First off, what is marketing collateral exactly?

Marketing collateral is marketing material used in email marketing, advertising, and digital marketing such as social media posts, blog posts, and live event collateral material. Marketing collateral includes any piece of content that the marketing team uses to help with the sales process. Keeping all of these pieces on brand is one of the biggest challenges many marketing managers face.

We previously discussed how marketers' laptops often resemble a messy storage closet, holding a plethora of brand assets and marketing materials with little organization. This can happen when organizations use shared drives to house their marketing assets and neglect the upkeep of these drives. As a result, finding branded templates or other pieces of sales collateral can be a huge headache.

What exactly are the consequences of disorganized marketing content in today's competitive marketplace? Consumers are used to getting what they want, when they want it. If sales and marketing teams are unable to deliver promotional materials that incentivize an engagement of some sort (i.e. newsletter sign-up, a purchase, etc.) in an acceptable amount of time, customers will jump ship to the next competing brand that gives them what they want and need. This is why brand managers are expected to move quickly, fleshing out a high volume of content to get in front of both potential and current customers as soon as possible. An easy strategy to facilitate getting your content to market faster? Organization.

While keeping your marketing assets organized seems easier said than done, there are several steps you can take to ensure that your collateral can be found quickly and easily. Follow these five tips to stay ahead of the curve and eliminate the scourge of cluttered marketing collateral.