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Sales teams face intense pressure to appeal to today’s info-hungry buyers. Over 60 percent of all buyers have already done their own research on your company, your products, and your competitors before they even speak to you. Therefore, sales teams need to have the right knowledge and information at their fingertips when speaking to prospective customers.
Sales battlecards provide that essential information efficiently, helping sales reps close more deals. And one way to produce more relevant and powerful battlecards is by repurposing marketing content. The marketing team has already done the heavy lifting to create the content and is well-versed in the sales funnel, so their work can be a good starting point for battlecards.
If you’re not sure where to start, we’ve written this checklist that’ll help you repurpose any content into powerful sales battlecards—whether you do it yourself or have the marketing team assist. But first, here’s a quick reminder about what battlecards are.
What are battlecards?
Battlecards are concise compilations comparing a company’s products, services, features, and pricing to one or many competitors. They’re a quick reference sales enablement tool that reps can use when talking or preparing to talk to prospective customers. They help sales understand how their company positions itself, and how it compares to the market in critical areas buyers care about, such as performance, value, and price.
Battlecard formats vary from company to company, but they’re typically a one-pager filled with lists, charts, data, and short statements that quickly convey valuable information. Generally speaking, battlecards contain the following information:
- Market overviews
- Target customers, markets, segments, and opportunities
- Competitor analysis and comparison
- Customer- and segment-specific value propositions
- Answers to common objections
- Success stories illustrated with data and product benefits
The better the battlecard, the better the chances that sales teams will beat the competition and win more deals. Getting battlecards right can mean the difference between winning and losing a deal. And in the B2B marketplace, that could be hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.
One way to increase the value of your battlecards while reducing the time and effort it takes to produce them is by repurposing existing marketing content for them. The marketing team has already done the bulk of the research for them and is well-suited to crafting concise and powerful value-forward copy that’ll help the sales team close deals. Repurposing also frees time for your sales team to focus on what they do best.
Why marketing is primed to repurpose content for battlecards
Today’s buyer does a lot of reading and research before ever talking to sales. According to some numbers, 60 percent of buyers prefer to talk to sales only after researching their options and drafting a shortlist. That means that the marketing team has already been “speaking” to buyers before reaching out to sales. They’ve been researching the market and competitors, discovering prospects’ obstacles, and learning what to say to convince them to reach out to sales. As a result, marketers have the skills to turn facts and figures into the business benefits that persuade people.
Plus, they’re already experts at repurposing content from one format to another for content marketing campaigns. They can use those same skills to repurpose content into useful battlecards for different sales segments, channels, competitors, and more. Marketers understand the sales funnel and are used to aligning content and copy with it, just like sales. So why not leverage this ready-to-use resource and its relevant information for sales battlecards?
To help you make the transition, we’ve created a checklist you can use when repurposing content into sales battlecards. It’ll streamline the process, align the cards with sales requirements and goals, and reduce the time to develop them.
A 10-step checklist to repurpose content into sales battlefront cards
- Understand how your sales team sells: While marketing knows and understands the sales funnel, you may not understand how your company’s sales process works. Speak with sales first to understand their process, goals, and methods. Only then can you know how to repurpose content to meet their needs.
- Outline the card before repurposing: Since each card is different, they’ll have different information. An outline will keep you on track as you repurpose and ensure you don’t include extra info that’s not relevant.
- Focus on the success of the prospect/customer: Understand what type of sales challenge the card is meant to address and include only relevant content for it. For example, competitor-specific cards should only include info and data pertinent to that competitor, while objection-specific cards should include benefits and data relevant to the objections.
- Keep them short: Be sure only to include the necessary information needed for that card. The cards are meant to be a quick reference for reps on a call. So use lots of bullet points, charts, lists, graphics, and images on the cards.
- Use only updated content: Battlecards should always be in sync with market changes. When repurposing, be sure to refresh data, stats, and other content to ensure it’s the latest and most correct information. Talking about outdated info can cause prospects to lose trust in the sales rep and the company.
- Analyze the data to provide context: Data without context can confuse prospects. Battlecards should include data but come with a side of context and relevant details to explain why the data’s important.
- Keep it conversational: Write the cards in your brand’s style, tone, and voice so sales reps can read straight off the battlecard if they want. In particular, keep this advice in mind when drafting any objection-countering content and business benefits. Use the same language, words, and phrases that prospects and customers use to help them unconsciously align with the sales team. When they’re aligned, it’s easier to make the sale.
- Write two-sentence success stories: Repurpose published case studies into short success stories that sales reps can retell. These are powerful stories for prospects since they often face similar challenges and can picture themselves gaining similar positive results.
- Add several “golden” questions: Help sales discover more about prospect needs and hesitations by including solid leading questions. Also known as “golden” questions, these are open-ended questions that get the prospect talking and help them feel like sales has their best interests at heart. These questions may have inspired the original marketing content, so they can now be included in the battlecard.
- Make the battlecards easy to find: Battlecards should be kept somewhere easy for sales teams to access.
While the sales team may be responsible for the relationship with prospects, sales is really a team effort. Marketing, sales, customer success, and customer support all have a hand in ensuring customer value with your products and transitioning them through the customer journey.
Sales battlecards are essential tools for converting prospects and leads into customers, but they don’t have to be solely owned and produced by the sales team. Marketing can also help repurpose their marketing assets into relevant and valuable battlecards. Likewise, sales can also reuse other sales content into battlecards—with a bit of help from this checklist.
Anyone who creates content for your company can use this checklist to repurpose their work into a sales battlecard. They’ll now know how to transform the asset into relevant content for the sales team and better understand how sales uses them. By collaborating across teams and business areas, they’ll contribute to overall business success and better understand how they contribute to it. All because they repurposed some content into a battlecard.
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