It’s Time to Expand CRM: Start with a Content Library

sales

It’s Time to Expand CRM: Start with a Content Library

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Today’s most effective sales leaders realize that CRM alone cannot meet the dynamic needs of our web-centric, buyer-empowered world. In response, they’re expanding their CRM deployments with strong sales and marketing content management: taking what was once a simple record-keeping system and transforming it into a comprehensive portal for sales action and buyer engagement.

Aberdeen’s 2015 CRM + Sales Enablement study found that by marrying CRM to the most effective technologies and techniques of content management, top-performing sales leaders are creating highly effective “micro-marketers” among their elite sellers for stronger sales execution and better returns.

Why Are Companies Expanding CRM?

Top performing companies are expanding their CRM’s with content management platforms for these key reasons:

  1. Centralization: All sales and marketing assets that their sales reps need are in one place to effectively nurture and close deals.
  2. Personalization: They can tailor buyer-facing communications with relevant, customized material that speaks directly to the needs of each prospect.
  3. Alignment: Sales and marketing departments can continuously collaborate and refine value messaging and resources to improve ROI.
  4. Measurement: They get insight into content usage by sales reps, what they’re sharing with buyers, and how buyers are responding, in real time. This fuels faster responses, higher content quality and increased marketing ROI.

The Numbers Don’t Lie

Compared with companies planning to reduce or maintain CRM deployment, companies that complement CRM with sales enablement (content management) tools report impressive results:

    • 32% higher overall team attainment of sales quotas
    • 24% more sales reps achieving individual quotas
    • 23% higher lead-conversion rates
    • 11% more quotes resulting in orders

The Takeaway:

CRM + Content Management = Improved Sales Effectiveness.

The single-purpose CRM is fading fast in today’s world of real-time connections and rich user experience. The only way to keep CRM relevant is to expand it with actionable content management tools – and transform it from a simple record-keeping tool into a comprehensive platform for sales action and buyer engagement.

By Accent Technologies

17th July 2015