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“Hey! Can you send the new ebook we launched last quarter? I have a high-intent lead, but I can’t find it anywhere.”
Does this sound too familiar?
That means you’re struggling to make the most out of your drive because of the lack of a dedicated content management system.
Many companies, including us, have fallen into the trap of defaulting to Google Drive or shared wikis to store and manage their content. But as you’re collaborating, you soon realize how hard it is to wrangle the value out of your content.
If your sales reps can’t find content, all the dollars you’ve spent on creating quality content go down the drain. Plus, they decay over time—resulting in unnecessary added expense and a negative ROI on your content program.
So we’re here to challenge the notion that this is the only way to manage content—while showing you how you can improve your current processes right now.
Let’s dive in.
Let’s dig into how shared drives and wikis found their place in every organization:
The most common theme we’ve seen is that people feel a sense of familiarity with these kinds of systems. Whether that’s a Google Drive or OneDrive—everyone knows how to use it, and most people have an account too.
This sense of familiarity is hard to challenge because who wants to invest in another software solution, hoping it could fix their problems? But sticking to such antiquated systems turns into a roadblock down the line.
Shared drives and wikis are also easy to use with straightforward interfaces. This also means a minimal learning curve because it’s built on the basic premise of a file stored within folders, just like a computer’s drive.
Marketing and sales teams create and manage their files within these drives without questioning the status quo. And considering that these solutions are accessible via phones, tablets, and desktops, it’s a matter of convenience.
Solutions like Google Drive or Notion that cost $5 to $12 per user monthly are more cost-effective than high-cost sales content management systems that are more enterprise-focused.
Plus, most companies can get a lot done with the free version of these tools—without upgrading for a significant period. This makes it a reasonable and preferred option in today’s market.
You have the flexibility to create your organization system and mold it on the go. You can create folder structures based on the team that aligns with your needs. This autonomy leads to differing structures between teams, leading to a messy management system over time.
Shreelekha Singh, a content strategist at Floik, says, “One of the biggest issues I’ve faced with a shared drive is a less intuitive experience because of the interface. I ended up creating too many folders, and locating a particular resource was challenging and unnecessarily time-consuming.”
Team members can easily share files internally with colleagues or externally with clients, partners, or other stakeholders. This streamlined sharing process allows for efficient collaboration and document distribution. But it has its limitations over time. Both teams start playing permissions ping pong—wasting time on both ends.
James De Roche, managing partner at Lead Comet, says, “You typically get a link to access the file. However, if you have multiple email accounts, then it can be challenging to log in and access them.
Alternatively, the creator of the document may not share permissions or they may create the document on their personal drive, so permissions aren’t naturally set. This creates a lot of tedious back and forth. It may even delay the start of the project by a full day or weekend when working with remote employees.”
Below we’ve listed some of the reasons our users and marketers have been facing with these solutions:
What if you’re an organization that needs to hit the ground running? You don’t have the time to sit and figure out the “ideal” folder structure when there are more pressing tasks at hand. Plus, you’re relying on one employee’s organizational skills to get the job done, which might confuse others—resulting in document management issues.
Dave Shanley, CEO & founder of Content Camel, also adds, “Here’s the big thing. You actually can’t do tags effectively in Google Drive, SharePoint, and Dropbox. They aren’t really set up for tagging at all. GDrive introduced it a bit recently, but it’s super limited and really intended for document retention control.”
When you have more than three stakeholders working on a single document, version control can get out of control. It’s challenging to keep track of the different file versions that come about—and you make redundant changes or overwrite existing ones. This results in errors and loss of valuable data.
Most software solutions have basic search capabilities that rely on file names or internal metadata. In our experience, there’s a high chance of it returning a no-hit search—which wastes time when you’re in the middle of a sales conversation.
Shanley says, “Also, you get a load of unrelated results. I like to say you don’t want to get a bunch of HR docs returned when you’re looking for the product material. Having it marketing and sales focused is a huge benefit.”
Security risks are far too common if access controls are not correctly configured. Confidential information like sales and customer data is vulnerable to unauthorized access or accidental deletion. Think about when an employee or contractor isn’t handling the project anymore but continues to have access—not a desirable scenario.
Plus, teams are too busy to chase things that disrupt their workflow. A tagged drive with pretty color coding is useless if no one uses it.
These solutions have several collaboration challenges as they offer basic collaboration features which might not meet the needs of marketing and sales teams.
Shanley says, “Some shared drives and wikis are great, but in reality, no one (at least marketing and sales) won’t go searching for the wiki page or the drive folder in the first place, let alone dig around for what they actually need. Organization is a great enabler, but to be really useful, it still has to do more for the end user. The tools really need to go to them—and it really has to be integrated with their workflow.”
For instance, sales always have content requests—but creating a separate document just for that can get messy. Or you have to set up separate automations to get them seen.
File sharing is a hassle with shared drives and wikis. Let’s say a contractor wraps up their project with your team. Now you need to remove them from every file or folder you’ve given them access to. You’ll probably miss some folders because you never know how many documents they can access—especially if it’s a long engagement.
Plus, when it comes to sharing files with stakeholders, you need to go through the manual process of sharing each file or folder with them based on where it’s stored.
Also, these software tools don’t organize content that isn’t documents. What if you want to organize links or onsite content? You need to create a wiki with all these links, which, again, needs to be starred for easy access, or you won’t find them.
Singh adds, “Secondly, a drive folder lacked the interoperability we needed to store/use resources in different formats and files. We’ve been creating content using a bunch of different tools and a shared drive wasn’t helpful for storing these. I mostly use Google Docs and Sheets directly (opening the files I need) instead of actually ever opening my drive now.”
Here’s why investing in sales content management software can pay off for you in the long run:
Content Camel’s content management system allows categorizing content based on commonly used categories. Tagging each content asset with the relevant category makes it easier for you to find assets down the line, as the metadata is in a language your internal teams understand.
Here are the categories we use within the app:
So many times, you know you’ve created a specific asset, but nothing turns up when you add the relevant terms in the software’s search bar. Irrelevant search results are a pain—but no-hit searches are the worst.
With our robust content discovery solution, that’s not the case anymore.
It uses keyword-based search and filters to find the right assets, wasting no time during a deal. It makes the deal move faster and also drives customer engagement when you’re proactive during the process.
Most sales content management systems tend to cater to enterprise companies—as evidenced by the high software and onboarding costs. But with Content Camel, you can avoid this altogether.
Our user-friendly CMS gets you started almost immediately and doesn’t require specialized training that lasts for months (unlike most competing products like Showpad and Highspot). So you reduce the learning curve and hit the ground running while saving time and resources associated with a product adoption process.
Microsites are a collection of documents that you send to every prospect.
For instance, if you’re sending a prospect information about your products, you can choose assets based on their pain points or verticals and create a collection. These collections can be shared using a trackable link—helping you tie revenue to specific content assets.
Essentially, you can attribute content-assisted deals with better analytics options.
Also, by providing a customized experience, you can engage prospects more effectively, deliver targeted messaging, and track the impact of content on deal progression.
Sales Enablement Content Microsite Demo
Internal teams live on too many apps—requiring people to context switch between apps multiple times a day. To avoid this, we created a browser extension that works on Chrome or Edge.
This allows you to access files from whichever tab you’re on, search with no limitations, and easily share content. It improves team productivity and offers a seamless experience while working.
Use our Wishlist feature instead of creating a Google form to receive and track content requests. It offers a centralized system to manage these requests from sales and product teams—while also allowing marketing to update requests based on their status in the same platform.
You can do this within the app or using the browser extension, and you have to fill in details like:
You can accept/reject content requests based on priority and provide reasons within the tool.
Marketing wants to know which content assets generate revenue, and sales want marketing to continue creating such assets. But none of that is possible if you don’t have the correct attribution set up.
Our CMS includes advanced analytics capabilities that provide insights into content usage and performance. Now you’ll know exactly which assets are being found and used by sales teams, helping you drill down into what’s working and what’s not.
Ultimately, you can make data-driven decisions to inform your content strategy and sales enablement efforts.
Our analytics dashboard allows you to filter assets based on funnel stage and document type—while getting an inside look into:
Ultimately, marketing and sales teams must align to create content that impacts the company’s bottom line. And to do that, they need a purpose-built CMS that helps them do that.
While shared drives and wikis have been the rage for this purpose, their inefficiencies are glaringly apparent, costing your company time, money, and resources. Moving away from them and adopting sales enablement software can unlock a range of benefits and drive success.
Plus, sales enablement tools act as a single source of truth, letting all stakeholders get a transparent view of all created assets. It allows you to turn content into sales enablement drivers that drive customer engagement, resulting in more closed-won deals.
Ready to change things up at work and bring more alignment between sales and marketing? Take Content Camel for a test drive by signing up for free today.
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Get the most out of your content and deliver trackable results
Content Camel is a sales enablement tool used for sales content management. High-growth sales teams use our system to quickly find and share the right content for each specific sales situation and measure content use and effectiveness.