On the occasion of an interview celebrating the 10th anniversary of Campudus, Michael Krausko, Chief Sales Officer @Campudus, provides exciting insights into the beginnings of the YourShowroom platform, how it has developed over the past eight years since its product launch and what opportunities will arise for sales through the use of sales content management software in the future.

‍Michael, as a sales expert and long-time employee at Campudus, you were or are still significantly involved in the development of YourShowroom. How did the initial idea to develop a platform for digital sales content emerge?

About 10 years ago, the first companies embarked on various digitization measures. At this time, Campudus was contracted by a major pharmaceutical customer to create digital sales content for presentation on iPads. The content was distributed by mail, so each sales representative was responsible for storing, sorting and updating the content themselves. A really complicated and time-consuming process that became more and more chaotic as the amount of digital content increased, so we finally asked ourselves:

“How can we centralize all the sales content and hand over the laborious administration to the inside sales team?”

As can already be guessed, the solution was to develop a content management system in which digital sales content can be stored, sorted and categorized, and users can be maintained and divided into groups. The customer should be able to determine when which content should be used in which phase of a sales cycle.
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‍So, the first generation of YourShowroom was created as part of a customer project. How did the platform then develop into an independent product?

First, we let a small field team from the pharmaceutical customer test the platform. The acceptance among the employees was extremely high, so that after a short time five additional business unites joined and thus more than 70 sales reps used the content management platform to present the digital content we had created.

However, the decisive factors have been our client’s customers. They responded very positively to the new digital buying experiences. Suddenly, there was someone standing in the practice with an iPad, showing study successes, disease progression or product features using animated graphics and interactive simulations. Customers were simply more attentive and also significantly more enthusiastic than with comparable presentations with boring, linear print materials. The positive effects on sales success were already visible after three months!

It was clear to us then that digital buying experiences will strongly shape customers’ purchasing decisions in the future. What was already foreseeable in the B2C sector had now become very evident to us in the B2B sector. Customers want to experience products and receive added value when products and services are presented to them. This was already true then and is even more true today, both for B2C and B2B customers.

And that’s how the idea for YourShowroom emerged in the form we know and use the tool today. We wanted to give all companies limitless possibilities to create unique buying experiences and easily distribute them at any time. With the development of the YourShowroom Control Center and the YourShowroom App, we’ve accomplished this.

When you talk about creating digital buying experiences in YourShowroom - what exactly do you mean by that?

The term buying experience in itself describes the sum of all information, interactions, and emotions that buyers perceive on the way to their purchase decision. In the field of B2B, it is especially about direct contact with sales reps and the content that is provided in this context. To convince buyers on this occasion, it is important to create sales content that is as individual and engaging as possible.

And this is where YourShowroom comes in. With our platform, we give sales organizations the opportunity to present content in any format and add videos, comparative graphics, studies etc. as  needed, to meet the customer’s specific needs as precisely as possible. So to speak, a presentation can be created, which in turn is composed of various other presentations.
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Since the introduction and market establishment of YourShowroom, several years have now passed. Which features of YourShowroom are most appreciated by customers?

Indeed, the combination of multiple functions in a single platform is proving very popular with customers. On the one hand, we have the central management and updating of all content, which gives companies full control over its distribution and use. And on the other, it is the diverse, digital presentation options at customer sites that convince YourShowroom users. Especially the easy configuration of interactive forms and also customer-specific presentations are highly appreciated.

With an eye on the sales force, it is the high time savings and sales efficiency that have made YourShowroom indispensable in many companies. Last but not least, the evaluability of content performance should not be ignored. Usage statistics, for example, provide valuable insights from the field. Our customers can see in real time which content is performing better and which is performing worse. This saves them a lot of budget, as they can invest more specifically in content that resonates well with customers. They can also react much faster to market changes and adapt content.
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B2B sales has changed dramatically in recent years. The driving force behind all of this was, is, and will remain the issue of digitization. What role will YourShowroom play in this scenario in the future?

On the supplier side, it is now common practice to work with digital applications such as YourShowroom on customers’ premises, which is why demand for digitization tools is expected to remain high in the future. Manufacturers of complex products in particular benefit from the ability to prepare content for customers digitally and thus in a more comprehensible way. However, presenting this content requires additional knowledge and special skills, so integrated sales training, such as the sales training feature in YourShowroom, is becoming increasingly relevant.

On the customer side, the topic of buying experiences will come into even sharper focus, as customers have now become accustomed to digital experiences and consequently place increasingly high demands on them. For sales, this means that content must be even more interactive, personalized, and thus more flexibly adaptable to different customer needs. The presentation of tailored content at the right time is and will therefore remain crucial for success.

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