10 Must-Try Types of B2B Sales Enablement Content

In the world of B2B sales, having the right content can make all the difference in closing a deal. Sales enablement content is a powerful tool that can help sales teams to engage with potential buyers, build trust, and ultimately drive revenue growth.

But what is sales enablement content, and how can you create content that resonates with your prospective customers?

In this article, we will explore the different types of sales enablement content and how you can use them to turn your website into a powerhouse that drives sales.

So, let's dive in and discover the world of B2B sales enablement content.

What is B2B sales enablement content?

B2B sales enablement content can be defined as any content that helps your sales team connect with a potential customer, build trust, and close sales deals.

Now, what does B2B sales enablement content include?

From case studies, whitepapers, and one-pagers to testimonials, blog posts, and video tutorials. The purpose of sales enablement content is to give your sales teams all the sales collateral needed to:

• Engage in meaningful conversations with prospects
• Answer the potential customer's questions
• Address all concerns and objections
• Form their sales pitches and convert prospects into paying customers

By creating useful and relevant content for each stage of the sales funnel, you can generate interest for your products and services, shorten the sales cycle, and ultimately - make it easier for your sales enablement teams to close more deals.

Why should you turn your website into a B2B sales content powerhouse?

Often, the website is the first point of contact your target customers have with your brand.

The website experience, being the first one for your target customers, can shape their perception of your company. This alone is enough to encourage you to invest in your sales enablement content strategy.

By turning your website into a B2B sales content powerhouse, you can equip your sales team with the tools they need to engage with prospects, build trust, and close deals.

And yet, there is much more to gain from investing in sales enablement resources.

Sales enablement content can establish your thought leadership, showcase your products and services, and provide valuable insights to potential buyers.

Creating useful sales enablement collateral can help you show your customers that you understand their needs. Meaning, you can offer them the information they need to make an informed buying decision.

Ultimately, transforming your website into a B2B sales content powerhouse can help you stand out from the competition. This is where SEO comes in play. With a collection of well-researched sales enablement materials, you can climb your way to the top of the SERPs.

But more on that later in this post.

How to create sales enablement content?

Creating effective sales enablement collateral is a crucial part of any B2B sales strategy. It involves developing content that educates, informs, and engages your audience, ultimately leading them to a purchasing decision.

However, with so many types of content and platforms available, it's not easy to know where to start and how to create content that resonates with your audience.

In this section, we'll explore some key strategies for creating successful B2B sales enablement content that will help you reach and engage your audience and achieve your sales goals.

Step #1: Identify your buyer persona

To create content that resonates with your audience, you need to start by identifying your buyer persona.

In essence, buyer personas represent fictional characters, acting as our ideal customers. Usually, we include details like age, job title, challenges, goals, and purchasing habits when defining our buyer personas.

Even though some demographic characteristics may not be as important today as intent and interests, it's still useful to try and define your ideal customer in these terms.

When you've fully researched your buyer persona, you can now confidently create new sales enablement content that will likely appeal to your audience throughout their entire customer journey.

Your main goal here is to address your customers' pain points and position your brand as a trusted authority in your industry. Give your customers a reason to go back to your website repeatedly.

Organizing a sales discovery call may be a great way to find out which types of content your customer prefers. Here's a list of discovery questions to ask on sales calls.

Step #2: Decide on the preferred content type for your target audience

Now, you've identified your buyer persona and researched their needs and wants. It's time to decide which type of sales enablement materials will best resonate with your audience.

Different content types work better for different audiences, so you'll need to pick the right one that can help you boost sales, connect with your buyers, and establish your brand as an authority.

For example, if your audience consists mainly of C-level executives, maybe short-form TikTok videos aren't going to cut it. Rigorous research is required beforehand, to understand which content type may have the best impact.

Still, there are numerous types of B2B sales enablement content you can choose from. From sales and marketing one-pagers, case studies, and whitepapers to ebooks, product demo videos, blog posts, and customer testimonials.

Before you decide which content type to produce, analyze your audience's behavior and preferences, try conducting surveys with existing customers, and find out what they think about your products and services.

Step #3: Create a 3-stage sales funnel

Creating effective sales enablement content requires a clear understanding of your buyer's journey. To guide your audience through the buying process, you can create a 3-step sales funnel.

Here are the three stages of the sales funnel:

1. Awareness (Top of the funnel)

In the awareness stage, your audience becomes aware of their issues and they make their first contact with your brand. At this point, you'll want to create educational content for them, provide them with actionable insights (regardless of the industry) through your marketing collateral, and address their pain points.

2. Consideration (Middle of the funnel)

In the consideration stage, your audience is already acquainted with your solutions. They are starting to consider several solutions to their problem, and yours is one of them. To increase the chances of these potential buyers choosing your solution, try providing more in-depth information about your products and services.

3. Decision (bottom of the funnel)

At this final stage, your audience is ready to make a purchase decision. To encourage your users to go forward with their purchase, think about creating high-converting BOFU content that clearly communicates your value proposition.

From comparing your products and services to those of your competitors and showcasing case studies of people using your solutions, there are a ton of methods to use at this stage.

In short, by creating a 3-step sales funnel, you can easily engage your audience effectively and guide them toward a buying decision.

Talk to your sales team

It can't be stressed enough how important it is to talk to your sales teams. They are the first ones to get in contact with your prospective customers and they have a ton of useful firsthand information.

Your sales reps know what your audience needs, what their objections are, and what makes them buy. Of course, this knowledge builds up over time, but your sales professionals can help you move forward if you take the time to listen to them.

They know best what kind of content worked well in the past and what resonates with customers.

Even better, when working with your sales reps, you can more easily nail down the content creation process and align your marketing and sales teams' efforts.

Create a sales enablement strategy

Developing a sales enablement strategy is key to making sure your sales collateral supports your business goals and sales targets.

Your sales enablement content strategy should pinpoint your audience, introduce concrete goals and KPIs, and lay down the content distribution plan.

Moreover, it defines the roles of your sales and marketing teams.

For example, you would want your content marketers to work on long-form content formats like blog posts, ebooks, or a marketing one-pager.

On the other hand, your sales reps can better help you draft sales email templates, write a sales script, and even create a sales playbook for all your sales teams to use.

Creating a comprehensive sales enablement strategy is the prerequisite for meeting your business goals through content - and delivering the best ROI.

10 types of content for B2B sales enablement

When it comes to creating B2B sales enablement content, there's a wide variety of options to choose from. But which types of content are most effective for your specific audience and goals?

Let's dive into some of the most successful B2B sales enablement content types and how they can support your sales and marketing efforts.

Sales one-pagers

Sales one-pagers are brief, informative documents that summarize your product or service's main features and benefits. They are a handy reference for sales reps and potential buyers and can be shared as a downloadable PDF or printed document.

One-pagers are especially useful for attracting prospects in the early stages of the customer journey when they want a general overview of your offering.

An effective one-pager helps sales reps tackle common objections and answer questions. In short, this would mean that every sales one-pager contains the most critical information your audience needs to make a buying decision.

Benefits:

• Promotes rapid understanding, prompting decision-making.
• Easily customizable for different target audiences or market segments.
• Enhances brand recognition with consistent design and messaging.
• Concisely communicates value proposition and key benefits.

Strategic fit:

• Ideal for initial meetings to leave a memorable impression.
• Valuable for content marketing at events and in follow-ups.

Here are 5 best tips for your sales team on how to create a killer sales one-pager:

1. Keep it concise. A one-pager should be short and to the point. Avoid including too much information that can overwhelm the reader.
2. Use visual content. Include high-quality images and graphics that are visually appealing and help convey your message. This includes product photos, charts, and diagrams your audience may want to see.
3. Highlight the value proposition. Clearly say what's the value proposition of your solutions. Briefly say why your offering is better than the competition and how it can help the customer.
4. Use persuasive language. Focus on the benefits of your solutions, rather than just listing features. Use active voice and action-oriented verbs to create a sense of urgency and excitement.
5. Include a call to action. A one-pager should always include a clear call-to-action that encourages the reader to take the next step, such as scheduling a demo or contacting your sales team. Make it easy for them to take action by providing contact information or a link to your website.

AppSumo gathered 7 more great one-pager examples, check them out.

Marketing one-pagers

Marketing one-pagers serve a different purpose than sales one-pagers.

They are used to promote new products and services to a wider audience, usually through social media, email marketing, or content marketing campaigns.

They are more detailed and include information about the target market, competitive landscape, and unique selling proposition.

Marketing one-pagers can also be used to support other marketing initiatives, such as trade shows or webinars.

To make an effective marketing one-pager, your marketing team needs to understand your audience and tailor your messaging to their specific needs and pain points.

Eye-catching design elements and social proof, such as customer testimonials or case studies, can also make your marketing one-pager more appealing.

Benefits:

• Deep dive into product benefits and company values.
• Effective leave-behind content.
• Supports cross-selling with comprehensive solutions showcase.
• Aligns marketing and sales messaging.

Strategic fit:

• Sparks initial interest and encourages further exploration in the sales process.
• Useful for promoting products or services at events and in subsequent communications.
• Clearly communicates what makes the offering stand out.
• Strengthens sales pitches by providing in-depth information and insights.

Here's a one-pager example.

Case studies

Case studies are like success stories that showcase how your solutions solved a problem for a customer.

They engage potential customers in the consideration stage of their journey when they are looking for proof of your product or service's effectiveness.

And what better way to attract new customers than by showing how your current customers succeed with your help.

Not to mention, case studies are of great help to every sales rep on your team. When the time comes to whip out some real-world examples, case studies are usually the first ones to be showcased.

Chances are that many of your current customers reached success with the help of your products. Talk to them, hear their story, and learn how they did it.

Next time your sales reps try showcasing a case study to potential investors or customers, choose a successful customer with an interesting story and present it so your prospects can easily follow you.

Of course, you can publish these case studies on your website, try to format them on one page, send them out in your email campaigns, or even include these case studies in your training materials.

Already, it's easy to see why is sales enablement content important for any sales professional.

Benefits:

• Real-world application and results.
• Credibility through successful implementations.
• Proof of concept for potential buyers.
• Compelling storytelling.

Strategic Fit:

• Crucial for convincing skeptics during the decision-making stage.
• Offers solid proof of the product or service's ability to deliver results.
• Helps prospects imagine themselves achieving similar success.
• Strengthens sales pitches by backing them up with real-world success stories.

Here's a great example of a case study by HostAnalytics (now known as Planful), showing how they used LeadGnome to improve their lead quality.

Here you can find the entire case study.

Whitepapers

Whitepapers are a bit different than the rest of these content formats and to a certain point similar to ebooks. In essence, whitepapers are long-form essays that go deep into a specific topic or issue related to your solutions.

Now, what makes them different from the rest is the fact that they are written in a more formal, technical style and tend to provide detailed analysis, research, and insights on a particular topic.

This means - no fluff, no persuasive language, and no hard selling.

When you publish a whitepaper, it is a representation of your company's knowledge of an issue. All of your research, statistics, and analysis should be included in these whitepapers.

They are often used to establish a brand as a thought leader in the industry and to build trust and credibility with your target market.

Benefits:

• Showcases industry knowledge and expertise.
• Engages with in-depth analysis.
• Generates leads with valuable information.
• Supports lead nurturing with educational content.

Strategic Fit:

• Positions your brand as a leading authority during the initial phase of generating leads.
• Draws in an audience that is knowledgeable and interested.
• Grows a database of leads who are genuinely interested and likely to convert.
• Establishes your brand as a reliable source of valuable information.

Creating a whitepaper is no easy task, so here's a detailed guide that will help you start writing your next whitepaper from scratch!

eBooks

eBooks are a great way to share in-depth knowledge and insights on a particular topic related to your industry. They're longer than blog posts, but shorter than whitepapers, and are often designed with visuals, like images and infographics, to make the content more engaging.

eBooks work wonders for engaging prospects in the middle stages of the buyer's journey when they're looking for more comprehensive information about your solutions.

They can also help generate leads by requesting visitors to share their contact information to download the eBook. In short, they are one of the most popular B2B lead magnets ever.

To create effective eBooks, choose a relevant and compelling topic, offer high-quality and valuable content, and utilize visual elements to enhance the overall reading experience.

Benefits:

• Provides a thorough understanding of the subject matter.
• Boosts brand recognition and credibility.
• Great for simplifying complex concepts.
• Encourages sharing of content.

Strategic Fit:

• Fits seamlessly into content marketing and lead nurturing plans.
• Appeals to readers at different stages of the sales funnel.
• Strengthens connections with the audience by offering valuable resources.
• Establishes the company as a trusted industry authority.

You don't need to go that deep into technical details like when writing a whitepaper - but still - disregard the fluff.

Interesting to see is how eBooks are still at the top when it comes to conversion rate. eBooks are some of the most popular lead magnets currently, and the image above just goes to show how important written content is.

Product demos

Product demos are a type of interactive content that allows potential customers to experience your products in action.

Animito reports that there is a 73% increase in the likelihood of visitors making a purchase if they watch a product video.

They're particularly useful for engaging prospects who are ready to make a purchase decision.

Product demos highlight your products' benefits and features and provide a hands-on experience for potential customers. You can deliver them through various channels, such as in-person meetings, webinars, or video demos.

Regardless of how you intend to deliver these product demos, they are most certainly one of the best-converting types of content out there. If your company has a great product (especially if it's a digital one), a product demo is a must.

Creating effective product demos requires you to know how your users are using them. If your product helps your marketing team conduct better customer research, showcase how those features work on a few examples.

This is where you show how unique your product is, how easy to use it is, and exactly what can be gained through its use. Make the demo easy to follow and, ideally, create a script every sales rep can use when on a demo meeting.

Benefits:

• Hands-on product feature and benefit demonstration.
• Real-time concern and question addressing.
• Personalizes sales experience.
• Demonstrates practical application.

Strategic Fit:

• Essential for selling complex or technical products.
• Makes the product easier to understand for buyers.
• Customizes the presentation to showcase particular solutions.
• Directly deals with and resolves any concerns.

If you're not sure where to start when creating a product demo, it would be best to check out these 16 examples of high-converting demos.

You've organized a demo and sent a sales proposal, but there's still no reply? Here's a guide on how to follow up after sending a sales proposal.

Blog posts

Blogs are a great way to boost your B2B sales. They provide a lot of valuable information and can establish you as an authority in your industry - if you do them right.

Plus, they can drive traffic to your website. Just like this one does!

According to DemandMetric article, 70% of consumers would rather learn about a company through a blog than a traditional advertisement.

Blogs can cover a wide variety of topics, from news and trends in your industry to best practices and how-to guides.

To create effective blog content for B2B sales, it's important to keep your audience in mind. You need to provide content that is relevant and valuable to them. This could mean sharing insights and tips on industry-specific challenges, highlighting the benefits of your solutions, or showcasing success stories and case studies.

Benefits:

• Increases SEO and organic traffic.
• Establishes brand expertise and voice.
• Continuous customer engagement and education.
• Supports lead nurturing and conversion.

Strategic Fit:

• Boosts initial brand awareness by being easily found through search.
• Informs and interests potential customers on important subjects.
• Builds confidence and expertise in the brand.
• Promotes further exploration of products or services

Before you even start writing your blog posts, the first thing you should do is comprehensive keyword research. This is imperative! If your website isn't as authoritative on the web as you'd like, chances are your blog posts will be buried on the 6th or 7th page of Google's results.

Think about how difficult a certain keyword is to rank for, how many backlinks you'll need, what is the best outline, what is the searcher's intent behind their query (very important), and what's new that you have to say on the topic.

You want all your posts to be well-written, easy to understand, and they need to clearly communicate your ideas. If you decide to write a blog post on sales enablement content types, you'd want to list all these content types, include tips, examples, and even link to a guide that can further assist your users.

They will appreciate it. Hopefully, you will too!

So, here's a link to a great resource on writing sales blog content. See what we did there?

Infographics

Infographics are a bit different, visual type of content that simplifies complex information and presents it in an easy-to-understand way.

Using infographics and other colorful visuals can increase sales by up to 80%.

If you look at all the infographics you've seen on LinkedIn lately, you'll notice that they all have the goal of presenting complex ideas - in a simple manner. A good rule of thumb is - if you can explain something to a 10-year-old, you know what you're talking about.

And when you combine that kind of explanation with eye-grabbing visuals, you get highly-shareable content that can easily reach and resonate with mass audiences.

For example, infographics can be used to display industry statistics, highlight key facts, explain your product's features, or even provide step-by-step instructions for a certain activity.

A great use of infographics is in B2B lead generation. In this case, you could ask users to provide their email addresses in exchange for downloading or accessing the infographic.

There are countless ways in which you can take advantage of infographics, so think about how these infographics can be incorporated in your sales strategy.

Benefits:

• Enhances content shareability across platforms.
• Boosts user engagement with visually appealing designs.
• Facilitates quicker absorption of information.
• Simplifies complex data for easy understanding.

Strategic fit:

• Ideal for top-of-funnel marketing to attract and educate prospects.
• Enhances email marketing campaigns with engaging visuals.
• Supports social media strategies by increasing likes and shares.
• Complements reports and presentations with data visualization.

Here's an awesome example of an infographic used on social media. SEMrush uses infographics to primarily educate their users, as their software can easily become too complex if you're a first-time user.

They use infographics to display their product features, explain the best ways to use their tools, and how to learn SEO.

Using sales productivity tools is a must in 2023, regardless of the type and amount of content you're publishing. We've handpicked the 11 best sales productivity tools for you. Here's the list.

Video tutorial

Video tutorials are a fantastic way to show how to use your products step by step. And if you're solving a specific problem with your products, why not showcase it through a video?

It is estimated that there are 3.5 billion digital video viewers globally.

Think about how many times you opened YouTube and started typing "how to..."

How beneficial would it be if one of your videos was one of the top 5 results on YouTube for such a query? Not only those YouTube videos can direct your users to your website or a sales one-pager, but they can improve your brand awareness incalculably.

And when it comes to distributing these videos, you can promote them across every platform you're on. Moreover, you can repurpose that video into tweets, a blog post, LinkedIn posts, or even shorter videos that can be used on Facebook or Instagram.

The possibilities are endless.

All you have to do is - make sure your video content is relevant. You don't want to spend one full week writing scripts, shooting the video, and editing only to have a video no one wants to watch.

Today, our standards as consumers are skyrocketing. We open a video, skim the content, check if there's anything new and useful, and if there isn't - we bounce back and go over to the next one.

Benefits:

• Demonstrates product functionality and benefits in action.
• Increases engagement and time spent on your platform.
• Enhances customer understanding and product usability.
• Can be repurposed across multiple channels for broader reach.

Strategic fit:

• Effective for educating prospects during the consideration stage.
• Boosts customer support by providing self-service resources.
• Enhances product pages with interactive content.
• Utilized in email campaigns to increase click-through rates.

We know it's not easy to create such video content, so here's a step-by-step guide on how to create videos that will leave your users wanting more.

Did you know? Video is the go-to content format of 2023. Here's the list of all the top B2B sales trends in 2023 you should know.

Testimonials

Customer testimonials are a fantastic way to build trust with your potential customers and show them how your products satisfied your customers' needs.

When considering a purchase, 92% of consumers read online reviews and testimonials.

They're usually short quotes or statements from happy customers that explain how your product or service helped them. You can use testimonials on your website, in case studies, or in sales presentations to show social proof.

When creating testimonials, make sure they're genuine and from real customers. Of course, there are several types of testimonials, so be sure to pick which type would best fit your brand.

Also, be sure to focus on the specific benefits and outcomes they've experienced from using your product or service.

Benefits:

• Builds credibility and trust with prospective customers.
• Showcases real-life success stories and customer satisfaction.
• Enhances decision-making confidence among prospects.
• Increases conversion rates through social proof.

Strategic fit:

• Ideal for use in sales presentations to highlight customer success.
• Embedding on landing pages to improve conversions.
• Incorporating into case studies for in-depth customer stories.
• Leveraging in email marketing to provide evidence of value.

Here's how Basecamp, a project management software, displays customer testimonials on its website.

They do it very simply - no photos, just the name, role, and positive feedback. They're showing testimonials which are five sentences max and the benefits their customers describe are highlighted in yellow.

How to generate ideas for B2B sales enablement content?

Coming up with new ideas for B2B sales enablement collateral can be tricky, but it's essential to keep producing fresh and compelling content to engage and educate your audience.

A great way to approach this is by creating content that specifically addresses your target audience's pain points and challenges.

You can also use data and insights gathered from customer interactions, industry events, and social media to inform your content strategy. Working closely with your sales and marketing teams and seeking feedback from your customers can also help you generate new ideas and ensure that your content is both relevant and valuable.

Probably the best thing you can do is check out what's working for your competitors. Think about what kind of topics they're covering and in which format. If you've got something new and useful to say - why not? The demand is there.

Also, maybe not the best method, but it still works - ask ChatGPT for ideas. When your imagination starts running dry, all it takes is a single well-constructed prompt to get the juices flowing.

Of course, we're not saying to accept that ChatGPT content without previous research. Think of those results as your starting points.

P.S. If you want to increase your sales efficiency, read our guide and learn all the techniques you need to get more sales.

Which sales enablement content type should your sales reps focus on?

There are many types of B2B sales enablement content that can help you engage with your target audience, educate them about your products or services, and drive conversions.

But not all types of content will work for your business and audience equally well. To figure out which content type is the best fit, think about your buyer persona, industry trends, and the specific pain points your audience is experiencing.

By using the right approach, you can create engaging B2B sales enablement collateral that sets your business apart and helps you reach your sales targets.

Finally, when your content strategy is planned out and the plan is set in motion, you'll need to prepare by choosing a sales proposal tool. Luckily, we can help here. Propoze is a block-based proposal software, created to make your proposal look beautiful with little effort.

Start using Propoze today and let us know how we can help you succeed with your proposal game at support@propoze.app!