Faced with the challenges of sales and marketing alignment, the disruption of B2B buyer behavior and the low rate of content usage by salespeople, B2B marketers have made Sales Enablement their top priority in 2022.
Study shows that Sales Enablement is now the number one priority for B2B marketers
With a projected growth of 19.5% annually over the 2022 – 2027 period, the Sales Enablement market has never been more dynamic. According to Aragon Research Globe, “sales enablement tools are now an established part of the sales technology stack. In another research, the VMR Institute explains that the buzz is driven by companies’ major concerns about sales and marketing alignment, automation and overall sales process improvement.
In a more recent development, Gatepoint Research unveiled the results of its 2022 barometer of “B2B technology companies’ priorities and obstacles.” The challenges remain roughly the same as those identified in 2021, namely:
- Understaffed marketing teams facing new personalization demands;
- Increased pressure to launch new products and manage go-to-market activities in an agile way;
- Problems in measuring the ROI of many marketing actions due to lack of quality data.
When asked about their top three priorities for 2022, B2B marketers gave the following answers:
- Sales Enablement was mentioned by 61% of the respondents. They believe Sales Enablement is essential to activate synergies between marketing and sales and to meet the challenge of large-scale personalization;
- The implementation of Go – to – Market strategies (56%);
- Launching new products in line with customer expectations (53%).
Finally, B2B marketers believe that working with external partners who are experts in sales enablement helps to speed time to market (49%) and meet or exceed management-defined goals and KPIs (31%). As a result, nearly 90% of marketers surveyed say that the use of external partnerships will “remain” or “increase” over the next year.
Mature companies want to go even further
Obviously, French decision-makers are no exception and seem more aware than ever of the contribution of Sales Enablement to their growth goals. During our presentations at key B2B events, such as the Rencontres Internationales du Marketing (RIM), the BtoB Summit and, more recently, e-marketing Paris, we have encountered an unprecedented interest in the following topics:
- Sales and Marketing alignment, followed by the alignment between People, Process and Technology;
- Adapting marketing content to empower sales;
- The unbridled digitalization of the buying journey;
- The shift in B2B buying behaviors that pushes salespeople to become ” sense-makers ” and reposition themselves in the buying journey.
Companies that have already matured in Sales Enablement want to go even further. Growth Enablement provides them with three major assets that can activate or accelerate their growth:
- Strengthen their human capital by optimizing coaching and training;
- Turn their technology stack into a real competitive advantage, whether it is for data exploitation or improving the customer experience to stand out.
- Streamline various processes to save time on content research, relieve salespeople of tasks that are not directly related to sales, reinforce collaboration between sales and marketing, etc.
Touch & Sell, the French leader in Growth Enablement
Touch & Sell introduced the concept of Sales Enablement in France in 2012 and is now the French leader in Growth Enablement. On average, our clients have halved their onboarding time and increased their sales by 20% within the first six months. We are dedicated to bringing People to the heart of business and transforming your employees into growth champions!