How Sprout Social Drove 85% Recurring Usage

Sprout Social is the leading all-in-one social media management platform trusted by world-class organizations of all shapes and sizes. Its solutions uncover trends and actionable insights from social data to inform brand and business strategy for its customers. But without a unified sales enablement approach, Sprout struggled to provide its sales team with the materials and information it needed to drive business-critical conversations. The team needed a centralized tool to unite and empower its specialized functions on the frontlines.

Outdated Tools Hindered Productivity

Sprout’s social media management software is designed with its customers’ whole business in mind, providing actionable insights across multiple functions all in one place. However, when it came to its internal teams, the company needed an easier way to facilitate collaboration and information-sharing. “Our training was really quite solid, but the asset side was an opportunity for us to get more involved,” said Peter Zink, senior director of revenue enablement at Sprout Social. “There were a lot of inconsistent materials that were being shared with the sales organization and we had multiple places people were going to get what they needed, usually a shared drive that a particular manager or leader had been able to consolidate over time.”

Despite having a few existing content management tools, the team still faced limitations. “Even though we did have a sales content management tool in place, there were multiple platforms where content was residing and no one was clearly owning the tool,” explained Zink. “It was something that had been around for a while and I saw we had an opportunity to pick a platform that was frankly a better experience, where we could get better analytics and insights and have the opportunity to really reset and rethink our entire content environment.” Sprout needed a more robust platform to meet the needs of the team and drive results for the company as a whole.

Fostering Collaboration Through a Versatile Platform

Having a robust platform like Highspot was pivotal for shaping the Sprout enablement organization, which is now structured into two functions: Center of Excellence and Field Coaching. “We keep a real division and clear responsibilities between these two teams,” noted Zink. “They even align to different parts of the business a little more closely.” The distinct structure ultimately serves as a unified approach to enablement and means the team works with a wide repertoire of content, making content creation and accessibility imperative. Implementing Highspot not only helped Sprout improve content findability by 90%, but provided a central location in which to house it. “If there’s a Holy Grail, a single place where sales and success can go to find what they need, it’s Highspot,” described Zink.

With Highspot, Sprout had access to the Highspot Marketplace, which allowed the company to quickly adopt a new sales methodology and enable the team. “Our organization decided to invest in the Challenger Methodology, and overnight – in less than 24 hours – we were able to work with the Highspot team to activate a whole set of Challenger content that was directly piped into the Highspot environment,” said Zink. “I’m talking e-learning, collateral, training aids, everything you could think of that you need to activate Challenger we were able to turn on immediately.” What’s more, the Marketplace integration also meant the content was housed in a centralized location and easily accessible to the team. “I didn’t have to tell people to go into a different environment or log into the Challenger website, or put it on a Google Drive,” shared Zink. “It was right there in Highspot.”

In addition to the Challenger Methodology, Sales Plays became another key element of the Sprout sales strategy. “The cool thing about Sales Plays is how they allow you to be very prescriptive with the sales team – or any role – on what they’re supposed to do,” said Zink. “They provide us with the ability to give robust talk tracks and messaging that reps can use in conversations, as well as house and surface the content that’s most relevant for that sales motion right in one page.” As a result, Sales Plays have become an essential vehicle for the Sprout team, helping employees gain role-specific guidance that led to an impressive 99% adoption rate.

Content Consistency Drives Business-Critical Conversations

Since implementation, Sprout has used Highspot in a number of different ways and seen significant results. “We’ve had people change roles at Sprout and use our Plays within Highspot to onboard under their new roles, which is really great,” described Zink. “Whenever we think about launching something, we think about where our team will want to find the relevant information for their jobs – and Highspot is that place.”

Not only has Sprout driven its employees to the platform, the company has kept them coming back, leading to an 85% recurring usage rate. “It’s been a big win. We’ve realized that when things like search work correctly, when it’s intuitive for people to find things, it just naturally leads to good results,” explained Zink. “And we see the level of content people are using in our calls and conversation intelligence. We see what’s being shared, the level of engagement, and even the reviews people are leaving. There are a number of indicators showing how the user experience of the tool is a key component of what makes Highspot a big win for us versus what we had before.”

Switching to Highspot has also led to more consistency across the company, ultimately driving business results. “I think good strategy really comes from defining and scoping what you do and what you don’t, and in learning what your support is on the most important priorities of the business,” said Zink. “We’ve gone up market as a company over the last year, and Highspot has helped us win many deals, giving reps the materials they need to have higher quality conversation. In my mind, Highspot is absolutely mission critical for the organization.”