7 Impactful Ways Product Marketers Can Enable Sales Teams

A few weeks ago I received an email from a former colleague asking if I had any tips for sales enablement. Specifically, he was interested in how we arm our customer-facing teams to tell a cohesive story around the product, a launch, a new feature, etc. 

His question got me thinking about the internal processes, touchpoints, and vehicles we use to keep our customer-facing teams informed and aligned around our product. 

I shared with him the following seven tactics we’ve implemented at Chili Piper. These are repeatable processes that have helped us keep our sales, account management, and customer success teams enabled. Hopefully, they can help you as well. 

1. Create a short video demo of new product features

When we launch a new feature, we take two minutes to walk through how the functionality works on video. Not only does this loop the sales team in on what the product can do, but they can also see how we demo and talk about the new feature. 

This can double as a video for your customers as well, which is why we post these on our YouTube page and resources center. 

Here’s one we recently did for a UI update.

2. Create messaging briefs

For all of our features, we create a document outlining how our sales team can position the product, whether it’s in an email, on calls, or in a demo. This document gives our sales team a full understanding of how to position the product to showcase the value it provides. 

Download the template we use to create messaging briefs for the sales team to get started.

3. Interview customers to hear how they describe the value 

Getting a customer on the phone to describe a feature and the value it provides is ideal. Our sales reps love these videos because they can hear directly from customers how our features help them. They can then use this messaging when speaking to other prospects about similar pain points, and how Chili Piper can help. 

Below is an example of a customer explaining how our product has helped their business. 

4. Send an internal newsletter

Chili Piper has an internal newsletter we send via Slack and email every Monday. It includes content like customer wins, product announcements, marketing updates, and key metrics. 

For us, the newsletter is an awesome channel to get information out to the whole team. For the rest of the company, it’s a great way to stay on top of everything going on at Chili Piper. People seem to like it as it has an ~80% open rate. 

We created an internal newsletter template that you can use to better enable your team.

5. Have a shared drive for collateral

We’ve built a shared drive where we house all of our public-facing sales collateral. This includes everything from one-pagers to case studies to short gifs of our feature (reps love quick gifs they can toss in a cadence). 

All of our sales reps have access to the drive and can request new pieces of collateral whenever they have an idea that will help them sell our product.

We’ve also started a Content Spotlight where we highlight a piece of collateral each week and ideas around how to best utilize it.

6. Assist with sales emails

We often work with our SDRs to build and test the messaging they use in their Salesloft cadences. Since my team has a marketing background, we can give ideas on how to effectively pitch the product’s value. The SDRs appreciate the fresh perspective, and it’s led to higher response rates from prospects.

7. Host a regular product training

The last thing we do is host a bi-weekly product training. This meeting is held every other week for everyone on the sales and customer success teams. We cover any product releases that have happened in the past two weeks, provide walk-throughs, discuss any new collateral, etc. 

The meeting is also an opportunity for the sales team members to ask questions about new features or request changes that will help them better demo our product. It’s a great time to connect and get on the same page. 

Now it’s your turn

Time to test out these ideas and see how they work for you. I can confidently say we’ve seen an improvement in communication, product understanding, and ultimately sales due to the enablement efforts I’ve outlined above. 

Are there other sales enablement strategies that you recommend? Let us know in the comments below!