10 ways to use an iPad for Sales Enablement

 

As a sales professional, what is your favorite tool? Your laptop, mobile, the Bluetooth headset, or the coffee mug?

 

For a lot of sales representatives, it is the iPad, which is their inseparable companion. That's because it helps them get so much done without any hassles. Be it an online sales conversation, a meeting at a cafe, at the store, or an event.

 

The tablet can let them pull up any marketing collateral that they'd like to showcase to their prospects and customers. It allows them to generate leads, capture feedback, enter data, and a lot more that no other device could do.

 

We put together this guide to help sales reps discover the many uses of an iPad beyond what they would have ever imagined.

 

1. Event Marketing

 

Whether you're hosting an event or attending a tradeshow, the iPad is a must-have. Use it to power your presentations on stage, quickly whip up product walkthroughs, sales decks, or sales collateral that you can readily showcase to your audience. It helps kindle conversations around products and services that your prospects have not explored yet.

 

Imagine pitching a new idea to a prospective customer on the sidelines of an event and backing it up with a demo on an iPad. It speaks volumes about your preparedness and readiness to help prospects benefit from your products.  

 

2. Manning a Booth

 

The iPad is a powerful tool that you can use while you're staffing a booth. Dock your iPad at the booth and let your leads interact with content hosted on it (such as product demos, short videos, or FAQs). You could even gate your content so that people provide you with email ids as they engage with your content. 

 

Sales reps can even tag items of interest during their demos and pitches as a reminder to reach prospects after the booth session is over.

 

3. Out in the Field

 

Field marketing sales reps use iPads to display a lot of content to their customers at stores, kiosks, shopping malls, and at large public gatherings.

 

The iPad enables field marketers to exhibit a few products and compliment them with suitable digital marketing collateral such as images, brochures, catalogs, case studies. This way, sales reps need not carry and transport all products; instead, they can showcase essential ones and use the iPad to explain others.

 

4. Showcasing Personalized Content

 

The iPad can help sales reps to display their content to customers, prospects, and leads. Content such as videos, product demos, flow charts, games, quizzes, etc. are useful ways to engage your audience interactively. 

 

However, each prospect/lead is unique and special, and it is vital to communicate with them effectively. Sales reps can use personalized microsites to showcase different types of content with branding and the imagery you choose.

 

Since content is already pre-loaded on the app, it removes latency and slow-loading versus using websites to load content.

 

5. Onboarding Clients

 

Sales reps can use it to onboard clients on to the software platform using simple authentication techniques. For example, a B2B insurance sales rep can visit his clients at their offices and onboard them onto the iPad app with their demographic data and user-based credentials. This way, customers know the insurance plan details, benefits, disease coverage, etc. without having to move out of their workspaces.

 

It is quite useful in one-on-one selling scenarios, such as walking down the hallway with a medical practitioner or while talking to a mechanic on the factory floor.

 

6. Lead Generation

 

The iPad is a useful tool to capture information on leads and what content you can use to nurture them through the buyer's journey with contextual content.

 

Use forms and lead capturing tools on your iPad to know your leads better and engage with them. Book appointments and meetings with leads as you handhold them until they are comfortable using your product.

 

Sales reps can use CRMs and other related software such as marketing automation systems, Outlook, Gmail, etc. to store the information on leads for future reference.

 

7. Customer Training

 

Some B2B products are a little complex to use, and customers need assistance from sales representatives before they are on their own. The tablet can help salespeople pull up videos or product tours designed for training customers.

 

For example, a manufacturing company might have added newer features to an existing product or launched a new. Sales reps can show customers by demonstrating its functions and using the iPad to supplement them. This way, customers become instantly familiar with the product and do not have to struggle to learn it themselves.

 

With content accessible in offline mode, sales reps can train new customers on best practices of using a product. 

 

8. View Analytics

 

Sales reps can view engagement analytics of their content on tablets on a real-time basis. For example, analytics can help know which pages in a PDF or which portions of a video were most interesting for customers/prospects.

 

It provides sales reps with the requisite context to reach out to the lead at the right time, with the right pitch, to drive the sales conversation to a quick close.

 

It also includes a range of dashboard reports and analytics that sales managers can use to measure content engagement, usage, and engagement rates. Marketing teams can determine how salespeople are accessing and using different types of content for lead generation and conversion.

 

 

9. Take Orders at Point-of-Sale

 

The iPad helps in taking orders from customers at the point of sale, and synchronizing it with CRMs helps plan the inventory, orders, and deliveries. The point-of-sale orders enhanced with a customer's order and support history is vital to fulfilling their needs.

 

10. Having a Two-Way Communication

 

Mobiles and tablets are handy devices to gather feedback and encourage two-way communication between customers and sellers. Hoicking an iPad to a kiosk can help sales teams and customer success executives to collect feedback and product/service reviews from a broad audience. 

 

Information gathered through surveys can later be assimilated with marketing automation tools and CRMs to guide the future roadmap of the product/service.

 

During customer interactions, a tablet can enable finding an answer to an objection and provide an immediate resolution.

 

Using iPad for Sales Enablement - Benefits

 

1. The Visual Impact

 

"Tell me, and I forget. Teach me, and I remember. Involve me, and I learn."

 

Benjamin Franklin

 

When you showcase a product, along with a presentation using a tablet, the visual impact of the product/service enhances, and customers can experience its multiple features and facets. This way, 

 

2. Faster Delivery of Sales Collateral

 

There is no need to hunt for sales enablement collateral in Sharepoint, DropBox, emails, Google Drive, etc. Using apps for tablets and iPads that can integrate with storage systems, CRMs, and marketing automation systems, sales reps can deliver content faster to customers.

 

3. Beyond Physical Boundaries

 

Sales executives can access content distributed via apps no matter which part of the globe they are. It is about meeting readiness and preparing for client conversations, whether you are in the parking lot or the airport. 

 

4. Look Sleeker

 

Sales reps toting an iPad or a tablet look far more professional and sleeker than the ones carrying clunky-looking laptops and chargers. Besides, they don't have to rely on Wi-Fi connections because they can access content over mobile internet or in offline mode.

 

What You Still Need to Know

 

iPads and tablets provide great flexibility to sales reps to deliver memorable presentations. Instead of just presenting a set of standard (and often out-of-whack!) PowerPoint slides, salespeople can use different types of content. That includes using images, GIFs, MS Word documents, PDF files, videos, etc. to deliver a holistic presentation for the customer.