Sales enablement and content marketing are both critical components of any effective marketing strategy. But they’re often viewed as completely separate functions that are done independently of one another. The reality though, is that for them to be most effective, they need to work together. This blog will provide an overview of both to help you understand the value of using them together in your business.

1. Sales Enablement & Content Marketing
Use Them Together to Move Customers Through the Sales Funnel
OVERVIEW
Sales enablement and content marketing are both critical components of any effective
marketing strategy. But they’re often viewed as completely separate functions that are
done independently of one another. The reality though, is that for them to be most
effective, they need to work together.
This blog will provide an overview of both to help you understand the value of using
them together in your business.
WHAT IS CONTENT MARKETING
The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as,
“Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and
distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a
clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”
Okay, but what does that really mean?
CMI expands their definition by adding,
“Instead of pitching your products or services, you are providing truly relevant
and useful content to your prospects and customers to help them solve their
issues.”

2. So to summarize, what that means is that content marketing is about providing the
customer with useful, relevant information that explains how and why the product or
service actually solves a problem. Instead of focusing on the technology used in the
product, or the features that are included, content marketing focuses on the solution the
product provides to the customer. Content marketing may also include information on
what benefits the customer will gain by using the product or service.
Customers look at your product or service because it can provide them with a solution
to a problem or issue they need to solve. They aren’t interested in why or how a product
works; they’re only interested that it works.
In other words, the primary focus of content marketing is NOT about the product or
service and IS about the customer and their needs.
WHAT IS SALES ENABLEMENT
HubSpot defines sales enablement as,
“Sales enablement is the iterative process of providing your business’s sales
team with the resources they need to close more deals. These resources may
include content, tools, knowledge, and information to effectively sell your product
or service to customers.”
Okay, that’s pretty straightforward, but to expand on that definition just a bit more,
Seismic adds this,
“Sales enablement is the strategic process of providing salespeople with the
tools they need to consistently have valuable conversations with customers at
each stage of the customer’s problem-solving life cycle. Sales enablement
includes the information, content, tools and processes salespeople need to
succeed at all stages of the sale.”
So basically, sales enablement is the process of providing the sales teams (I say teams,
because sales enablement really should include both inside and outside sales functions
as they are both customer-facing) with all of the training, tools, product information, and
customer-facing collateral and materials that they will use as they engage with
customers at all stages of the sales funnel. This provides sales with the information they
need to be able to answer customer’s questions (i.e., sell effectively) and help move the
customer down the sales funnel.
In other words, the primary focus of sales enablement is still about providing the
customer with the required information about a product or service. In the case of sales
enablement, the information just comes to the customer through the sales team instead
of the customer accessing the information directly.

3. One other consideration needs to be noted as well. If your business sells through
channel partners, sales rep firms, or other third-party channels, sales enablement needs
to include these organizations as they too are part of your sales organization.
COMMON FOCUS
Content marketing and sales enablement also have a lot in common.
 Both content marketing materials and sales enablement materials are created (or
at least should be reviewed) jointly by the sales and marketing organizations
 Both are focused on providing relevant, useful information to their audiences
 Both provide information about the product or service
 Both are used to help educate customers
 Both are used as part of the sales process
 Both are designed to help optimize the customer’s sales experience
 Both are designed to help move customers down the sales funnel
 Both are designed to lead to closed sales
As you can see, both content marketing and sales enablement are actually very
complementary to and supportive of each other. This is why when they are used
together they provide a strong platform for sales success.
MISCONCEPTIONS STILL ABOUND
Although sales enablement and content marketing are obviously more effective when
used together, there are still misconceptions that abound.
The two biggest misconceptions are:
1. Content marketing is considered to be more top-of-funnel focused, as it provides
general information to potential customers when they’re doing initial product
research
2. Sales enablement is considered to be more mid- and bottom-of-funnel focused,
as it provides sales team with more detailed information they can use to engage
and interact with customers who have made the decision to move forward and
are already further down the purchase path
Nothing could be further from the truth.
While in the past there may have been some validity to those beliefs, it is no longer true.
Today, sales enablement and content marketing are used together up and down the
sales funnel. Although how, when and where exactly they are used may vary from
product to product and industry to industry.
The reality is that sales enablement and content marketing are both part of the
customer engagement process and both have responsibility for driving customers down

4. the sales funnel. And just like the sales and
marketing organizations, both are equally
critical to the success of the business.
Sales enablement includes not only the
product training, tools and processes that
sales teams use, but also leverages and
uses the material and information that
content marketing develops for customers.
As such, to be most effective, sales
enablement and content marketing should
be used together.
SUMMARY
While the focus of sales enablement and content marketing may initially seem to be
somewhat different, in reality it isn’t. The actual goal of both is to provide the information
the customer needs. Whether the information is delivered directly to the customer (i.e.,
content marketing) or indirectly through the sales teams (i.e., sales enablement), the
end result is the same – to provide the customer with all of the information needed at all
stages of the sales funnel to move them down the funnel towards a purchase decision.
© 2020 – Richard Hatheway, Catalyst Strategic Marketing
All Rights Reserved