Efforts. Data. Metrics.

Efforts. Data. Metrics. Repeat.

Without metrics, efforts don’t work.

Without results, efforts don’t count.

This is true in today’s data-driven world of sales too. If you look at the Sales top down, you will see that things are pretty measurable. As you travel down the funnel, things don’t seem so clear. We talk about increasing the sales pipeline, about white space opportunities, traffic, leads, warm, hot, cold but once we get to those numbers, no one can tell how to prioritize the projects on hand. This is the Sales Enablement Measurement conundrum.

Organizations are uncertain about how to measure sales enablement efforts. How do we measure the alignment between marketing and sales? We have tried to resolve your conundrum here to some extent, using both, qualitative and quantitative methods of measurement. These are at best taken as indicators but will help your sales enablement efforts stay on track.

5 ways to track and measure your Sales Enablement efforts.

1. Track the lead-to-deal rate or lead-to-conversion rate: The Sales Enablement team should be more focused on the bottom end of the sales funnel. This means tracking the lead to conversion rate. This is what will indicate the impact of your sales enablement strategies. Although not entirely, because the conversion rate depends on the number and quality of the leads. Besides this, this can be a good measurement index that also helps to identify trends over a period. Ask yourself the question “Will this project help me close more deals?” If the answer is “yes”, put it on priority. The others can be taken up later or delegated.
2. Measure win/loss rates against key competitors: Sales is a race to the finishing line for every lead to be cracked. Your sales team needs your help and support all the time as they face the toughest of competitors. Monitoring your wins and failures and comparing them with your competitors’ wins and losses, will help you identify the gaps and fill that in. It will help you even further to know where you need to put your energy. Your CRM system will help you with this metric.
3. Amplify your content so that it influences a decision to buy: Content is a universal weapon in the sales arsenal; right from the top end of the funnel to the bottom end. Supply your sales team with the right documents and decks but also, leverage the online medium to publish content through visual media. Then monitor it to see which one is more influential as the buyer is in the last stages of his buying decision. Scaling up online with content is good as you can measure the results of what works and what doesn’t. A good CMS and an analytics tool will help you in this task. This will be a perfect time to go for a sales enablement tool. Also, keep a track of and measure your content production – how many pieces of videos, infographics, newsletters, blogs, etc. produced in what month. This will help you measure the time invested and resultant output from these.
4. Do not dismiss attribution reporting: Attribution reporting helps you to see what content helped influence the buyer in the latter stages of his buying journey. This helps in building more content that was successful and cutting down on content that produced weak results.
5. Sit with your sales team: We mean ‘physically’ sit with your sales team regularly. Maybe for some time, every single day. This helps you to know what content they are sharing with customers, what they are saying to leads, how they are doing their demos. By physically being there, you also absorb the underlying vibes, energy and understand a lot that is unsaid or unseen to the naked eye. The team also finds you more accessible and is more inclined to share feedback openly. This helps them voice their needs when it comes to sales enablement efforts.

The above 5 are indicators to measure sales enablement efforts. Share your experiences once you start putting these into practice, or in case you have already done so.