents cite that the frequency of reviewing and updating sales content is only somewhat, not very or not at all sufficient. In today’s age of ever-frequent change, your sales teams need all the help they can get. Having access to reliable and timely selling content, does not have to be a Herculean effort, but it does require a defined strategy and underlying technology to support it.

Additionally, 61% of survey respondents say that the size of their team will stay the same. This finding only reinforces the need to create more valuable content with the same or fewer resources. But given the evident difficulty of utilizing and managing effective content, scaling successfully can be difficult – at least in the case that everything on the content front remains the same.

say that the frequency of reviewing and updating sales content is only somewhat, not very or not at all sufficient

77%

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Let’s Automate

There’s always hope. Streamlining your content workflow is one of the most effective solutions for reducing the complexity involved with finding the right content faster, ensuring consistency in format and brand, personalizing messaging, managing contributors, doing more with limited resources, the list can go on. By automating your content processes, your organization is better prepared to improve both top (sales wins more deals) and bottom (eliminate waste) lines of the business.

The noise generated from all sides – sales leaders, sales operations and enablement, marketing, and content and proposal managers – is lessened when those involved in any aspect of the content process are working along the same path. This allows for more collaboration and improved capacity for working smarter, which means personalizing content quickly and easily to every unique buyer in a particular selling situation. More importantly, automating your content enhances productivity, a must in today’s rapidly changing world. Increased win rates are possible when, and only when, your sales teams stop selling for the sake of selling, and start selling to create real added value for each distinctive buyer.

FIND THE RIGHT

CONTENTENSURE

CONSISTENCY

PERSONALIZE MESSAGING

MANAGE CONTRIBUTORS

DO MOREWITH LESS

CONTENT AUTOMATION

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Rapidly changing buying patterns are affecting more and more organizations’ growth, and it is clear that selling content is a very important component in the sales process for companies to achieve their goals. However, that selling content must be accurate, frequently updated, and easily accessible to selling teams in order for them to serve up the most relevant assets and specific to each selling situation. Personalization has also become the de facto necessity in selling, and buyers not only want it, they need it for them to navigate what is often and team buying experience. In addition to personalization, the ability to easily find, assemble, and deliver this content is also critical. In connecting these dots also sets for the foundation for the ability to measure what works well and what doesn’t, in order to improve and replicate across entire organization.

The world is more interconnected than ever. Comparatively, the disperse teams across a sales organization are interconnected through selling content. If created and managed effectively, allows for a smooth selling process, advancing your organization’s top and bottom-line. Without content automation however, your selling efforts are grounded in the past, halting progress through the inability to personalize and sell faster. This does not have to be a Herculean effort to streamline content automation. It does however require a strategy that leverages technologies to support it, whereby reducing complexities and improving productivity.

While this report validates that content automation is a key contributing factor to any selling strategy, the overarching selling strategy itself must be on point in order to win repeatedly. Strategic end-to-end sales execution is a methodology that incorporates vital selling tactics such as content automation to both maintain and perfect effective selling. To learnmore, access our 2015 Sales Execution Trends Report and go beyond tacticalselling in the direction to a complete selling transformation.

CONCLUSION

KEY TAKEWAYS

DISTRIBUTION AND ACCESS TO SALES IS CRITICAL

TEAM WORKFLOWS AND COLLABORATION FOR MANAGING CONTENT IS KEY

Read the 2015 Sales Execution Trends Report Now

ACCURACY AND QUALITY IN CONTENT NEED TO BE PRIORITY

EFFECTIVE CONTENT IS A KEY PIECE FOR SALES TO CLOSE DEALS

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SUCCEED FASTER WITH QVIDIANQvidian provides cloud-based sales execution solutions that enable companies to exceed quota targets, accelerate sales cycles, and win more business by closing the gap between strategy and execution. The company’s innovative software and advisory services offer real-time insight to ensure sales teams do what’s needed to win, by driving repeatable methodologies and making the sales organization more agile.

With over 1,200 global customers including Dell, Citi, ADP, CA, and Splunk, Qvidian is helping organizations significantly increase their profitable revenues while eliminating waste and reducing costs.

For more information, visit www.qvidian.com orcall 1-800-272-0047 or +44 (0) 870-734-7778

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