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Sales content tools are content repositories or hubs that enable content sharing (internal and external) for sales teams. They are sometimes called sales enablement or sales content management systems. Sales content tools are frequently used to align marketing and sales messaging, maintain brand consistency, collaborate on sales content, and deliver content (such as presentations, white papers, etc.) to prospects during the sales cycle. Some sales content tools assist with content personalization or track content performance to make intelligent recommendations about which content to use and/or when to use it with a particular opportunity. Sales presentation software fits within this category. The notion of "sales communications" also tends to fit here.
Sales content tools help organizations store, create, and/or manage the content used by reps during sales cycles. Most sales content software includes a centralized sales content repository with an advanced search, analytics around content usage and content performance, and built-in best practices, often surfaced as content recommendations or smart content. These recommendations may be based on rules controlled by sales leaders, sales performance managers, or marketers, or based on predictive analytics models that use content performance, sales performance data, and buyer journey data to predict the best-fit content for a particular situation. Tools that integrate with Salesforce may serve up content “in context” of a particular record or opportunity, or may pull in details from the CRM system to personalize content.
Some sales content software is designed around Marketing-led content creation—assets are fed by marketers into a central database for their sales teams to send out—whereas other products include Sales content creation kits for reps to quickly whiteboard concepts for prospects or produce branded presentations, proposals, etc. In most cases this distinction is not black and white, but buyers should pre-determine whether Marketing and/or Sales plans to lead sales content creation in order to determine which software option will work best for their use case. Relatedly, sales content tools often include features for content collaboration, approval workflows, updating content, content file sharing, etc. These functionalities are especially useful and important for large enterprises in which branding politics are more complex and messaging is more tightly controlled.
Terminology: Sales Content, Sales Enablement & Sales Acceleration
Sales content is usually a big part of an organization’s sales enablement strategy, so sometimes the buzzword “sales enablement” is used as a synonym for sales content software. This can be a bit confusing, since the term also describes, more broadly, sales management practices and tools that support sales effectiveness by equipping salespeople with the information, assets, technology, and best practices needed to sell both well and more. In thought leadership articles and best practices tips, the latter definition is usually at play; in product-specific marketing materials, “sales enablement” usually translates to sales content software. Buyers should note that sales content management tends to be a (if not the) major component of products branded as Sales Enablement software, but that other types of tools—not necessarily comparable in function—also fit under the Sales Enablement umbrella.
The terms “sales acceleration,” “sales productivity,” and “sales automation” are also used to describe sales content tools. Features like advanced document search, CRM integration, and automatic branding can be considered time-saving elements aimed at increasing the efficiency of sales reps. In this sense, sales content software is a sort of productivity tool, but with a focus on the substance of the sales conversation rather than just the goal of automating administrative tasks.
Key Benefits of Sales Content Software
Seismic is a recognized leader in sales and marketing enablement. The vendor's value proposition is that their solution equips global sales teams with the knowledge, messaging, and automatically personalized content proven to be the most effective for any buyer interaction. Additionally, the vend...
Brainshark is a video presentation platform for sales enablement.
Highspot is a sales content management software solution offered by Highspot.
Qvidian RFP & Proposal Automation is a cloud-based RFP and proposal automation software that is designed to empower enterprises to win more business by streamlining processes, improving productivity, and creating more effective sales documents. The vendor’s value proposition is that Qvidian i...
Prezi’s advantage over static slides is that its interactive, zoomable canvas shows the relationship between the big picture and the fine details. The vendor’s value proposition is that this puts ideas in context, and makes them more likely to resonate, motivate, and be remembered.
The vendor states that Proposify is the way modern sales teams create, send, track, and e-sign winning proposals, contracts, and agreements.Proposify is designed to reduce friction in a sales workflow and makes it easier for reps to create professional-looking proposals in a flash that impress pr...
Bloomfire is a sales enablement tool that is designed to put answers, best practices and marketing materials at a sales team’s fingertips. This solution enables users to post and share content in a number of formats from any cloud-based drive such as Google Drive or Dropbox. The vendor’s value ...
DocSend gives you analytics and control on documents you send. See who opens your documents, who they forward them to, and how long they look at each page. You can turn off access, password protect, or set an expiration at any time. DocSend integrates with SalesForce as well as Box, Dropbox, Goog...
PersistIQ is a sales intelligence solution. The solution integrates with Salesforce as well as marketing automation platforms.
Tellwise is a sales content management software solution offered by Tellwise.
Showpad headquartered in Chicago (US) and Ghent (Belgium) provides their eponymous platform, providing sales coaching and enablement and sales content management under a single platform.
Postwire is a SaaS product that enables marketers to capture and organize content that salespeople and account managers can use to create a personalized resource page. Postwire merged with the Social Communications Company in 2015.
SalesHandy is a web based sales enablement solution used to share files, track emails, centralize document management and engage with leads. The software is best suited for small and medium sized businesses but also targets enterprise units. It helps sales teams reduce the sales cycle time, incre...
Bigtincan is a mobile content sales enablement platform, designed to make accessing and presenting content easier for salespeople. Marketers can create logic to recommend content for salespeople to share with prospects on their mobile device, based on the stage of the deal. Then content utilizati...
Attach (acquired by Cirrus Insight in 2017) is a sales enablement platform that is designed to help sales and marketing teams manage, track and control documents across the whole buyer journey. According to the vendor, Attach allows both marketers and salespeople to understand, in real-time, the ...
Fileboard provides actionable insights when businesses conduct live presentations, send and email presentations and conduct screen shares with prospects via this sales enablement tool. Fileboard also provides analytics on how prospects have engaged with presentations.
Modus (formerly App Data Room) is designed to drive sales success, by helping customers create and distribute content for the most critical moments of their sales process. The vendor boasts more than 120,000 sales and marketing professionals are using Modus to conduct 250,000 Critical Customer Co...
SocialPort is a social communication management system that allows organizations share content on social platforms, enabling them to grow relationships and exhibit thought leadership in their industry. rFactr also provides social content training that prepares each individual in a business to eng...
CustomShow is a B2B sales presentation platform that enables marketing teams to manage and control content while letting sales teams customize and present on multiple platforms. Combining a Slide Editor, Presentation Library and Online and Offline presenting options, CustomShow is designed to str...
Veelo, a BigTinCan company (acquired May 2019), provides their sales performance platform that combines sales onboarding, training, enablement and optimization into a single platform. The vendor’s value proposition is that Veelo utilizes brain science and machine learning to deliver the perfect t...
SharperAx is a sales content management software solution offered by SharperAx.
GetAccept is a software platform designed exclusively for sales professionals which facilitates deal design, orchestration and closure. Sales management and marketing teams are able to create automated deal workflows on behalf of sales representatives; combining video, live chat, collateral, cann...
iPresent is a sales content management software solution offered by iPresent Ltd..
Tilkee is a sales proposal automation software solution offered by Tilkee.
