How-To Guide Optimizing Asset Management for Sales Success EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

How-To Guide
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.
© 2014 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
How-To Guide
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.”
© 2014 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
How-To Guide
 Content can be offered to dealer/distributor networks with
access control to protect brand assets.
 Personalize content for individual customers quickly, based
on needs and interest.
 Features like dynamic content personalization offer the
capability to personalize content to the individual in real
time as they are accessing it.
 Functions also provide the ability to personalize channel
content for dealers and distributors.
 Localize content for geography, cultural and language.
 Provide local customer stories for better social proof.
 Track content usage with analytics that can monitor and
measure how and when content is being used which then
measures the contribution of that content to the sales process.
 Control brand and message consistency through authorization
levels embedded in the Asset Management system.
 Enable social and mobile marketing content use and
distribution for multi-tiered, multi-channel sales teams and
resellers.
ASSET MANAGEMENT & MARKETING AUTOMATION
Tight integration between the Asset Management and the
organization’s marketing automation system provides a more effective
solution than using two disparate, unconnected systems.
Some marketing automation systems offer digital asset management
functions such as a centralized asset repository, user access control, and
personalization and localization of content. Asset Management and
Marketing Resource Management systems do more. They integrate
traditional, digital and social marketing; provide multi-level access
control and offer design tools for content creation. Further, they include
robust publishing and fulfillment operations for sales and channel
marketing that is not always part of a standard marketing automation
system.
© 2014 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
How-To Guide
A critical component of Asset Management is user access control based
on a well-defined hierarchy of users’ rights. Asset Management systems
that maintain a solid access hierarchy based on flexible permission
parameters gives marketing centralized brand and message control
while enabling decentralized access and distribution for sales.
In summary, tight integration between Marketing Automation and
Asset Management enables better campaign management, higher sales
performance, better brand control, more streamlined project
management, and deeper analytical insights into the effectiveness of
content assets.
ASSET MANAGEMENT VENDOR SELECTION CRITERIA
The following features and functions should be considered when
selecting an Asset Management vendor to support your Sales
Enablement efforts.
 Centralized Repository. Repository must support all types of
content, including: digital assets, email templates, brochures,
sales sheets, presentations, videos, advertisements, direct mail
pieces and signage.
 Access Control. Asset distribution should be fast and efficient
based on predetermined user access and user rights controls. The
marketing or sales operations group should be able to set
permissions based on a wide range of factors. Internally this may
include role, responsibility, location, job function, etc. Externally,
this may include customers, industries, customer size, stage of the
sales cycle and distribution channel.
 Content/Asset Development. Both preloaded templates and
custom design tools should be supported.
 Distribution. Content flow should be streamlined to move easily
from the repository to final fulfillment regardless of whether that
fulfillment is to a mobile device for presentation, a printer for
publishing, or a design vendor for tradeshow signage.
 Personalization/Localization. Content should be customizable
in three key ways: by the sales team based on customer need;
from the sales team to support content needed at each stage of the
sales cycle; and to the prospect, customer, or end user. It must
incorporate geographic, cultural and language distinctions.
© 2014 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
How-To Guide
 Metrics. The system should track content usage with analytics to
monitor and measure how and when content is being used as well
as the revenue contribution of that content to the sales process.
o Key metrics include: Cost Per Lead (CPL), Cost of
Acquisition (CAC), Campaign ROI, Email Metrics,
Marketing Qualified Leads and Contribution to Pipeline.
o Advanced customer insight auto-analytics should alert the
sales team immediately when a prospect responds or
clicks-through a campaign.
 Marketing Automation Integration. Evaluate the level of
integration with your marketing automation system. Is it a
seamless integration or is data simply shared through API
interfaces? The tighter the integration with your Marketing
Automation system, the higher the Sales Enablement benefits.
ACTION PLAN
To select and implement the best Asset Management Solution for your
Sales Enablement needs, follow these steps.
1. Use our Content Marketing Assessment to evaluate the maturity
of your content marketing program.
2. Use our Content Marketing Assets Database to audit your
current content assets.
3. Use our Content Mapping Template to create a visual
representation of your content by buyer persona and buying
cycle.
4. Use the Asset Management Vendor Selection Criteria section
of this report to evaluate vendor solutions based on your content
evaluations and needs of your marketing and sales organization.
© 2014 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
How-To Guide
BOTTOM LINE
Enabling your sales teams with the content assets they need to
close deals and perform at their peak requires a re-examination of
traditional marketing tools in the light of sales and marketing
alignment. In that context, marketers can no longer afford to treat
Asset Management as the exclusive purview of marketing. It’s time to
re-evaluate your Asset Management system and consider re-deploying it
as part of your integrated Marketing Automation and Sales Enablement
initiative.
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.
© 2014 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.