To allow or not to allow downloads

Hi Marc,

We have a solid governance on assets: 

• Distribution
  • Internal Only: Content that is confidential such as policies, job aids, process, internal product competitive information etc. Any content or assets we do not want “accidentally” emailed externally
  • External: Content that can be shared and downloaded
  • External Not downloadable: Videos from Marketing we do not want downloaded to desktops that could be shared at a later date or time. Our DSRs are defaulted to not allow download. This can be overridden by selecting “allow downloads” however, the rule is focus more on internal downloads so we were ok with this exception. 

Hope this helps!

Christine 

Thank you for sharing Christine

​@MarcWillDo 
We are 1.5 years into our implementation with a sales force that that has never had “tightly organized & fully controlled” content like we can provide with Seismic.

• So, there’s positive enablement outcomes on speed and quality and efficiency, but there’s also the reality that a PDF saved on your desktop and dragging into an email is fast and familiar. A deck stored on your computer is offline available when WIFI is spotty.
• A PPT edit is “easier” if you havent learned the presentation builder and workspace flow…...and it’s 6PM before a meeting the next day.
• There are sometimes where a face-to-face interaction and leave behind needs a download and print.
• Similar to ​@ChristineC, we have ‘Not downloadable’ content that we want to control and prevent from leaving the system.
• We also attempted to limit downloads on many types of literatures and especially PPT presentations, so the brand and quality were protected.
• We quickly discovered that there’s always a few people that need to download for a tradeshow, physical leave behind, or offline presentations etc. Those needs seem to be legitimate and any alternative workaround (like sending your self a LIveSend link and then downloading) was deemed frustrating and a waste of their time by those specific sellers.

So, more and more asset types were slowly marked as Downloadable.

• Our data shows that there are folks who may be downloading and saving on their computer for faster, offline access (saves them time from searching and attached LiveSend links). This is not what we want of course and is counter to our LiveSend and version/quality control objectives.
• In the end, we are keeping the long game in mind and focusing on enabling sellers to learn, embrace and leverage LivesSend, Digital sales rooms, workspace and Presentation Builder as the best and most efficiency experiences.

Would love any advice or alternative approaches and learn from this community :)

 

Hi ​@Srlanders ,

Thank you for your detailed answer. The situation that you describe is quite similar to what we have experienced until now. Except that we have not yet made the step to relax the “no download at all” rule. That actually has caused users to walk away, turn to alternative contend sources again and may well prove counterproductive in the end.

Another reflection I have been making lately is regarding the customer experience (I mean the end customer, the one who buys from us): a big portion of the content we manage for sales in Seismic is publicly available, then downloadable from our website. But as soon as a seller share content with a customer who has engaged with us, then the customer cannot download the content.

I guess it time for us to reconsider  the no download principle, be it at least when it comes to LiveSend!
 

cc ​@ChristineC 

Hi Christine,

I was discussing making part of our external content not downloadable with a colleague this morning, like you described… but we do not know how to do that in the practice… videos would be a typical case.  Is that a way to do that based on e.g. a file format? A content property?  How do you manage that?

Curious to know more about why your users scoff at protecting the ability to download, ​@MarcWillDo. 

What value are they seeing from that ability? Is it because it is truly hampering the conversation with prospects and clients, or because they just prefer to be sharing content in a different method that’s perceived to be easier than a LiveSend? 

Jack

Hey Jack,

Context is that en customers have been used to get everything downloadable, on request placed to a salesperson.
Add to that that customers have the ability to download almost everything from our website… and you get in a situation where customers call after having received something the salesperson shared with LiveSend … to request a downloadable version 

Hi Marc,

 By default we make our external content shared in LiveSends not downloadable. We have given our reps the ability to make downloadable via the settings in each individual LiveSend action. The External Not Downloadable distribution tag is focused on an internal only governance. Our marketing team does not want assets, specifically videos, to be circulated outside of specific campaign dates. 

To add this additional distribution tag the workflow we followed in our instances was: Settings>Teamsite>Delivery Option Settings> +Add. This is where we created the new Distribution tag “External View Only” and disabled delivery option of download. 

Keep in mind it might be different for your instances but hopefully this will help get you started!😁

Thank you very much Christine :)

I’m encountering similar decision-making about allowing downloads. A big part of our workforce wants the ability to download resources and upload to NotebookLM for AI learning and support. We’re currently trying to evaluate what our strategy is.

This has been a request from our teams as well. However, allowing downloads of internal-only content would negate the compliance framework that Marketing, Enablement, Operations, and other teams have worked hard to put in place. That’s why we’re actively looking into Aura as a solution 🤞 

Hi all,

We’ve also encountered the same push back with disabling downloads. Sometimes it’s just a training gap but other times it’s completely necessary. We work with customers who require PDFs as copies for their own compliance, and although you can access content offline using the mobile app, this does not help when in a face to face meeting with no wifi or screen present.

As Admins, we have been using the Desktop Sync to take the file out of Sesimic and give to the rep as a PDF outside Seismic. This means the rep needs to share their WorkSpace file with us, we open the desktop app (which has a one-way sync from Seismic to a system folder on our PC), save it as a PDF, and then share back with the rep.

It’s quite ineffecient but doesn’t happen everyday, and has meant we can keep downloads off. 

Here is the link to the desktop sync info: Seismic Desktop Sync • Seismic Content Enterprise Editions • Seismic Product Documentation

I stress, only Admins have this.

If we could set it up so that downloads were only ever in PDF format, that would prevent some of the DIY issues we had before. 

Thanks,

Harriet 

I think the thinking in my program is a bit different from what most of you all are describing in your programs. When we first implemented we did not allow downloads. About 6 months post implementation we enabled downloads after strong feedback from our users and leadership. Our userbase’s demo, is I would assume much older than most, wanted us to allow downloads with their main pain point not being able to print the materials themselves so they could have a paper copy to reference. We still don’t encourage that feature, and train our users to come back to Seismic and check if their version is current before using it/referencing it again. 

We allow downloads as that is what our clients are looking for from a user experience perspective.  We are in the asset management industry and work through intermediaries to get to the end client so most of our content is shared with our client, who then wants to share with their end client.

Due to this, we still see a significant amount of attachments instead of links because our Sales teams want to make it as seamless as possible for our clients to use the content in their workflow.

This does impact on the LiveSend analytics that can be captured but our #1 focus is on providing an exceptional client experience so we need to meet their needs first.