What is Digital Asset Management (DAM) and how would it benefit your marketing team?

What is a DAM?

Digital Asset Management Systems (DAMs) are online software platforms that allow businesses to store all digital assets in one place. Providing your company with a ‘single source of truth’ as a searchable library for teams to self-serve and find the most relevant, up to date assets fast. The software supports teams to produce and manage rich media, enhance engagement and bring order to the chaotic world of content.

The DAM can host everything from images, graphics, videos and pdfs to artwork and audio. It allows for the easy and efficient location, reuse, proofing and publishing of content to manage your brand and marketing communications. It enhances the ability to track assets performance, proving the analytics to drive more strategic decisions.

What problems does a DAM solve?

1. Time spent locating assets

A DAM is like google for assets, finding exactly what your looking for fast. If you find it in the wrong file type, you can easily convert on the fly!

2. Duplication of assets

Take away the guessing game for employees. Simply update and upload, removing no longer relevant versions.

3. Visibility of what you have and what your missing

With everything in a central location, marketers get a thorough and accurate view of all their available content to make more informed decisions.

4. Incorrect versions being used

Ensure the final approved assets are being shared and eliminate costly errors in compliance, brand standards and rights management.

5. Large quantities of requests

A DAM is a self-serve library, reducing the number of requests to your marketing team has to manage so they can stay focused on their work.

6. Marketing materials not being consistent

Brand consistency is key when delivering assets at every point of customer interaction, especially when its across various geographical locations. The DAM provides visibility to ensure everything is consistent and on-brand.

7. Lack of background information on assets

All assets in the DAM are appended with metadata which can provide marketer information they need to know, such as whether a company owns the perpetual rights of the asset or if it has been approved by the legal team.

8. Not knowing the value of your assets

View the performance and downloads of assets, find out what is been used and what can be made redundant. A DAM provides your marketing team with an ROI on creative assets, allowing for future optimisation and further efficiencies.

9. Difficulty in sharing externally

No need to use various platforms to share large files and group of assets, do it all through the DAM. Even create custom portals for key clients, creating a personalised experience.

10. Unable to access assets remotely

DAMs have transformed from installed software’s to cloud-based offerings. Allowing for access anywhere around the world with ease.

Why is growing the importance of digital assets management?

Brands are shifting to customer-centric marketing models, creating personalised content for their consumers across a wide variety of touch points, devices and environments. In the Adobe Consumer Content Survey, a whopping 42% of respondents said they get annoyed when their content isn’t personalised. What’s more alarming is 66% of consumers said encountering any of these situations would stop them from making a purchase.

This expectation of personalisation has led to increasing amounts of digital assets being created by marketers everyday, week and year. Gartner’s 2019-2020 CMO Spend Survey found that CMOs expected that the creation and management of content and campaigns would command the second-largest portion of the marketing budget. Additionally, the survey indicates that CMOs consider content creation and management to be the fifth most vital capability for supporting the delivery of their marketing strategy over the next 18 months.

The problems that DAMs are designed to solve are evolving with the latest technology, an example of this is artificial intelligence (AI). New API recognition systems allow for auto analyses to append information of assets (known as metadata) to speed up the process of manually entering tags and descriptions, resulting in additional time saving.

Having the right tools to support your marketing team plan and execute large quantities of high-quality content across todays touch points is essential. A DAM will not only result in huge time and cost saving but can also provide your business with a competitive advantage. If you’re looking for a way to effectively manage your digital assets or update your current systems, reach out to our team to see what Fusion Connect DAM could do for your business.