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When you’re working the front lines of sales or marketing, integrated marketing communications challenges can be a daily hurdle.

Trying to plan the right content, map buyer personas, distribute material and coordinate IMC, analyze consumption, etc. tends to reveal obvious gaps in technological capability that aren’t mitigated by current marketing and sales stacks.

The challenge for many isn’t finding the right solution, but rather, convincing the key decision maker to invest in a tool or solution that you need. Today we look at 3 steps to earn executive buy-in for sales enablement software (and other purchases).

A quick google search reveals several tips and lists to earn management buy-in for a change of strategy or investment in new technology, but as I’m sure many have found, they can be self-serving, lack focused value to your specific situation, and don’t make it easier to have that important 'final' discussion.

Tablets and the technology behind them have taken the tech world by storm. Initially introduced to the market in 1987 by Linus, tablets became one of the most desireable technologies in 2010 when Apple introduced the iPad (Business Insider, 2013).

Today we analyze the application of tablet technology for enhanced marketing effectiveness in B2B sales.

The New Year has arrived and it’s time to round up the hottest trends in sales and marketing for 2015. This year, sales reps and marketers will gain the benefits of establishing deeper connections with customers through the following 4 trends:

1. Mobile Sales Enablement is going to change the way organizations do business

Sales Call remains to be the most traditional way of engaging with customers; this is why Mobile Sales Enablement adoption is growing at a rapid rate. Purchases made by tablets rose 48% year over year in the second quarter to $8 billion, which is three times faster than purchases made at a desktop computer, according to Business Insider. 2015 will see this number continue to rise as sales reps realize that Mobile Sales Enablement provides the best way to present solutions to customers. To stay on top of this trend, sales execs will have to adopt tablets if they want to increase sales team performance.

As hard as it might be for some of us old-timers to believe, 2015 represents the exact 30-year mark referenced in Back to the Future Part II.  Makes you feel old, doesn’t it?  

The concept of time, beyond Hollywood's interpretations of traveling through it, is a core currency among modern B2B marketers and sellers: product developers are under constant pressure to reduce speed-to-market. Marketers are tasked with refreshing – and controlling – the brand more frequently than ever before, and delivering more quality leads, and faster than a DeLorean. Sales leaders are pulled in a million directions, and never have enough space on their calendar to ride along with their reps in order to provide proper coaching. Reps themselves are now required to act like micro-marketers, adding the stress of delivering the right message, at the right time, to the right person, to their already-metered selling time. And even clients are required to become smarter buyers, distilling terabytes of user-generated and Googled data into just-in-time, lean purchasing behaviors that minimize face time with traditional B2B sales reps who cherish that 1:1 encounter more than anything else.

The tablet has changed the game in the face-to-face interaction and it has changed the game for the sales rep, too. The moment that a sales rep leaves the office for a sales call, Sales and Marketing execs empower the sales force with Mobile Sales Enablement. Companies that harness the possibilities offered by Sales Enablement technology, in other words, the tablet, are succeeding in several areas, and one of them is by bringing a system of Mobile Content Management into place.

The global medical device industry was worth $348 billion in 2013 and is expected to grow even more in 2014. Respiratory equipment, catheters, patient monitoring and dental equipment are by far the largest categories of medical devices that are expected to grow as new products are introduced in 2013 which include stents, catheters and meshes. Many companies are also growing by acquisition and now their reps need to cut through the marketing noise, get through to the physician, provide more value, and respond to the RFP in a timely fashion.

There is an old saying - ‘The fortune is in the follow-up.” Sales statistics from the National Sales Executive Association showed that: 48% of sales reps never follow up with a prospect, 25% make a second contact and stop, 12% only make three contacts and stop and only 10% of sales reps make more than three contacts. But, 80% of won business happens on the 5^th – 12^th conversation.  For Best-in-Class performers, registering their name into the subconscious of customers means never underestimating the power of the follow-up. 

Multi-channel engagement has opened up avenues for sales reps like never before. In an effort to increase the engagement process, world class sales reps have found that effective campaigns, emails, social media and Web portals have enabled sales reps to increase win rates in the follow-up stages. In an effort to target customers using the right messages, world class sales and marketing teams are creating the kind of content marketing strategies that work to enable sales reps post-sales call.  

The road to revenue growth is directly dependent on the performance of the sales team, and there is nothing like revving up the sales team than doing so with the right technology.

Discovery can be one of the most powerful tools you offer to your potential customers. The act of discovering fosters excitement, curiosity and interest. Build that energizing experience around your product and you have a recipe for an engaging sales cycle that ends in closing a deal. 

Targeted messages, personalized content and more effective sales calls are just some of the benefits of sales enablement. When sales reps use sales enabling tools to communicate with HCPs, they are better prepared for the face-to-face interaction as well as the follow-up stages. When meeting with a HCP, a sales enablement platform works to enable Sales to create more effective and personalized presentations which elicit a positive purchase decision from customers.