How Marketing Asset Management Tools Lower Costs and Drive Revenue

How Marketing Asset Management Tools Lower Costs and Drive Revenue

Strong marketing programs and the collateral that fuel them are essential to support a successful sales team. Managing, customizing, and distributing these marketing materials takes time and energy. Moreover, there is an expense associated with the related processes. Companies looking to lower related costs and drive revenue can look to marketing asset management tools.

In the world of marketing asset management tools, an asset is any digital document that is used for marketing purposes. Asset management is the process of effectively controlling those assets, creating a single source of truth relative to marketing, and enabling instant access to those assets which may include images, graphics, layouts, PDF files, and video clips. Companies that understand the value of asset management use digital asset management solutions to centralize access for easy editing and sharing with salespeople or customers.

Asset management brings together people, processes, and files to make marketing and sales workflows—including collaboration, content review and approval, brand management, and version control—more streamlined and efficient. Here are a few ways that enterprise-level asset management tools lower costs and drive revenue.

Aligning Sales and Marketing

When a company’s sales and marketing teams are at odds with each other, they develop their own separate strategies and then operate with blinders on. Rarely do they coordinate their efforts. This siloed approach to inter-team communication is dysfunctional resulting in missed sales opportunities because companies usually don’t meet their sales goals when they aren’t pursuing a strategy that coordinates the sales and marketing teams.

When sales and marketing are aligned, however, they work together to create a more co-hesive buying experience for customers. Cohesion of sales and marketing efforts leads to a higher volume of sales because the informational needs of the customer are being met at every stage of their journey.

Asset management tools serve to create the alignment between sales and marketing that is essential to drive revenue. When both teams have access to the same collateral in real time and in one location, it is easy for the sales team to give feedback to the marketing team about what tools are working or not working for them. The marketing team can then use that feedback to make any necessary changes to the collateral, or to create new tools, and ultimately, give the sales team exactly what they need to succeed.

In this content-driven society, aligning marketing goals to the organization’s sales strate-gy has never been more imperative. Likewise, it has never been as easy to do as it is now with the right asset management tools. Today, the marketing team can quickly respond to emerging customer expectations and market trends to create consumer-driven strategies that keep the brand fresh.

Cost Controls are Possible

Asset management tools stop this cycle of waste. They empower you to deliver your marketing collateral when you want it, thereby allowing you to maximize revenue. Instead of going into a meeting with a customer empty handed or with outdated collateral, a sales representative can print the latest version just in time for an appointment. By being able to print collateral on demand, you eliminate waste while increasing the value of the collateral.

Companies that need to distribute large quantities of catalogs or brochures often suffer from waste that cuts into profits. They design and print all the collateral they think they will need for a period of time only for it to go stale after a few weeks or months. Sometimes, in the blink of an eye, there’s a product or market shift that should be reflected in materials that have been printed in volume and distributed to the field. To get current and accurate information in the hands of the sales team and the customer, the organization must throw out the outdated collateral and incur the additional expense of printing an updated version.

High Personalization Grabs AttentionAs eloquently stated by both William Shakespeare and Dale Carnegie, we all respond positively to hearing (or reading) our own name. Customers want to be called by their name and feel that their sales representative is catering to their specific needs. Personalization of sales collateral satisfies these desires. For instance, a salesperson can customize a product sheet so that it speaks to the target customer and directly addresses the unique points of a deal they are working on closing. Personalization drives revenue because it gives salespeople a valuable opportunity to impress customers and stand out in a crowded field of competition.

The ability to easily personalize sales collateral works in other situations just as well. Consider the situation where a restaurant has dozens of franchises spread across the country. In this environment, each franchise can use the template function of the asset management tool to customize thereby localizing their marketing materials to fit their unique geographic location. As an example, they can quickly and easily add their address and contact information to a range of collateral pieces in just minutes. Customized offers can be created and used for specific events in their area, speaking to the local market rather than a national audience.

This driver of revenue is simple and straightforward. Time is money. The less time a sales representative spends searching for collateral and assembling what they need, the more time they can spend selling. Their time is best spent focusing on activities that drive direct revenue.

Because asset management tools house all the collateral that a sales representative needs in one centralized

Time is Money

Support for Trade Shows and Professional Events

In the corporate environment, annual events such as trade shows and conventions provide an excellent opportunity for sales representatives to get in front of a

very specific segment of customers. For many companies, these events result in a significant portion of their annual sale.

While attending trade shows and professional events can lead to increased revenue when done right, working with a partner who uses asset management tools can also cut costs associated with those events. Using predetermined digital assets stored within the portal, the supplier/partner can provide virtually all the support materials needed for the event. Materials such as tents, large banners, sales literature (brochures, pocket folders, business cards) and other branded promotional items can be easily pulled together and fulfilled directly to the event location. And, all of this can be done at a price that is lower than what typical exhibit suppliers charge.

location, it’s easy for them to find what they need when they need it. They don’t have to search in multiple locations or create new content. And, as mentioned earlier, they can quickly personalize that collateral so that it has a greater impact on the customer. Put this all together and you have an efficient, well-prepared sales representative who is positioned to meet their sales goals.

The process to manage marketing collateral can be very time consuming and quickly be unmanageable when market changes occur triggering changes needed to the materials. The process to create and produce collateral materials can be a very time-intensive path for most. The traditional method to produce materials involves generating a purchase order for a particular item that goes through a set of processes. The administrative costs of creating and tracking just one purchase order from the time of issue until the item gets produced, shipped, and billed can cost anywhere between $95 and $250. The cost can be even higher depending on the processes the company uses.

This cost goes away when the order takes place through an asset management tool because it is designed from the ground up to be a point-and-click solution. All of the costs for printing and shipping have been prefigured so orders can be made quickly and easily. And, all the authorized parties within the organization get notified of what’s been purchased, where it is in production, and where it is in billing. Because the asset management portal is available 24/7, the CFO and accounting team always have a clear and virtually effortless view of every order. Ultimately, this lowers the administrative costs associated with printing.

Controlling Administrative

Expenses

Greater Efficiency Leads to Lower CostGrowing revenue without profit isn’t a successful business model. So, managing costs is im-portant. Fortunately, asset management tools can help lower costs. They do this by adding efficiency to the organization’s processes as previously mentioned.

When a company uses an asset management tool, they are instantly adding efficiencies. By having all the digital files in one location, it’s easier for sales and marketing to collabo-rate and sales representatives can quickly find and print exactly what they need. Because of on-demand printing, the organization no longer needs to house an inventory of printed marketing collateral. And, because the tool automates processes that were once done with paper, purchase orders get handled quickly and with less effort. The result of implementing an asset management tool is greater efficiency throughout the company.

Drive Revenue with Lower Costs Utilizing ImageMark’s ResourceONE®

Whatever your sales and marketing needs are, you can leverage Im-ageMark’s asset management solution to lower cost and drive revenue.

ImageMark’s ResourceONE® serves as a single repository for our cus-tomers to hold all their digital and traditional marketing assets in one location. It not only gives them easy access to their assets, it also al-lows them to easily manage the design, tightly control their brand, and give greater access to their marketing and sales tools. Whether the customer is a small local company or a large multinational company, ResourceONE® gives them granular control.

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