How-To Guide: Optimizing Asset Management for Sales Success

1. How-To Guide: Optimizing Asset Management for Sales Success How-To Guide © 2014 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Optimizing Asset Management for Sales Success By Clare Price, VP of Research April 2014 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Asset Management has historically been seen as a marketing and branding function. This technology is used to deliver materials to sales but is not within the sales teams’ direct control or influence. Today, as more organizations focus on marketing and sales alignment, many tools and technologies that were once managed exclusively by marketing have become shared marketing and sales functions. Despite this alignment progress on many fronts, Asset Management has tended to remain squarely in the hands of marketing. Demand Metric believes that marketing organizations that retain control are missing an opportunity to use Asset Management to its fullest capability. The purpose of this How-To Guide is to provide Modern Marketers with a clear understanding of how to effectively use Asset Management Systems as a Sales Enablement tool. WHAT IS ASSET MANAGEMENT? Given the breath of the term “Asset Management” across a wide variety of industries and disciplines, we must give it some context. For the purposes of this How-To Guide, we are defining “assets” as content, materials, events and tools that marketing uses to perform its organizational functions. These assets are digital and physical, tangible and intangible.

2. How-To Guide © 2014 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved. In our context, we define “management” as the process of collecting, maintaining, controlling, upgrading and disposing of assets to produce the highest marketing and sales performance enhancements and achieve the strongest ROI. Asset Management applications for Sales Enablement support the collection, consolidation and curation of the knowledge-based information to be distributed to the sales team. The focus of these applications is to manage access to content and collateral to make the sales team more productive. Once simple version control and/or check-in/check-out mechanisms, these systems now integrate with marketing content management, marketing automation, brand control and marketing campaign management solutions. They have evolved to support sophisticated use hierarchies based on customer type, channels, distributors and globalization requirements. THE SALES BENEFITS OF ASSET MANAGEMENT As marketing and sales organizations become more aligned, asset management systems must be viewed as a joint marketing and sales advantage rather than simply a marketing resource and distribution center. The Sales Enablement benefits of Asset Management, particularly when coupled with marketing automation, are substantial. They allow marketing organizations to:  Develop marketing materials that are sales-centric based on what is working in the field with real customers.  Sales benefits from optimized content for each type of sales situation and customer type.  Distribute content assets more effectively by creating content groups by type of customers, industries, customer size, stage of the sales cycle and channel.  Content is preloaded and packaged for each stage of the sales cycle so sales teams don’t have to “reinvent the wheel.” How-To Guide © 2014 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved. In our context, we define “management” as the process of collecting, maintaining, controlling, upgrading and disposing of assets to produce the highest marketing and sales performance enhancements and achieve the strongest ROI. Asset Management applications for Sales Enablement support the collection, consolidation and curation of the knowledge-based information to be distributed to the sales team. The focus of these applications is to manage access to content and collateral to make the sales team more productive. Once simple version control and/or check-in/check-out mechanisms, these systems now integrate with marketing content management, marketing automation, brand control and marketing campaign management solutions. They have evolved to support sophisticated use hierarchies based on customer type, channels, distributors and globalization requirements. THE SALES BENEFITS OF ASSET MANAGEMENT As marketing and sales organizations become more aligned, asset management systems must be viewed as a joint marketing and sales advantage rather than simply a marketing resource and distribution center. The Sales Enablement benefits of Asset Management, particularly when coupled with marketing automation, are substantial. They allow marketing organizations to:  Develop marketing materials that are sales-centric based on what is working in the field with real customers.  Sales benefits from optimized content for each type of sales situation and customer type.  Distribute content assets more effectively by creating content groups by type of customers, industries, customer size, stage of the sales cycle and channel.  Content is preloaded and packaged for each stage of the sales cycle so sales teams don’t have to “reinvent the wheel.”

3. How-To Guide © 2014 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved. ABOUT THE RESEARCH ANALYST Clare Price is a Research Director who covers marketing strategy, strategic communications, sales enablement and marketing technology. Clare is a former Research Director at Gartner Group and helped build their Internet Strategies Services with clients such as Microsoft, IBM, HP, Cisco, Proctor & Gamble and Wells Fargo. Her specialties include: brand strategy, brand development, customer acquisition and relationship development, content and digital marketing strategy and social media marketing. ABOUT THE SPONSOR Mindmatrix is a cutting-edge marketing automation and sales enablement company. Our platform incorporates all the functions and metrics essential to your sales and marketing departments into a single software package. Mindmatrix’s marketing automation platform will help you generate leads, cultivate interest and excitement about your organization, and ultimately… close sales. From the initial contact with a potential customer all the way through to their first purchase, and beyond, we have your sales and marketing teams covered. To read the rest of this How-to Guide, become a Demand Metric member today! How-To Guide © 2014 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved. ABOUT THE RESEARCH ANALYST Clare Price is a Research Director who covers marketing strategy, strategic communications, sales enablement and marketing technology. Clare is a former Research Director at Gartner Group and helped build their Internet Strategies Services with clients such as Microsoft, IBM, HP, Cisco, Proctor & Gamble and Wells Fargo. Her specialties include: brand strategy, brand development, customer acquisition and relationship development, content and digital marketing strategy and social media marketing. ABOUT THE SPONSOR Mindmatrix is a cutting-edge marketing automation and sales enablement company. Our platform incorporates all the functions and metrics essential to your sales and marketing departments into a single software package. Mindmatrix’s marketing automation platform will help you generate leads, cultivate interest and excitement about your organization, and ultimately… close sales. From the initial contact with a potential customer all the way through to their first purchase, and beyond, we have your sales and marketing teams covered. To read the rest of this How-to Guide, become a Demand Metric member today!