Equipping Your Life Sciences Sales Team with the Right Content to Close the Sale

Every sales team has challenges when it comes to defining, understanding, and connecting with the buyer’s journey. Life sciences organizations have even more unique needs when it comes to the process. One critical aspect is content that educates, supports, and cultivates trust. After all, sales interaction is declining in B2B sales, with buyers spending only 17 percent of their time with sales staff. Instead, they spend considerable time researching—and that requires content. So how can sales teams take on new roles? By acting in a consultative manner instead of purely selling. They can make this transition by delivering content that moves the needle from an interested party to a sale.

IN THIS E-BOOK, WE’LL REVIEW:

• The state of the life sciences market.
• How buyers learn and retain knowledge.
• The role of content in converting customers.
• Challenges with content in life sciences.
• How sales enablement technology facilitates this evolving model.

Life science companies require higher sales results to compete in today’s intense and highly saturated market.

CONSIDER THE COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE:

• There are approximately 6,500 medical device companies in the U.S.
• Medical technology is expected to hit $600 billion by 2024.
• The global pharmaceutical industry was worth $1.27 trillion in 2020.

With more revenue at stake and new entrants into the market, companies have to adapt their sales enablement strategies to remain profitable, relevant, and differentiated from their competition. That adaptation starts with giving the sales team content that nurtures relationships with buyers, including sales presentations and ancillary information.

It’s a daily balance for sales teams to meet customer needs.

Sales reps have a full plate, and that’s before factoring in the heightened pace and intensity of the market. On top of sales responsibilities, sales professionals also must balance the day-to-day tasks of meeting with customers, completing sales reports, attending training events, and more.

Personal work styles, habits, and skill sets also impact a salesperson’s performance and results. With all the variables affecting a rep’s ability to sell, you have to optimize the content, media, and meeting prep process to make the best use of their time.

Researchers have conducted many studies on how we learn, but the topic is complicated. Learning is unique, personal, and influenced by a number of factors.

HERE’S WHAT WE KNOW FOR SURE:

• Sixty-five percent of the population are visual learners.
• There is a scientific concept called the “forgetting curve,” hypothesized by Hermann Ebbinghaus in 1885. This concept states that memory retention is 100 percent at the time of learning, but quickly drops to 40 percent within a few days. However, this theory is not concrete. Factors such as the meaningfulness of the information, the way it is represented, and psychological actors (stress, lack of sleep, and so on) can impact the curve.

From these things, we can make assumptions. First, visually compelling content may influence most people’s ability to retain it. Second, if you want to stall the forgetting curve, your content must be memorable.

How can life sciences sales professionals execute on this to hold retention for longer?

Companies have options in what content they use to drive buyers to a decision. In most cases, teams stick with the status quo, so their performance can be based on their talent, execution, and effort. However, this approach doesn’t provide metrics to gauge how marketing content and sales presentations correlate to conversions.

This lack of metrics creates a massive disconnect between the content and its results. The bottom line is: How do you know if your sales enablement content is working without a data-driven approach?

To find out how your content performs, you have to look at the challenges facing organizations.

Content management must be streamlined and secure.

One key issue that sales teams struggle with is content management. Content can live in many places, including file-sharing platforms such as Dropbox, Box, and Google Drive. Although these systems are good for storing files, they don’t meet the needs of a strong sales team.

On these platforms, there are concerns regarding storage, organization, control, security, deployment, and more. However, building something from scratch isn’t cost-effective and will cause delays. Additionally, you may need specialized talent to manage a homemade system.

All of these issues lead companies to seek out a sales enablement platform with the right balance of functionality and affordability. This alternative solution contains a mix of tools, processes, and metrics designed to empower sales teams.

Storage and access must meet special requirements.

Marketing teams also should consider whether they can efficiently store, secure, and deploy the content they create. Storing and transferring rich media—such as HTML5, audio, and video files—is a challenge at best. At worst, it can require additional web development and implementation that delays sales processes, especially if content needs updated or revised for compliance or messaging. In addition, these large media files can take a longer time to download during a presentation if sales reps don’t have the right platform and tools.

You must know who owns the sales enablement process.

In many organizations, sales enablement falls in the middle of various silos: marketing, sales, and operations. Ideally, you want to achieve sales-marketing alignment when you introduce sales enablement technology.

Marketing teams will likely be the primary user base. They are the creators of the content, and they also establish the workflows that the technology enables. However, sales teams receive insights directly from the audience and use the technology during presentations and meetings, so they must also have a voice in the decision.

Content alone isn’t going to drive results during the sales presentation, and a software platform is ineffective if it lacks the ability to securely deploy targeted, engaging media. With the right purpose-built platform, marketers can empower their sales teams and deliver measurable results.

You must make the most of your time with the audience.

Years ago, sales reps had more access to clinicians and healthcare decision makers. That’s not the case for today’s reps. In fact, in-person meetings are few and far between. Interactions now primarily happen in virtual settings, meaning the content needs to be even more engaging. Unfortunately, research shows that 60-70 percent of content is wasted, primarily due to a lack of relevance or accessibility.

Marketers have to align their content development with what reps need to make sales. The marketing team must also consider how they can enable salespeople to leverage content within the restricted time frames.

Investing time up front to collaborate on which content is most relevant for prospects, where particular materials fit in the funnel, and what metrics are necessary to gauge content effectiveness must be part of the development process. 

SALES

• Accessing content
• Deploying content purposefully
• Engaging prospects.

MARKETING

• Creating relevant, engaging content
• Optimizing content access
• Understanding content usage during the presentation

LEADERSHIP

• Getting visibility to make decisions regarding strategy, tactics, and personnel

Data needs to fuel sales content strategies.

The executive suite can only make the best decisions regarding personnel and strategy when it has transparent data. Without the right metrics and data, executives have no visibility into how salespeople use their selling time. This lack of insight makes decision-making difficult because execs have no idea what is or isn’t working, so ineffective sales tactics and content strategies will likely continue.

Reps can no longer tie their sales numbers to linear sales presentation tools. PowerPoints and print documents might be sufficient for communicating the details of a product, but they do little to keep a company or solution top of mind for a prospect. Engaging presentations are decidedly more effective.

• Showcasing relevancy to the buyer’s pain points

• Creating visual interest with data visualizations

• Inserting rich media, such as videos

• Using short and concise language

• Leading with benefits, not features

• Backing up assertions with data, case studies, and research

Strategies for differentiation depend on data too.

Marketers have many elements to consider when strategizing how to differentiate content during the sales presentation, with content development and deployment tactics chief among them.

SALES

• Differentiating presentations from competitors
• Articulating products and solutions in a clear, engaging way
• Learning how to engage remotely and with different technology

MARKETING

• Creating content that stands out
• Matching content files with optimized deployment tools
• Establishing presentation metrics
• Getting quality feedback from the sales field

LEADERSHIP

• Defining the most effective presentation metrics
• Advising strategies for differentiation with limited visibility

To arm salespeople with content that converts, marketing needs to know what resonates with prospects. Anecdotal feedback—combined with quantitative data on audience engagement during the sales pitch—can better inform content development, including which media types and messaging strategies to use. This feedback will also direct how marketing aligns its content with the pain points and buying behavior reps encounter in the field.

To get to this point, you need a sales enablement platform that tracks content usage in a granular way, allowing for correlation between content and sales.

Compliance and regulations impact life sciences content.

Sales reps can’t always control how compliant their marketing content is on the day of a presentation. However, they can decide to pitch a life science product or solution accurately and compliantly.

Failing to articulate a product accurately—including details such as side effects and proper utilization measures—puts companies at risk of fines, penalties, and lawsuits. To combat this risk, your sales team should engage with the content they’re using throughout the sales process in more holistic ways. The better command they have over details of the solution they’re pitching, the more informative their presentation will be, and the less chance they’ll have of running into a compliance issue.

Marketers can help reps reduce compliance risk by equipping them with clear and substantive content that leaves little room for error in communicating the details of a product or solution.

Although marketing teams are responsible for driving engagement and differentiation during sales presentations, they cannot sacrifice compliance for branding or customization. Linear, standardized content might not boost sales numbers, but it will prevent their company from receiving a Food and Drug Administration violation.

SALES

• Communicating products and solutions accurately
• Using presentation content in the right, in intended ways
• Developing consultative and predictive sales skills

MARKETING

• Finding the balance between customization, branding, and compliance
• Updating and redeploying content on the fly to maintain compliance
• Limiting “gray areas” in content to help reps avoid presenting solutions inaccurately

LEADERSHIP

• Difficulty in monitoring compliance measures

There are many moving parts to selling in today’s life sciences marketplace. Limited access to content and competition in the field will continue to prevent companies from hitting sales numbers if sales, marketing, and leadership teams work in silos. Through collaboration and transparency, companies can find the right solution for optimizing the sales enablement process. The right platform will break down the siloed walls and make the process transparent.