If there’s one thing the Internet did for the world, it’s make it easier to manage collateral.
The Internet certainly had more of an impact than simply with collateral, of course, but amid all the great things the World Wide Web has done for the world, there’s the fact that managing all the moving pieces that make a business work is easier than ever before.
That’s where managing collateral comes in.
There are several common problems with marketing and sales teams across the world that can be solved using the Internet via online collateral management. Here, we’ll look at a few and see how online systems can solve them.
Can't Find the Right Materials
If you have enough collateral to do the job, you probably have a lot of collateral. And it’s probably customized for each particular situation or type of customer.
One common problem is your team finding the right type of material for the right person when it’s needed. This is particularly true with a diverse business with several different services or product offerings. It can also be a problem if you have a geographically-dispersed sales or marketing team.
Online collateral management can help because it is an easy way to keep track of all your collateral and organize it. Since it’s online, anyone can access it at any time, making it easier to find what you need, when you need it.
Branding is Inconsistent
Have you ever had a problem with different departments using different variants of your brand – in effect, creating several brands that weren’t all that similar?
This is a problem because branding is crucial. You need to have a strong, consistent brand so people recognize your company when they see it or hear about it. That leads to familiarity, which leads to sales over time.
Online management for collateral helps keep brands consistent because you can manage the brand identity of the company from anywhere using a central online hub or control panel. You can easily make sure everything you have looks unified, like it comes from the same brand.
Difficulty Managing Materials
Sometimes, having a lot of materials can be confusing and overwhelming. But, you need a variety of materials. So what do you do?
Online management is very effective at managing a wide range of materials, from presentations to training materials, promotional materials, external marketing pieces, and internal documents. You can also keep a running inventory of how much you have of each piece so you always have enough on hand for your team to use.
Online management of collateral is really good at solving a wide variety of problems. There are more problems that online management software can fix. If you want to keep track of it, or modify it, or manage it, or distribute it to your team, it needs to be done online – and software can take care of the job for you.