Showpad – the world’s most powerful sales enablement platform – recently announced the acquisition of Hickup, and with it the global launch of Showpad Experiences, a new way for sales to turn presentations into conversations.

Showpad Experiences is driven by the technological and design underpinnings from Hickup, and turns static marketing materials into an immersive, interactive, branded experience for clients and prospects. We talked to Louis Jonckheere, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer, and Julien Lescure, Hickup founder and Director of Product for Showpad Experiences.

Louis, Julien: Why is Showpad Experiences so important?

Louis: We believe the buying experience is the most important factor for sales and marketing today. It is more important than your product, your features, your price and pretty much anything else. A 2015 CEB study rated the buying experience as having 53% influence on vendor selection, more than double the importance of any other factor.

Julien: People have gotten used to excellent user experiences in their lives through their interactions with B2C devices and software. Salespeople need to find new ways to present content in a more dynamic and interactive way. Generally, buyers have more information than ever before, and it will not change any time soon. They are extremely well informed, they have less time, and they are much more difficult to convince. Salespeople have a very short window of opportunity to make a good first impression and explain their offering.

Louis: Salespeople need to play an active role in the conversation, not just present a canned pitch. It’s important for them to be able to have a personalized and highly relevant conversation, while keeping the brand center stage.

Julien: When customers started a project with us, they found that they could enhance their content without needing to change it very much. Instead, they only needed to change the way they present their existing assets. Most content exists in standard formats, like PDFs or videos. We quickly realized that presenting content in a beautiful, visual environment was key. Some thought it was not worth investigating, but we knew we could get creative with the way these standard formats are presented to the buyer. It became possible to embed sales methodologies in interactive experiences using existing assets.

Who will benefit the most of this?

Louis: Ultimately, the company itself will reap the benefits. It’s not about making a tool that is specific to a department like marketing or sales. You could argue there are different value propositions for sales and marketing, but in the end it’s one big thing. It’s about how you go to market as a company and about how are you being perceived. As soon as you interact with a customer, they are evaluating you. The result of using Showpad Experiences will be more sales and bigger deals, which is what companies are looking for today.

Julien: Everybody wins: salespeople look more prepared and professional, prospects get just the information they need, and marketing can craft new ways of presenting their existing materials. Marketing can use the assets they have and create new, dynamic presentations with them. This allows them to create improved messages without any efforts associated with coordinating and creating new collateral. 

Louis: Salespeople will be able to use a branded presentation layer that makes everything very clear and can have more impact. Experiences actually helps them accomplish what they set out to do. First impressions count, and Experiences will let them make a great first impression.

What is the impact for prospects?  How will their buying experience change?

Julien: Prospects will have more valuable conversations that dynamically focus on what they need, and only on what they need. Their interactions with salespeople will be more to the point, without any noise or distraction. 

If you were to describe the effect of using Experiences in a single word, what would it be?

Julien: Differentiation.

Louis: Agreed. With Experiences, we are bringing the best buyer experience to B2B sales. It will let salespeople stand out from the competition.

Showpad Experiences will launch with three templates customers can immediately use, as well as tools they need to customize to best meet the needs of their sales teams.

For more information, please visit our website at Showpad.com.