BOSTON, MA — (Marketwired) — 09/28/16 — Heading into the final quarter of 2016, marketing executives are feeling pressure from many sides of their organizations to produce great content, according to “Conquer Your Content: The Future of Content Marketing,” a new study by Seismic and Gatepoint Research. In a survey of 100 B2B marketing executives primarily from Fortune 1000 companies, corporate demands for updated content, cross-department branding initiatives, and keeping up with one-off content requests from sales teams are listed among the most time-consuming and demanding issues.
Nearly half (47 percent) of respondents rated their ability to handle content as being either average or worse, with only 18 percent completely satisfied with their current content management methods. When asked to name their most pressing challenges with content management, respondents cited the following:
Sales people asking for one-off update requests (56 percent of respondents)
Content going unused by sales teams because they don–t know where to find it (52 percent)
Not knowing what content is working and what isn–t (38 percent)
Not being able to keep up with corporate demands for updated content (24 percent)
“From decision-makers at the corporate level down to individual sales reps, great, relevant content is now being recognized as a driver of the bottom line, and our new study shows that marketers at many large enterprises are struggling to keep up with demand,” said Seismic CEO and co-founder Doug Winter. “Those that fail to find ways to make their content management process more efficient and automated may soon find themselves in a hole too dig to deep out of.”
Branding initiatives and the process of ensuring that content and collateral includes brand-approved colors, logos, taglines, etc., are also creating an exorbitant amount of work for marketing teams. Sixty-nine percent of marketing executives stated that updating content to reflect proper branding takes more than three months to complete, with 34 percent saying that implementing such changes take more than six months.
What is to blame for content management challenges at large enterprises? The study indicates that outdated technologies and processes are driving inefficiencies, particularly when it comes to equipping sales reps with content. Email attachments (74 percent of respondents) remain the most popular method of distributing content to sales reps, and 18 percent said they are still delivering content through physical media, such as printed documents and CDs. Additionally, 23 percent said that they lack a central repository to store content, and only 22 percent have the analytical capabilities to see with which prospects sales reps are sharing content.
“Looking towards 2017, as the need for content continues to climb, the pressures on marketing executives who have not addressed content problems are only going to become compounded,” said Winter. “Ultimately, the adoption of correct technologies will be the biggest differentiator between large enterprises that are able to drive revenue with content, and those that become mired in content reviews and one-off requests, losing prospects in the process.”
To download the full version of “Conquer Your Content,” visit Seimsic–s website .
Seismic–s leading end-to-end sales enablement solution for enterprises increases sales efficiency and marketing effectiveness by delivering the right content at the right time. Seismic is the only sales enablement platform anchored by the award-winning LiveDocs® technology, which automates the creation of personalized sales materials within seconds, achieving personalization at scale and dramatically improving time spent selling and win rates. Seismic customers are customizing more than a million pieces of sales collateral per year, and real-time analytics provide unprecedented insight for marketing teams looking to gauge which content helps close deals. Headquartered in San Diego and with 210 employees across the globe, Seismic is privately held by its executive team and investment firms General Atlantic, JMI Equity, and Jackson Square Ventures.
For more information about Seismic–s end-to-end sales enablement solution, please visit .
Jason Fidler
Senior PR Specialist
Seismic
978-505-9148
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