Content marketers invest countless hours creating sales enablement content, only to find that sales teams often ignore it. The reason? Most content is too generic, hard to find, or doesn’t align with real sales conversations.
Amy Higgins, an expert in content marketing, believes that success isn’t just about creating content, it’s about making sure sales teams actually want to use it. At Salesforce, her team transformed content into a tool that sales reps actively sought out, integrating it into their daily workflows and even turning it into a part of company culture.
In this episode of Content Marketing Leaders, Amy shares how to bridge the gap between marketing and sales, making content both accessible and indispensable.
Create Content With Sales, Not For Sales
Most content marketers assume that sales teams will automatically use whatever assets they create, but in reality, sales reps often ignore marketing materials because they don’t see the value in them. As Amy puts it, “Sales teams won’t use content just because you tell them to. They’ll use it if it helps them close deals faster.” The biggest challenges lie in content being too generic, failing to address real objections or industry-specific pain points, or being difficult to access due to scattered storage. Additionally, much of the content doesn’t align with the way sales reps communicate, often feeling like polished marketing language rather than authentic sales conversations.
Amy believes the solution is straightforward—build content that sales teams actually need. She emphasizes that if marketers aren’t creating content alongside sales, they are simply guessing. Instead, the key is to engage with sales reps, understand the objections they frequently encounter, and develop materials that genuinely support their efforts in closing deals. By co-creating content in collaboration with sales, marketers ensure that their work is not only relevant but also practical and actionable.
Make Content Easy to Find and Access
One of the biggest frustrations for sales teams isn’t that content doesn’t exist—it’s that they can’t find it when they need it. Amy’s solution? Stop relying on static content repositories and start embedding content directly into sales workflows. “Sales reps don’t have time to dig through a Google Drive folder,” she explains. “Content should be accessible where they already work, inside their CRM, sales enablement tools, and Slack.”
To improve accessibility, Amy’s team took a few key steps:
Integrated content into Salesforce CRM – Reps could pull up case studies, competitor battle cards, and one-pagers within seconds.
Used Slack for real-time content updates – No more outdated PDFs—new content was pushed directly to sales channels.
Created a ‘Top 10 Sales Assets’ dashboard – A simple, dynamic page that showed the most useful content, updated weekly.
By making content easy to access, Amy’s team dramatically increased adoption, ensuring sales reps could quickly integrate relevant materials into their conversations.
Build a Content-Driven Sales Culture
Amy realized her content was truly making an impact when a sales rep’s children started making expense report videos based on her campaign. “That’s when I knew we had built something that stuck,” she says. “When content becomes part of your internal culture, that’s when sales teams actually want to use it.” To embed content into the company culture, Amy focused on three key strategies.
Give Sales Teams Content They Can Personalize – Instead of static PDFs, her team created editable templates that reps could tweak for specific prospects, including customizable one-pagers, email templates with plug-and-play personalization fields, and interactive slides. “The more sales can customize content, the more they’ll use it,” Amy explains.
Feature Sales Reps in the Content Itself – Her team interviewed top-performing reps and turned their best pitch strategies into internal playbooks, filled with real-world examples from sales calls. “This playbook isn’t just marketing theory—it’s tactics from your peers who are closing deals,” she says. Featuring sales reps in content made it more relatable and increased trust.
Make Learning Content Fun (Not a Chore) – To ensure engagement, Amy’s team experimented with formats like video walkthroughs, live Q&A sessions on Slack, and short-form content "battle cards" that reps could skim in seconds. “If content feels like homework, sales won’t engage with it,” she says. “Make it fun, interactive, and easy to consume."
Final Thoughts: Sales Enablement is a Two-Way Street
Sales enablement content isn’t just about creation, it’s about making sure it actually gets used. The key to success lies in close collaboration between marketing and sales, seamless integration into daily workflows, and a cultural shift that makes content an essential part of the selling process. When done right, content becomes more than just a resource—it becomes a competitive advantage.
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