Why Sales Playbooks Can Be Your Ticket to Higher Content ROI

April 11th, 2022

A well-written, interactive sales playbook can be the difference-maker for your salesperson to close the sale. Yet, many companies either don’t have a sales playbook or have one and let it become outdated. Sales playbooks, however, should not be used in a vacuum but in conjunction with you company’s customer relations management (CRM) system.

When integrated, sales playbooks are the most valuable sales enablement tool for your sales team because it works with the CRM to deliver a customer-centered sales process.  Armed with sales plays, they can adapt to a situation depending on the stage of the sale and the customer’s needs as well as be prompted by the smart CRM to reference specific sections of the playbook.

A Sales Playbook is an Important Enablement Tool for Your Team

Salespeople should be prepared to engage with potential buyers in a compelling and convincing manner. Sales playbooks are more than just email templates, sale sheets, and call scripts. Sales playbooks increase sales effectiveness, develop top sales performers, and reduce flaws in the sales process. According to Salesforce, companies who use sales playbooks are shown to make 33% greater revenue and have an over 50% average win rate.

Importantly, sales playbooks enable sales teams to engage customers at every stage of the sale. They enable adaptability to a selling situation without any disruptions. The sales rep will have a comprehensive guide to refer to when they are unsure what to do during a sale, thereby eliminating hesitancy and losing the sale. Further, sales playbook has the sales plays that benefit customers too. For each play, marketing content, sales conversations, pricing, features of the product or service, and customer needs are tailored to the client’s profile. A sales playbook helps integrate the sales content with the CRM system so salespeople can see which content gets the highest ratings for a given sales play.

With this information, your sales team can replicate and consistently execute a sales strategy that is predictable throughout the sales journey. They have the sophistication and expert knowledge to optimize any sales experience. Sales reps have the right information at the right time for their customers so they can make the deal.

Having an Intelligent CRM Increases Content Return on Investment

Companies spend millions of dollars on customer relations management technology to improve sales performances but rarely see a significant improvement. In a survey by Bain & Company, 62% of 167 companies surveyed said their return on investment (ROI) failed to meet their expectations. They had hoped their investment would produce an intelligent CRM platform, but instead most CRMs were only used for accounting and workflow management and sales stuttered. By integrating a sales playbook with the CRM, such as Salesforce, the sales playbook becomes an effective sales enablement tool because it can react to the stage of the sale, the attributes of the opportunity, and using the opportunity record and the products or services being offered to present the best sales play for the sales rep in the situation. 

Getting more from your CRM

Sales playbooks are an excellent sales enablement tool not only for your sales team but also to make your CRM system more intelligent. The CRM should be working for your company to provide the most accurate and up-to-date information for your sales team. Otherwise, it is only an accounting and workforce management system, which does not boost sales in the long-run. With a digital sales playbook and software integration, your CRM system becomes very clever instead of operating in a silo. It works in tandem with the sales playbook to deliver optimal sales plays for the sales team with predictive data, such as offering a projected close date for the deal based on past data and not the salesperson’s guess as to when the sale will be done. 

Guided sales plays at your fingertips

Depending on where the salesperson is in the sales journey, the data and analytics can proactively suggest the sales plays for the rep to use from your sales playbook. Information from the CRM, such as customer contact, sales, segment, and market data, to be correlated with recommended content for each individual customer. These smart systems even collect data through every stage of the sale.

Sales managers can see how well their sales reps are doing with real-time data and analytics. It can show how their team interacts with customers, which sales plays work best in given situations, and how the customers are engaging with the marketing content.  In turn, the data can help inform sales teams about best practices and recommend content.

Meeting preparation made simple

Further, sales playbooks help your sales teams be more prepared for those important sales meetings. Integrating your CRM with a content management platform reduces meeting prep time by up to 70% because it provides tailored content and educational resources to help sales reps prepare for their meetings, host presentations, and share content directly with their contacts. Sales reps don’t have to use multiple platforms finding the right content—it’s all right there in one integrated system. They can spend more time working with the client to close the sale rather than trying to find content. Salespeople who make more sales using this tailored content equals a better return on investment for your company.

Sales teams that have a sales playbook readily accessible through the CRM are more successful at closing the deal as well as identifying which marketing and sales content has the highest performance metrics. Creating sales playbooks is not a cheap endeavor, so companies will want to see a higher content return on an investment. Fortunately, by integrating the sales playbook with the CRM system will enable your company to see data-based results. With an adaptable sales playbook that can evolve with your company’s needs and integrated with the CRM system, your sales team will have access to a dynamic sales enablement tool that can help them in any sales state of affairs.

Stop wondering about your content ROI 

Do you have any idea what happens to your content after you share it with your sales team? Data from leading B2B companies would tell you that over 70% of that content goes completely unused. Eliminate wasted content and get full visibility to content engagement from your customers, and your sales team, with KlyckBooks. Contact us today to learn more about making your CRM intelligent with sales playbook integration. Your sales team will thank you for it as well as your company’s bottom line.