The practice of sales enablement has rapidly evolved during recent years. And the technologies that support this practice are in high demand. According to a recent report by Aragon Research, sales enablement technology is expected to grow from its current $780 million market size to $5 billion by the year 2021.

A driving factor in the growing investment in sales enablement technology is the goal of building efficiencies that can reduce expenses across sales organizations and ultimately boost sales. Forrester estimates that the typical technology company spends $135,000 per salesperson each year in sales support activity, making up as much as 19% of the company’s total SG&A expense — not including travel or compensation. One figure from a prominent sales enablement technology vendor supports at least part of that equation, estimating that over 75% of companies using sales enablement tools saw an increase in sales within the first year of implementation.

But what is sales enablement, exactly?

Sales enablement is defined as the resources a company provides to help its sales team engage contacts and close deals. The discipline of sales enablement within a business is generally divided between sales and marketing, who collaborate on common resource requirements and responsibilities. Resources provided can include sales training, marketing collateral, CRM software, access to current customer and product information — essentially, anything that prepares your sales team to participate in meaningful conversations with prospects and win business.

The data supporting sales enablement strategies is compelling. Market intelligence firm IDC has estimated that one in three sales are lost due to a lack of sales preparation, despite research indicating that salespeople spend 7 hours per week — nearly one whole business day — searching for information to help prepare for sales calls. Therefore, companies have begun to increase their sales enablement budgets in an effort to make their sales teams more efficient.

How does video support sales enablement?

Your buyers are more knowledgeable than ever. By the time a prospective buyer contacts your sales organization, they’ve already read the marketing material on your website, visited your competitor’s website, and have read the latest analyst reports for your industry, creating a challenge for your team to stand out. Sales reps need scalable tools that help them differentiate themselves from competitors and make the most of their meetings with prospective customers.

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A video platform meets these needs by helping organizations efficiently give sales reps the information and resources they need in a compelling way. Video also empowers sales reps to communicate more effectively — among themselves, as well as with their prospects. When organizations incorporate video into their sales enablement process, they can realize the following benefits:

• Anytime, anywhere access to training: Sales methodology, role-play exercises, updated product information, conference sessions, and more can be recorded and uploaded into the company’s video portal, where reps can view sales training videos on an on-demand basis, whether in the office on their laptop computers or in the field using a mobile device.
• Informal knowledge sharing: Video can help your reps quickly capture ideas, best practices, and supplement ideas whenever and wherever they are. Team members can take advantage of each other’s insider expertise and learn new tactics, even if they’re geographically dispersed, or long after your expert has moved on to another role.
• Search for information more effectively: Cut down on the time your sales reps spend looking for specific information in your company’s knowledge repository. Industry-leading video platforms enable users to search inside all of the videos on the company’s “Corporate YouTube” for the exact slide, example, or information to present to a prospective customer.
• Personalized communications: Video can improve the performance of prospecting communications. Studies have shown that including the word “video” in an email’s subject line can increase click-through rates by 7-13%. Adding brief video recordings to post-call follow-up messages can be a quick and simple way to make these communications more personal and help differentiate your messages from those of your competitors.

Differentiate Your Team With A Video Platform For Sales Enablement 

To learn more ways that video can improve your company’s sales enablement processes, download our free white paper, Break Through: 18 Ways You Can Boost Sales Enablement With Video.