Practical Approach to Reversing the Damage by Brand Deterioration

Managing a large dealer or distribution network is very challenging, especially when sales reps start making and using their own content. They do it using different colors, typefaces, and writing pitches in their own words.

Plus, very often, during a sales meeting, a sales rep has to jump from one document to another. It can distort the messaging and confuse prospects and potential customers. Using their own docs and different tone of voice results in brand deterioration.

Brand deterioration is a symptom of a systematic problem, and it should be addressed as such. Let’s see how it looks in practice and what you can do to reverse its damage and get your brand on the right track again.

Brand deterioration in action

Let’s, for a second, imagine a company that has a solid presence in the market and lots of customers. But it decides to enter a new market. However, it didn’t have enough time to do customer insights properly nor to revise the content created for sales reps. Its sales representatives have schedules filled with sales meetings determined to try and capture as many sales as possible.

During the meetings, the customers greet them with all sorts of questions - some questions are general, but others are quite specific. A sales rep digs through the documents they have access to, providing answers to some questions, not knowing that the information is outdated. Some of the questions are so specific that a rep is simply not able to answer them.

Prospects at the meeting are confused, they end up having more questions than they initially had, and they lose interest in buying from that company. Using outdated information and not being able to answer questions does nothing but hurt brand reliability and credibility.

Even though the sales reps are both professional, friendly, and casual, this scenario leads to brand deterioration.

Research finds that inconsistent brand messaging can cost a company $10 million or more annually.

To sum up, brand deterioration follows inconsistent messaging, which can result from poor content practices. Poor content practices are a broad category. However, some of these practices are more common than others:

• Sales reps create and use their own content with no supervision whatsoever;
• Updating content but failing to notify the sales reps about the updates;
• Scattered content (content stored all over the place - USB thumb drives, inboxes, and different online storage services).

The most common signs of brand deterioration include decreasing customer conversion, poor customer feedback, misalignment of brand goals and what customers respect, and the sales going well only when you offer products at a price reduction.

Now, while all this sounds troubling, you can do one simple thing to turn the tides and prevent brand deterioration in the future. You can centralize your content and keep all your marketing materials in one location with Showell.

How is Showell effective in preventing brand deterioration?

Showell is your sales enablement tool developed to streamline access to your marketing content. The best thing about it is that, even as an online platform, Showell enables your sales guys to access the content when they are offline. Let’s see how it can help you prevent brand deterioration.

Advanced content tools

With Showell, you will be able to keep all your content in one location, no matter the format. Plus, you get to organize your content into views and folders to make finding it easy.

Enhanced communication

You can push notifications through Showell when you update or upload an important piece of content. It will help you keep your sales reps in the loop with the latest developments. 

Available on any device

The app will work on desktop and laptop computers, including smartphones and tablets. Your sales reps won’t have to improvise when they can access the content on a device they have at hand.

Easily find any content

Content organization, tagging, and search functions really make finding any content easy. Your sales reps will be able to find key content in a matter of seconds and keep prospects and customers informed. 

Edit documents on the go

Editing content can be time-consuming, especially when switching from one tool to another. Showell comes with the MS Office editor. It enables you to edit PowerPoint, Excel, and Office documents from your Showell dashboard. 

Delivers great experience

Showell enables you to use the content to create stunning presentations and slideshows. There is no need to jump from one document to another when you can compile presentations. You can even make them interactive via 3D and augmented reality. 

Do you want to find out how it can help your marketing and sales team? Book a demo to try Showell and avoid any brand deterioration risks!