Marketing Collateral: Is Your Sales Force Going Rogue? by Jeremy Suratt

Are your sales people using the marketing collateral you create for them - or creating their own?

According to the American Marketing Association, sales people spend about 30 hours a month creating their own materials. That means they're losing almost a full week of actual sales time each month. And it gets worse: 90% of all marketing deliverables are never used.

SiriusDecisions, a marketing advisory firm, says companies spend over $43,000 per salesperson per year on marketing content. If 90% goes unused, that means $38,000 per person per year is wasted.

So what's going on here? Why don't sales people use the materials their marketing departments produce for them? When IDC looked into it, 30% of the sales people they polled said their marketing collateral required customization to be useful.

Customization: another word for relevant

We live in a world where businesses know an awful lot about their markets and are continually trying to learn more. Why? So they can make their offers more relevant. Everybody knows they have only a limited window in which to capture prospects' interest. If materials aren't relevant, they end up in the circular file.

So you really can't fault your sales people for wanting to tailor materials to the people they're calling on. The hitch is, they may inadvertently cause problems for your company when they do. What happens if they:

Misstate a product's features, benefits, pricing or availability?

Forget to include legal disclaimers or other fine print?

Alter or misuse your company's logo, trademarks or other intellectual property?

The potential for these types of errors increases exponentially if your company participates in co-branded marketing. Joint promotions based on shared missions, complementary services and similar factors are on the increase - e.g., nonprofit organizations partnering with product manufacturers, credit cards aligning with airlines, prepared foods incorporating another brand's ingredients. Each party needs to ensure that their brand is protected while effectively promoting the common cause or goal.

The solution? A template-based electronic customization system. Electronic customization - available from most fulfillment services companies for email and other digital channels, as well as print - addresses the needs of both parties. Sales people/co-branding partners can fine-tune messaging and graphics for their recipients while you maintain the control you need to protect your brand. Pre-approved templates, text and images are stored in a digital library, and you set the rules that determine which copy and images can be replaced and with what.

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In addition to helping sales create marketing collateral that's relevant, personal and compliant - and doing it faster, so they can get back to selling - electronic customization saves money because materials are produced only as needed, reducing production, storage and disposal costs. The bottom line? More effective materials, better response and lower costs, adding up to better ROI. That's a winning equation for sales and marketing.

LINK:	http://blogs.ironmountain.com/2014/service-lines/marketing-production-...
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