Product Marketers need an empirical way to glean insights from Sales teams.

You would think that your sales teams would have a very strong bead on customers and prospects in terms of their pains, challenges, desired outcomes and so on. However, this isn’t always the case. Or, more commonly, it’s hard to get insights that you can act on.

Why? In my experience sales insights are anecdotal. If I brought twenty sellers into a room and asked a question, I can get twenty different perspectives. Or, I could get none. I’ve always found it difficult to know what the right course of action is as a Product Marketer based on seller inputs. And I can’t tell you how many times I had a sales leader tell me that sellers needed a battlecard on a given competitor because we ran up into that competitor for the very first time! Another time, I worked closely with a seller to create some content where the idea was to do a ‘free’ assessment that would parlay into a more engaging conversation about their current gaps and requirements. The idea was to leverage this across the team. In the end, the seller barely used the content and the rest of the sales team never did.

That’s the challenge. Marketing can’t be a 1 to 1 shop for content. Marketing has to be a 1-to-Many shop. In other words, Marketing can’t create content when the use is really for an individual seller versus a group of sellers. And Marketing certainly can’t spend valuable time and dollars creating content when there is no empirical data to back up the need.

That’s what you need – empirical insight. And one day it dawned on me and another Product Marketer who worked for me that what we needed to do was conduct a survey across our sales teams.

We used SurveyMonkey (though there are a number of good survey tools out there) and crafted a survey that would hit on a range of topics we considered important to ask Sales. I’ve done this at at least two companies now and it’s the best way I’ve found to drive insights you can take action on.

And it doesn’t take long to craft a survey and deploy. However, I recommend getting sales leadership endorsement and directions across sales teams to take the survey. Otherwise, sellers won’t bother no matter how much you tell them that this will be a valuable way for Product Marketing to understand where there is a need for help.

Because I’m all about giving you the tools you need to be successful, I’ve outlined areas to consider for your sales survey:

  • Frequency – When you kick off this effort, don’t be shy about creating a survey that covers every area you need. It definitely will take longer for sales teams to complete but you can likely get away with it your first time. Then, plan on doing an updated shorter version each quarter as a way to spot emerging trends, changes and needs and to keep your pulse on what is really important.
  • Reporting – Make sure you share the results with sales leaders. Also, make sure you’ve reviewed the results and can show how they will now influence work to take place over the next three month period.

Ultimately, this is what your sales leaders want – they want Product Marketing delivering content and sales enablement to their teams. And they also want to know their sales teams didn’t just spend valuable time away from focusing on creating new opportunities.

Make plans to share the survey with other Marketing teams as well. Product Marketing isn’t the only group to interact with sales teams. Your Segment Marketers, Account-Based Marketers, Event Marketers and Demand teams also interact and could use the insights to influence their planning as well. It’s a win-win for all around.

Here are some topics we touched on in the latest sales survey we conducted that may help you when crafting your own approach.

Recency – Make sure to specify timelines in your questions where appropriate so that you get the results you are looking for. For instance, if I asked sellers, “What competitors have you come across?” but didn’t specify a time period, I will get a list of competitors some of which we may not have seen for a couple years. Instead, ask the question like this, “What competitors have you come across in the last three months?” to frame up the question in a way that’s truly insightful and something you can watch for changes in as you conduct additional surveys every few months.

  • Demographics
    • Make sure to ask about what sales team they are on.
    • Make sure to ask what their specific role or title is.
    • Ask how long they have been at the company.
  • Competitive
    • Put together a list of potential competitors and ask sellers to check those they have encountered in deals over the last three months or other period you are interested in. Provide a field for sellers to type in a competitor name when it’s not included in the list.
  • Content
    • Ask about whether they feel there is sufficient content available for them to do their jobs.
    • Ask them about the ease at finding and using available content at your company.
    • Ask them about their awareness of content resources internally (this also serves to introduce them to these resources if they were previously unfamiliar with them).
    • Ask about how often they are sharing content with their contacts at customers or prospects.
    • Ask them about how often they have shared the website or page on the website.
    • Ask them about the types of content they feel are more useful in sharing with a contact.
      • Make sure to ask specifically about thought leadership-oriented content separately from content that is directly related to your offering such as data sheets, technical briefs, product pages, etc.
    • Ask for suggestions on content they would like to see they feel is useful.
  • Events
    • Got a major sales event coming up? Ask about what topics they would like to see.
  • Market Insights
    • Ask about what they are hearing from customers and/or prospects in terms of the projects, initiatives or other efforts prospects are pursuing that relates to why we are talking to them.
  • Messaging
    • Ask about their familiarity and comfort with the company’s value proposition.
    • Ask about their product knowledge and comfort.
    • Ask them about messages the company uses that resonate/don’t resonate when they use them.
  • Product Insights
  • Ask about features, capabilities or enhancements that customers and/or prospects are asking for.

This is not an exhaustive list of the areas you can survey sellers on. It all depends on what information the Product Marketing and broader Marketing team needs to know from sellers.

If you decide to try this approach, feel free to reach out if you’d like specific examples of questions or the structure of questions to ask.