Brainshark and Profitable Channels Launch Online Assessment Tool - Helping Companies Evaluate Their Sales Content Effectiveness

WALTHAM, Mass., Dec. 4, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Brainshark, Inc., the leader in cloud-based business presentations, today announced the availability of an online assessment tool to help companies evaluate their sales content effectiveness. The purpose of the assessment – made available for free by both Brainshark and Profitable Channels, a provider of sales enablement consulting – is to help sales and marketing professionals understand how well their content is driving sales performance and to identify steps to maximize the return on their content investments. 

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120402/NE79983LOGO )

A recent survey from Brainshark shows that sales teams today contend with a variety of content-related challenges. Forty-one percent of reps say they have out-of-date materials, 28% receive content that's irrelevant to prospects, and 1 in 3 (33%) cite frequent difficulties locating the assets they need. In addition, despite 71% of reps receiving materials from marketing, reps end up creating from scratch more than half of the content they use – eating into productivity and causing inconsistent messages across their organizations. These results underscore the importance of identifying where issues lie, so companies can take steps to improve processes, collaboration and alignment.

Available at www.contenteffectiveness.com, the new online assessment helps companies pinpoint opportunities for increased efficiencies, and make sales content more targeted, accessible, useful and actionable. The assessment is easy to take and benefit from, and works as follows:

• Participants answer a 17-question, multiple-choice survey about their company's sales content and related processes – aimed at uncovering strengths and weaknesses related to content organization, development, availability, types and more.
• Upon completion, they immediately get access to a free, customized action plan with recommendations on the top practical steps for improving the usefulness, effectiveness and ROI of their content.
• Each recommendation is accompanied by a "learn more" link, which includes additional information and resources to help participants take action.

"More and more, content is a strategic part of sales and marketing teams' efforts, as they increasingly communicate across online, social and mobile channels," said Stephen Diorio, founder of Profitable Channels. "The quality of sales content directly impacts sales effectiveness, the cost to sell and the overall customer experience. With this assessment tool, salespeople and marketers can learn how well their content is currently supporting the sales process, and identify and implement steps for improvement."

In addition to the assessment, Brainshark has also made available Diorio's groundbreaking research report, "Effective Sales Content: The Key to Sales Success" (http://bit.ly/bsk-effective-sales-content-report) and a content effectiveness scorecard (http://bit.ly/bsk-effective-sales-content-scorecard) to help organizations evaluate how well their content supports sales and marketing processes and goals. The free report provides practical ways to sell more effectively by reorganizing content, reengineering the content supply chain, and systemizing the way content is created, delivered and tracked – while including real-world examples. The scorecard – also free – tracks 12 content effectiveness criteria, which help gauge the usefulness of existing assets, the ease of creating new sales content and how well content is delivered.

"There are a number of opportunities for potentially improving content effectiveness – whether it's making materials more accessible, actionable, trackable or mobile-ready," said Brainshark CMO Andy Zimmerman. "Using our assessment tool and action plan, sales managers and marketers are given the steps – tailored to their own specific organizational needs – to improve the quality of their content and their return on content investments. This information, combined with the content effectiveness report and scorecard, can help executives develop a game plan to garner more qualified leads, boost pipelines and increase revenues."

About Profitable Channels

Profitable Channels designs and delivers sales enablement solutions and programs that help engage customers, energize salespeople and improve the sales process. Profitable Channels also helps executives who own, manage and support selling channels measurably grow sales by solving some of their biggest growth problems. Current clients include CBS, DuPont, PNC, SunTrust, U.S. Bank, UPS, Wells Fargo and many others. For more information, visit http://www.profitablechannels.com.

About Brainshark, Inc.

Brainshark enables companies to improve productivity with cloud-based business presentation solutions for sales, marketing and training. With Brainshark's easy-to-use solutions, customers transform static documents such as PowerPoints into dynamic, mobile-ready content that can be accessed quickly and viewed as on-demand video presentations or presented live – anytime, anywhere. They can also measure the effectiveness of their communications in ways never thought possible and use these insights to take action. Thousands of companies – including half of the Fortune 100 – and millions of individuals rely on Brainshark to increase the impact and reduce the cost of their business communications. Learn more at www.brainshark.com.

SOURCE Brainshark, Inc.