Digital Sales Rooms: A Win-Win For Buyer Delight And Rep Productivity
Most B2B buyers today let out a groan when a seller asks to hop on a call. Gartner research shows that nearly three-quarters of surveyed customers say they prefer their purchasing experience to be rep-free.
Over the past few years, digital sales rooms (DSRs) have entered the scene as an answer to buyers’ changing desires and behaviors. A DSR is a private microsite for deals, usually created within a sales enablement platform, serving as a single source of truth for buyers throughout the buying cycle. It’s where reps curate and structure resources that are personalized for their buyers in a rich, virtual environment, reducing the noise of multiple communication channels. Buyers can engage with this space that’s designed to guide them through a streamlined process from first touch to close—providing a modern solution to their digital-first preferences.
In today’s ruthless sales environment, DSRs allow B2B companies to provide buying teams with a curated, self-service buying experience. As a critical ally to the sales team, marketing teams play a crucial role in designing standout DSRs that allow buyers to do research on their own schedules and help reps sell.
Since my company, Highspot, rolled out digital sales rooms as part of our sales enablement platform, I’ve noticed three primary ways that marketing can support sales to create DSRs that win customers without fail:
Remember, content is (still) king.
A DSR is only as good as the content within it. Savvy modern buyers have already done their homework—meaning reps must bring new value to the table and deliver tailored content that fits a buyer’s unique needs. But today, it’s not enough to personalize content for just one individual—buying groups typically have between six to 10 people involved.
With multiple people’s interests at play, marketing must craft content that answers the questions and pain points of the entire buying committee. This means collaborating with sales to understand who the buying group is made up of, where the group falls within the buyer journey, and how content can most effectively tell the story of how your product addresses the group’s pain points and goals. Once you figure out the content secret sauce, don’t neglect the content you’ve previously published. With constantly shifting market conditions and customer preferences, you should regularly refresh assets so the information stays relevant and compelling.
Leverage data to unlock efficacy.
DSR buyer engagement analytics are a gold mine. They can tell you what content prospects are engaging with (and what content they’re ignoring), the time they’re spending with that content, and how the deal is progressing. You can also see patterns. By examining how each member of the buying team is specifically engaging with content, you can use those individual buyer insights to identify areas of interest across the buying committee.
Armed with intel on what’s working, what’s not, and where buyers need additional or refined information, marketing can take the guesswork out of content creation so sellers can always stay one step ahead in the sales process. DSR data gives marketers the upper hand to create a cycle of continuous improvement to drive higher buyer engagement and faster deals.
Partner with enablement to help reps close with confidence.
The highest-performing companies don’t guess at how to improve sales productivity. Instead, they run a rigorous enablement program and repeatable sales process to drive desired business results. This is a situation where sales, enablement and marketing can partner to align on goals and build and implement a DSR strategy that prepares their reps for every unique selling scenario.
Across a range of industries—notably manufacturing, financial services and life sciences—marketing departments are ruggedizing their sales teams with DSRs. The result? We’ve seen our customers who use digital sales rooms achieve a threefold to fivefold increase in buyer engagement and 95% faster time to insight.
The rise of DSRs offers an opportunity to give buyers the sales experience they actually want: fewer, more valuable conversations with reps and centralized access to personalized content that helps them make wise investment decisions. As a partner to the sales team, marketing leaders have an essential role to play in designing effective DSRs that help sellers sell. With the right approach, I’m bullish that organizations that leverage DSRs will outperform the ones that don’t.
This article is written by Forbes and originally published here.
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