Every business wants to have their files readily accessible. Document management organizes files and business documents in such a way that they can be traced anytime, anywhere, and by any member of the sales or marketing team. The ability to trace business and marketing documents is not just a dream; it is something that can be done.
It is crystal clear that for businesses to generate leads and close sales, marketing and sales personnel heavily rely on the appropriate documentation. Consequently, it is paramount that these highly sensitive documents are well kept and always accessible to right team members.
However, reviewing and gaining access to these vital documents is not as simple as one would think. Sales teams and personnel have a wide variety of files, including proposals, collateral pieces, and ROI sheets, at their disposal. It is not always easy for downlines to sift through content and find information vital to the project at hand. With so much material to analyze, how can teams make sure that their content has been appropriately vetted?
Sales and marketing teams can have better control by implementing a document management strategy. Document management tools on the public or private cloud allow teams to gain access to, store, and organize files. Looking to start managing your sales and marketing documents? Read through the effective tips below.
Effective Organization of Business Documents
With numerous documents, how do businesses organize their content in an effective and orderly manner? Shared folders are not an effective solution as they do not allow you to manage multiple versions or gain access to content and files as quickly as needed. In fact, some reports have revealed that through the use of shared folders, 50% of valuable work time is wasted on searching for a document.
In the same vein, you want to take a flexible and easy approach. Sales and marketing teams are constantly launching new campaigns, adding clients, and expanding into new geographical locations. Therefore, you must be in a position to adapt the way you regularly organize your content. Simply placing files into a folder means you reduce the capability to locate these documents later when there is need to recall them for referencing purposes.
One of the most effective approaches to managing your business documents is by using metadata to structure the files. Take a look at the current method used to store your online business documents. Is it by the location of the business, product offer or deal, function (sales, marketing), client (Customer A, Partner B), or deadline? Implementing structure can help you come up with the best way to effectively organize your documents, and will motivate you to find the best approach. Once you discover the method that works best for your needs, ensure that newly added documents are tagged appropriately, making future retrieval a pain-free process that will save time, stress, and resources.
Use Social Tools to Source for Content
In marketing and sales, it is not always easy to know how to meet everyone’s needs, especially when they are all looking for something different. A salesperson might need a proven proposal. A service team member may require a contract template. A marketing person may need evidence that a contractual agreement is in place. However, if you are not aware of the existence of a document, it is impossible to take advantage of it. This is where social media tools come into play.
The trends on the social media networks can help sales teams. Look for a tactic that allows you to measure the documents employed and recommended. Just like on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, suggested content should be considered. This helps employees know what to consider based on the experience and opinions of their colleagues.
Team Work is Important
Developing marketing and advertising materials takes team work and involves collaboration among members. This can be a difficult process when a variety of documents are moving back and forth between teams. So how does one make sure that associates are able to work together effectively?
Social tools play a huge role. Try to use centralized work areas, where you are able to monitor changes to your documents and aggregate comments from users. Unless you’re working with a small team, don't depend upon in-document commenting as allowing in-document commenting frequently leads to a tidal wave of comments and suggestions that are impossible to regulate.
Management of the Approval Process
Creating a workflow aids in creating awareness
A key component of producing great marketing and sales material is to ensure that the collaboration results in an approved document. A great proposal is worthless if it has unexecuted legal backing. Understand who has the jurisdiction to validate the task with your team. Until you can convert your leads into clients, your negotiation is not yet a success.
Once an agreed workflow is in place, be sure to make it accessible to others. Make a workflow format that may be used repeatedly. Creating a workflow aids in creating awareness, which will make the marketing effort far easier in the long run.
Efficient Sharing and Distribution of Documents
It is important to ensure that the appropriate template and content is available to the right teams. An efficient way for marketing and sales teams to do this is to make the documents highly visible, which can be done by making use of the various tools included in the software.
Making documents visible and using them in collaboration with tools such as a CRM application, will result in better, and more efficient output. For instance, you could create a proposal that is used for a particular client, save it to your account inside your CRM tool, and synchronize it with your document management tool.
What does that make available to you?
It ensures that you have a readily available document which has been appropriately vetted by colleagues, approved, and available to the right user.
By employing these tactics for managing profits and marketing documents, you can generate materials that are more productive and can be effectively controlled. This will yield better results for your sales and marketing teams.
Businesses heavily rely on document management for the success of their commercial negotiations. The effectiveness of a team is dependent on how they manage the negotiation and contract documents efficiently. Using LogicalDOC as your document management system will give you the power to track, edit, and share documents anytime, anywhere. The system is available both as installable software package (on-premise) and as a Cloud solution.