The importance of storing content in one central repository is well understood by now. When content is stored in disparate systems, productivity plummets as time is spent searching for a particular piece.
Both marketing and sales benefit from having a dedicated library for content. Marketing gains a new level of control to ensure that the latest and most up-to-date materials are the only ones being accessed. They also have an easy way to take a quick inventory or perform an audit. Sellers reduce the 10 hours a week they spend searching for and creating content to a much more reasonable amount of time.
Sales asset management provides clear benefits to both marketing and sales teams. However, like any solution, this process needs to be properly managed, or it can quickly spiral out of control. Consider, for example, a library. To open the doors and let people rummage around until they find what they need would create chaos. A system of organization and categorization needs to be in place to ensure efficiency.
Effective sales asset management is no different than running a library. Large organizations have a sizable amount of content that needs to be sorted and organized. Gathering every piece from any number of directories will be a time-consuming and difficult task. But once everything is corralled, it’s easier to assign content into two distinct categories.
Sales Empowerment
Sales empowerment content is anything internally facing in an organization. This is content that’s used for training, strategizing, internal reporting, and anything else that provides sales with knowledge or tools to improve their engagements.
Marketing may be involved in the creation or maintenance of these documents, but it’s more likely that sales will manage sales empowerment content.
Cordoning off this type of content removes many materials that will not be relevant to Sales when they are trying to find a piece to send to a potential buyer. This brings us to the second category of content.
Sales Activation
Sales activation content includes materials like guides, e-books, whitepapers, case studies, one-pagers, and other resources shared with potential buyers. Both marketing and sales teams rely on this content and benefit from keeping it separate from sales empowerment content.
Marketing often manages a dedicated space where they upload new content, organize it by criteria like persona, industry, or stage in the buyer’s journey, and ensure sellers always use the most current versions.
Sales can quickly find the content they need without digging through outdated materials. This division streamlines their search and prevents miscommunication with marketing.
Separating content into sales empowerment and sales activation assets makes the system more efficient. This approach allows marketing and sales to focus on their core tasks instead of wasting time searching for content.
The structure and organization of content can also significantly impact a business. Seismic’s Value of Enablement Report found that sellers save 13 hours a week with the help of sales asset management tool.
However, simply splitting content into two categories is only a starting point. If you’re ready to effectively manage your organization’s sales assets, get a demo of Seismic. Or look at some frequently asked questions about effective asset management.
Sales asset management FAQ
What’s the difference between sales empowerment content and sales activation content?
Sales empowerment content focuses on training and equipping sales teams with tools and knowledge for better performance. Sales activation content includes materials such as guides, e-books, and case studies. We share this type of sales collateral with potential buyers to encourage their interest and increase sales.
Why is it important to keep sales empowerment and sales activation content separate in sales asset management?
Organizing sales assets in your content management system helps sales teams find relevant and current materials easily. This makes searching faster and improves efficiency. This helps them search faster and be more efficient. This lowers the chance of sharing old or unimportant content with customers, making your sales process more effective overall.
How can a sales asset management system improve productivity?
A sales asset management system organizes all sales materials in one location. This makes it easier for sales and marketing teams to locate and manage sales collateral. This saves time finding content, avoids repeating work, and makes sure the best and latest resources are used.
