Sales and marketing professionals are always on the lookout for tools and strategies to outmaneuver the competition and drive business growth.
One such tool that has proven to be a game-changer is the
BattleCard.
But what are BattleCards, how to you create them, and what are the benefits?
What are BattleCards?
BattleCards are succinct, strategic documents that equip sales and marketing teams with vital information about competitors, products, and market positioning.
They serve as tactical guides that help teams proactively address competitor moves, overcome customer objections, and emphasize unique selling propositions.
It's a cheat sheet, giving you all information and possible responses to mission critical aspects of the sales process.
Essential Elements of a BattleCard
Creating a good battlecard is no easy feat. A lot of different information should be present.
A well-crafted BattleCard should include:
- Competitor Profiles: In-depth information about key competitors, encompassing their strengths, weaknesses, market share, recent activities, executive leadership, funding, partnerships, and strategic initiatives. Going beyond superficial data enables a more comprehensive understanding of the competitive landscape.
- Product Comparisons: Detailed side-by-side comparisons of features, benefits, pricing, and value propositions. This should include direct analyses of how your product measures up in areas that matter most to buyers. Visual aids like comparison matrices make this information easily digestible.
- Messaging Guidelines: Suggested talking points, language to use or avoid, and key messages that strike a chord with target audiences. Guidance on how to position your offering, supported by market research, helps maintain message consistency.
- Objection Handling: Frequently encountered customer objections and persuasive responses to address them. Providing reps with concise, compelling rebuttals boosts their confidence in critical moments.
- Discovery Questions: Thoughtful questions to uncover essential information during sales conversations. Exploring the prospect's current situation, challenges, decision criteria, perceived gaps and success metrics guides tailored proposals.
- Target Buyer Personas: Research-backed profiles of key decision makers, their priorities, preferences and purchasing behavior. Adapting approaches for different buyer types accelerates trust, rapport and alignment.
With these information in place battlecards can help in different distinct roles in the sales process.
Empowering Sales Teams
We're not saying that sales are a battle, but...
...sometimes it is a drag to get people to understand that you're trying to help them, so in the end BattleCards are helping you helping them.
Before going into meetings, Sales Reps can arm themselves with information that helps closing the deal. BattleCards hold all the information to personalize the conversation and pinpoint how you help solving the potential customers challenges.
Competitor offers are countered by swiftly referencing how your offerings compare against competitors to sway potential customers. Sales reps are turned into nimble problem solvers by having instant access to differentiators.
Confidence is boosted when readily available information is at hand, allowing sales reps to navigate conversations with greater confidence and professionalism. Better listening and more genuine engagement are achieved when anxiety is reduced.
Additionally, customers understand quickly that sales reps know their topic. Competitive information is freely available and places the sales rep as a valuable source of information and industry knowledge, creating trust on a personal level.
Besides sales can help align your organization. To stay in our metaphors: We're all fighting the same battle.
Cross-functional Collaboration
Saying that marketing and sales are not always aligned is an understatement. While BattleCards are mostly used in prospect facing roles, they can help aligning the troops.
Marketing Equips Sales: Marketers arm reps with impactful content, talk tracks and competitive insights. This ongoing support keeps messaging sharp and customer centric.
Product Updates Sales: As offerings evolve, product teams use BattleCards to inform the field force. Real-time relays of new features and roadmaps maximize every selling moment.
Sales Informs Strategy: Rep feedback on competitor moves, buyer reactions, and market shifts guides tactical pivots. Sales becomes the eyes and ears of the organization.
Creating BattleCards
So, know that we heard all the great things one can do with BattleCards, it is time to get our hands on them.
With a lot of good things, they aren't free and creating BattleCards can be a lengthy and time-consuming process. But fear not, at the end of the article we have a resource for you that makes it much easier for you to go well-equipped into battle.
- Gathering Information:
Sales and marketing teams compile information from various sources such as company websites, product brochures, press releases, industry reports, and customer feedback.
They research competitors' offerings, pricing, target markets, strengths, weaknesses, and unique selling points.
They collect data on their own products, services, and unique value propositions.
- Organizing and Analyzing Data:
The collected information is organized into categories such as competitor profiles, product comparisons, market trends, and customer insights.
The data is analyzed to identify patterns, gaps, and opportunities for differentiation.
Key findings are summarized and prioritized based on relevance and impact.
- Creating Content:
The team drafts the content for each section of the battle card, such as competitor overviews, product feature comparisons, objection handling scripts, and sales tactics.
They write compelling narratives and value propositions that highlight their competitive advantages and address customer pain points.
They select the most relevant and persuasive data points, case studies, and testimonials to support their messaging.
- Ongoing Maintenance:
As market conditions, competitor landscape, and product offerings evolve, the battle card needs to be updated regularly.
Sales and marketing teams continuously monitor relevant changes and gather new insights from the field.
The battle card is periodically reviewed and revised to ensure it remains accurate, relevant, and effective.
The manual process of creating battle cards requires significant time, effort, and collaboration across multiple functions. It involves a mix of research, analysis, writing, design, and project management skills. However, the investment pays off in the form of a powerful tool that equips sales reps to win more deals and drive revenue growth.
Once you have gone through all this you have your shiny BattleCard in hand. One of the main pitfalls is to not stay on top of your information. If a new player enters the game, you need to update your BattleCards.
But as promised here is the thing that makes the creation of BattleCards much less daunting: Every
Buyer Persona and
Digital Twin comes readily equipped with BattleCards.
All the high yielding information that you are used to are distilled in a BattleCard ready to use.
How is that for becoming Battle ready?