Creating the perfect impression

To start with the basics: home in on what your prospect actually needs and wants. This is especially important as many organisations “can be guilty of stifling the process by ignoring the brief completely” says the former CMO of RBS, David Wheldon. He adds that if the brief isn’t clear – and let’s face it, briefs are rarely perfect – you should connect with the prospect to unstick those points and clarify their strategic direction.

Industry best practice is also pretty unanimous that you should know your facts, allow various people in the pitch team to speak, and listen and respond in real-time as described in Harvard Business Review. 

But if there was one key factor to decide if you win the business or not, it’s the human connection. Don’t forget to show “the commitment, the energy and the passion” and remember “pitches aren’t won on ideas alone, they are won on chemistry,” as Marketing Week’s secret marketer phrases it.

Put like this, it sounds simple. But we’ve all been there, been told our sales pitch was a ‘close second’, and we know this is a game of marginal gains where small differentiators make all the difference. And this applies to in-house marketers working alongside sales colleagues as much as it does to marketing agencies.

How can you impress your prospective clients? Let’s look at one simple way of boosting that personalised experience – using a digital asset management solution. 

How a DAM can give you the competitive edge

First of all, don’t be put off by the term digital asset management or DAM, as it describes something very simple and useful to marketers: a way to organise, manage and share your photography, media files and other digital assets – which is far more polished and powerful than Dropbox, Google Drive or SharePoint.

DAM platforms are best known for helping marketing and creative teams find assets and manage workflows. But they can also be a secret weapon for winning new business. During your current new business process, how do you share files, images and other information with your prospect? Canto – a leader in digital asset management – has the answer with Portals. 

Portals are customisable and allow you to brand or co-brand a tailor made space for compiling different assets like case studies, video, imagery and so on. But instead of describing how Portals work, you can see for yourself.

With Portals you can also ensure external organisations, like those all-important prospective customers, have secure access to everything they need and nothing they don’t. Curated content collections can impress your sales leads, without needing to give them access to your entire content library. 

When you apply this to larger new business functions, ones which operate across in-house teams and external partners, then Portals also acts as a brand guardian to ensure the right approved assets are available at the right time.

Brand customisation, consistency, and accessibility – it’s easy to see how Portals bring competitive advantage. 

It’s indispensable for brands which are rich with visual content, like agencies and the retail, e-commerce and hospitality businesses which make up a key part of Canto’s client roster. And it’s just as vital for education, construction, manufacturing and other broader regulated sectors – as the example below shows. 

Case study: Bantam Materials 

Take Bantam Materials, which converts plastic waste into sustainable packaging, and which includes regulatory and logistics information in its Portals-based sales kits. 

“Creating Portals as a selling tool has changed the nature of our business,” says Natasha Ward, information manager at Bantam Materials. “Canto Portals are the added sweetener on top. The idea of sharing digital media this way impresses and excites everyone. It’s the final piece of the puzzle for customers that nobody else in the market offers. They are always impressed by it.”

When it comes to winning new business, Portals can be a key ingredient in delighting prospective customers and converting the sale.

Case study: Osprey Group

UK specialist logistics firm, Osprey Group, introduced Canto and Portals into its operations to support the bid process and streamline customer and supplier collaboration.

They upload the best new project images to their library, storing them alongside team photos and bid documents.

Lead marketer at Osprey, Helen Batt says, “In terms of how we add value? It’s a nice, neat way of doing business. It’s that warm hug. We’ve not only delivered what you’ve asked, we’ve delivered it – photographed it for posterity – and you can find those photos here. For tenders, for example, we can even talk to clients about storing insurance documents and evidence all in one place, which is key.”

Portals can be a vital differentiator to help win new business. Digital asset management solutions can offer this and so much more. Find out about the software here and contact us to discuss.