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. This 6-page guide includes the following sections: - What is Asset Management? - The Sales Benefits of Asset Management - Asset Management & Marketing Automation - Asset Management Vendor Selection Criteria To obtain this document, visit us at http://www.demandmetric.com/register

1. How-To Guide
© 2014 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
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.

2. How-To Guide
© 2014 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
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.”

3. How-To Guide
© 2014 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
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.
To read the rest of this How-to Guide, become a Demand Metric member today!