This article is going to teach you about digital asset management (DAM) as well as the reason it is worth investing in this thorough summary.
The demand for digital content has grown steadily and keeps growing more every year. Consumers can definitely validate that businesses are creating 1000s of brand-new online products every month. That volume necessitates brands need to discover a reliable, smooth method of producing, storing, and organizing all their digital images and assets so they will strengthen their marketing endeavors. Having a digital asset management (DAM) platform provides these businesses one source in which they can both distribute as well as manage all their digital resources at scale.
The majority of CMOs have a DAM platform on their wish list if they do not have one currently. In fact, the DAM market is expected to rise from 2019’s rate of three billion dollars to ten billion by 2026. However, DAM means a lot more than merely the software needed to run it.
Now, let us dive into digital asset management as an important practice, as well as determine who all need it, its benefits and capabilities, along with the way to pick the best DAM system for a business’ precise requirements.
Table of Contents
What’s digital asset management?
Kinds of digital asset management
Who should get a DAM?
Capabilities of digital asset management capabilities
FAQs for dgital asset management
What’s digital asset management?
Digital asset management (DAM) is a method of storing, distributing as well as managing media files. DAM technology gives brands a fundamental source for all its digital content, to include pictures, graphics, as well as other files a business requires for their advertising campaigns, etc.
DAM began possible during the 1990s, and since then has quickly grown into a fundamental part of advertising software. Since digital marketing has skyrocketed, it didn’t take very lone before sellers had to have a lot more digital content in order to connect with their buyers, characterize their brands, as well as place their products and services competitively online.
Whenever the amount of content greatly expanded, businesses endeavored to somehow hold huge libraries full of their pictures, graphics and videos. Content was appearing all over, to include inside personal devices, unorganized shared folders, multiple hard drives, or even CDs. If it was possible for something to hold a digital file, it was filled with content. Therefore, marketing teams labored to discover and disseminate all that content for things like launching their services and products, ad campaigns, as well other vital business projects.
To resolve this task, DAM innovators studied the info management practices employed by librarians and then applied these to digital media files. The forerunner for that initiative was Widen DAM. It was launched in 1996 as an online interface for a graphics database. Nowadays, Widen is a component of Acquia and it still leads in the DAM universe and delivers an enterprise content management platform created using DAM for a foundation.
What’s digital assets?
| Digital assets are any form of content stored in the form of a digital file. Companies utilize digital resources for supporting branding efforts, along with utilizing both online and offline sales and marketing endeavors. Digital resources are vital in aiding brands in defining and supporting their identity, along with communicating their offerings, and shaping client experiences. |
Kinds of digital assets consist of:
- Pictures
- Videos
- 360º photography
- Audio files
- Brand guidelines
- Document files
- PDFs
- Invoice statements
It is customary for brands to initially depend on assorted hard drives, as well as thumb drives, and fundamental cloud-storage tools for managing digital resources. However, a lot of them discover these quickly don’t meet their needs sufficiently.
Kinds of digital asset management
A DAM system offers a wide assortment of resources for supporting different types of marketing methods. Being able to understand marketing team’s challenges will in turn assist brands in finding the right solution for their needs and problems.
The following are the kinds of digital asset management solutions commonly utilized by Internet marketers:
- Brand management. Sellers use brand management software to make sure their partners as well as their external collaborators represent their brand via reliable imagery and messaging. There’s a huge assortment of brand resources businesses can store and manage with a DAM approach.
- Marketing resource management. Marketing resource management, otherwise known as MRM, is a type of software which unites marketing teams, practices, and technology into a single system. MRM solutions assist businesses in tracking, managing, as well as reporting on marketing processes so as to boost resources and make practices more purposeful.
- Video management. Video asset management software helps the user store and organize their video files from their creation to archival. Since these types of files are many times quite big, the software is designed to make accessing, sharing and publishing easier for users.
- Product information management. Product information management, otherwise known as PIM software compiles and disseminates specifications, descriptions, as well as the content required to advertise, as well as sell products or services. Additionally, it assists brands in preparing precise, convincing listings for their products to be used in their worldwide e-commerce stations.
Under ideal terms, the enterprise DAM solution maintains the above four kinds of digital asset management. Whilst different jobs in a business have different requirements, the DAM system needs to empower every worker. Since many groups use a DAM for varied reasons, what groups will usually benefit the most from using a DAM system?
Who should use a DAM?
Any person in an organization who utilizes any sort of digital materials should use DAMs, so actually we all need them in our work. A DAM is more than mere software, it is additionally part of the company’s digital asset management procedures, guidelines, tactics, and devices which businesses having any sort of digital resources can (and ought to) start using. For the majority of brands, that involves investment in a DAM system so they can simplify their method of storage, organization, and publication of their entire file system.
A DAM system assists in increasing collaboration, creating improved experiences for customers, and driving additional revenue. DAMs allow brands along with their partners to be able to simplify working with their daily content. Whilst all workers get benefits using a DAM, a few jobs get extra benefits, to include:
- Creators. Brand managers, creative directors, videographers, graphic designers, along with any other example of a imaginative and production group will save lots of time, as well as simplify their workflow, and produce better products via the DAM system.DAM devices enable them to manage their libraries of digital resources and find precisely the items needed. The correct type of system similarly simplifies the process for creative approvals via simplifying jobs such as sharing proofs, obtaining feedback, along with getting things approved. Once something gets that approval, the final creative product may get distributed all over the organization automatically via shared links and self-service portals. That assists in eliminating disorganized chain emails, plus everyone now has more time for doing their jobs.
- Marketers. As soon as creative resources get approved and are ready to go, the marketers utilize DAM systems for managing media files as well as creating effective campaigns, launching products, and handling content marketing proposals.DAM systems provide marketers with libraries which can be searched more easily, since they can search for something via keywords, as well as convert file formats as needed, and publish the content to numerous channels. Plus, custom portals can be created in order to share resources (such as media kits) with retailers, agencies, as well as distributors, and additional partners. DAM analytics devices offer perceptions which assist marketers in prioritizing their work along with making wiser content investments.
- Agencies. Agencies utilize DAM software for protecting their customers’ assets, simplifying workflows, as well as accessing the top and latest content to use in ad campaigns as well as to build new experiences for customers.Users such as account managers, as well as agency creatives, and additional customer team members are able to utilize DAM systems to seek content or gain access to curated sets of resources through a special portal. An example of the top benefits DAM offers organizations, is when files are updated in a system, it gets updated every place that file is embedded on the Internet. This characteristic assists organizations in creating reliable brand experiences, thus it saves time as well as saving billable hours.
- IT pros. IT pros are who must accomplish the hard job of combining advertising technology (martech) devices into a unified stack. A DAM system provides a solution which lowers redundancies as well as increases collaboration in between the teams and the systems.The DAM platform delivers a centralized hub which is able to power every one of a label’s go-to-marketplace technologies via content. With its pre-constructed integrations and its APIs, the IT teams are able to link their DAM solution up with additional systems – to include sales enablement, content management, social media, customer relationship management (CRM), marketing automation, etc.
Advantages of digital asset management
Providing personalized, top-quality content at each stage of the customer’s journey is the primary challenge and objective at the heart of the top advertising tactics. Via the DAM system, labels have a device which makes publishing the correct content easier all through every station at the right moment and giving out the correct message. That degree of omnichannel consumer experience produces lifetime value, as well as loyalty to a brand, and client satisfaction.
The DAM system provides brands a centralized place for storing and organizing digital resources. This centralization directs additional beneficial advantages such as streamlining the creative process, as well as ensuring consistency in a brand, and incorporating a martech stack, as this could cause a lesser total cost of ownership (TCO) for martech.
Any label which makes an investment into DAM technology can attain the following benefits:
- Organized content in a single system
- Simplified workflows
- Consistency in the Brand
- Measurable content effect on analytics
- Incorporated martech stack
Capabilities of Digital asset management
Basically, the DAM platform is a centralized hub for storing, managing, and publishing all your digital resources. From it, the users are able to safely hunt for and access current and authorized resources. The capability to circulate those resources all over the advertising channels arises from the DAM system’s capability to combine with more marketing tech, as well as being able to talk to APIs.
DAM devices simplify content workflows via automation. They likewise provide teams the ability to refresh any online content which is embedded all over the Internet via merely updating one file that exists in their DAM system. Enterprise DAM systems consist of an analytics dashboard which shares valuable insights, like what content was viewed, engaged with or shared the most. Whilst each of the teams have varied goals and priorities which go with their particular system, a brand ought to assume Enterprise DAM solutions to be able to accomplish the following:
- Centralize resources into a single system. All your content, i.e. images, audio, guidelines, etc., are able to be stored in one place. You are able to both see as well as interact via previews for all your files, i.e. logos, videos, any sort of documents, any files which are still in progress, as well as 360° photography, etc.
- Delivers self-serve access. Teams can be empowered, regardless of their time zone or region, and get exactly what is needed, at the time it is needed. Delivers safe and secure authorized access to your site, as well as curates resource selections through portals, or it can share each piece of content by itself.
- Publish current, authorized resources. Keeps track of different versions of your content, and you merely have to update a file one time and it gets published automatically to all your embedded or shared links.
- Automates content-associated workflows. Utilize metadata for fueling workflows, as well as set up automation that is rule based and doesn’t require coding in order to let users know whenever brand-new content is posted. Utilize artificial intelligence (AI) for powering auto-tagging as well as to apply any metadata needed.
- Change and /or reuse your content. Transform pictures, audio files or videos into additional formats as you go. Set up commonplace conversions needed for social media sites, webpages, slide decks, as well as be able to crop or resize if you need it.
- Monitor the effectiveness of your content via analytics. Leverage all site- as well as asset level analytics for informing decisions, along with reviewing the file’s history of any revisions for audits.
FAQs for Digital asset management
With so much terrain to cover in digital asset management, it’s normal to have questions. Here are common questions to ask before investing in DAM.
Why is digital asset management so crucial?
Digital asset management offers brands a method as well as the technology for storing, managing, and publishing content all over any available digital channel. The tools that come with a DAM encourage collaboration, along with powering omnichannel consumer experiences, increasing brand loyalty, growing client’s lifetime value, plus it is able to eventually bring more profits and income. Via a DAM solution, a brand is able to better compete in a digital world that is always changing and have the capability to rapidly adapt to brand-new client behaviors as well as grow customized experiences.
How can an organization pick the correct DAM solution?
Since there’s a multitude of choices, it is vital to evaluate available DAM solutions carefully prior to making the investment to get one — in fact, it is so vital that there is an entire guide on the way to pick DAM systems. Selecting the correct software solution involve a specific process, which starts via several easy steps. Begin with commonplace questions all brands must answer, in order to be sure of the way the DAM systems is going to affect your workflows, along with identifying the areas you need to focus on in order to talk to your vendors about it.
Why ought a business make an investment in using digital asset management?
It might be so they can produce custom-made, omnichannel client experiences. Or it could be in order to save big bucks on your creative process along with also increasing production capacity too. A firm can could even utilize a DAM for reducing TCO for its marketing technology. Or it might be all of those or use it to put in place just about any type of advertising tactics you could imagine. There’s so many robust organization examples for why a business ought to get a DAM.
What comes next?
Brands from all sorts of industries from consumer packaged goods (CPG) businesses to pro sports groups are getting a DAM. Global Internet retail sales are expected to rise to more than seven trillion bucks by 2025, plus e-commerce businesses can take advantage of that rise via an investment in a DAM system. Via simplified product content as well as creative workflows, advertising teams are able to utilize a DAM for growing lifetime value, making clients more loyal to their brand and improving client’s satisfaction.
Are you prepared to take over control of all your digital resources? Find out the reason you will fall in love DAMs. Ask for a demonstration now.
