A strategic switch: How Protegrity increased buyer engagement by 30%

A strategy for engaging independent buyers

Today’s buyers have a surplus of information at their fingertips, and they’re using it to their advantage. “Sales hasn’t changed from the standpoint that a seller must know their product and service and bring value to the table so customers perceive them as a partner,” began Kim Engebretson, manager of sales enablement at Protegrity. “What has changed dramatically is that buyers don’t want to engage with sellers until they’re much further along in the process.” When they do reach out to sellers, buyers expect differentiated insights and personalized experiences, not a rehash of what they already know. “When we do have that first engagement, it’s got to be solid,” explained Engebretson. “Customers expect sellers to already know quite a bit about them.” 

To equip sellers to land the first conversation, Protegrity’s enablement team reevaluated their existing engagement strategy. “How do we assemble and synthesize all that information?” asked Engebretson. “How do we prepare sellers so they’re not having to do that all on their own?” They already had an enablement tool but weren’t sure it was the right solution for the problem at hand. “The sales enablement platform we were using was coming up for renewal,” continued Engebretson. “There was a natural event to test whether or not we had the right tool for what we needed.”

In the marketplace, Highspot stood out. “I spoke to the top three or four companies, giving our current vendor every opportunity to demonstrate what they had that perhaps we weren’t utilizing,” added Engebretson. “It was through that process that Highspot distinguished itself and was able to demonstrate what their solution could do differently.” As the team made the switch, two features made the difference. “Digital Rooms and the close integration with Salesforce,” shared Engebretson. “Those were two of the key decision makers for us.” With the right partner in hand, the team is equipping sellers to land the first engagement—and all those that follow. 

Meeting buyers where they are with Digital Rooms

Thanks to the enablement team’s diligence, the transition to Highspot was seamless. “From the implementation side, Highspot had great enablement support,” enthused Engebretson. “The project plan was clear. The kickoff was good.” The impact was immediately evident. “By putting everything into one system, it’s easy to navigate,” shared Engebretson. “We’re able to provide a more unified user experience.” Post-implementation, the team began building Sales Plays to streamline guidance for sellers. “We used industry and business use cases as the formula for defining Sales Plays,” explained Engebretson. “That enabled the team to hyperfocus on specific industries or use cases.” These Plays enabled sellers to pursue prospects more effectively and resulted in a 60% improvement in seller confidence.

Newfound confidence in hand, sellers use Digital Rooms to connect with buyers at key phases in their independent journeys. “We’ve created Digital Room templates for different business use cases or customers at different intervals in the buyer journey, whether it’s for prospecting, contract management, or responding to a request for proposal,” added Engebretson. It didn’t take much convincing to drive adoption, with 91% of users leveraging external sharing capabilities in Highspot. “Digital Rooms essentially sold themselves,” joked Engebretson. “Our sales teams immediately got how valuable these could be compared to the old-school method of emailing customers and searching through emails to look for resources.”

With Digital Rooms, sellers are presenting themselves as true partners—and it’s helping them deliver experiences that cut through the noise. “Digital Rooms help distinguish Protegrity from other vendors they’re talking to,” noted Engebretson. So far, Protegrity’s enablement team has done everything they set out to: They’ve created confident sellers, who are having better conversations and building stronger partnerships with sales-shy buyers. 

Driving stronger engagement and new growth

Meaningful conversations and differentiated value—Protegrity’s new engagement strategy is delivering exactly what buyers expect. The results speak for themselves. “I looked at our pipeline from a year ago and was able to see double-digit growth in both new opportunities created and new opportunities with existing customers and net-new logos,” shared Engebretson. “I definitely think Digital Rooms have helped advance opportunities. It just helps facilitate the sales process.”

Using Highspot’s Salesforce integration, the team is poised to deliver just-in-time enablement in the moments that matter. “Floating recommended content and Sales Plays over to the opportunity from Highspot to Salesforce is one of the things we expected,” explained Engebretson. “A sales operations leader said: ‘Can we give them process guidance as well?’ This is something we’re now testing out, which is where I’m floating over the how-to guide on the next step from a Salesforce process standpoint.” In making the switch to Highspot, Protegrity found the right partner for its business and is seeing the impact on sellers and buyers alike, with buyer engagement ticking up by 30% since implementing the platform.