Adopting a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system can be transformative for a company, especially when certain signs indicate inefficiencies or growing pains related to how digital content is organized, shared, and used. Here are some common signs that your team would benefit from a DAM:
Asset Overload
Producing a large volume of digital assets (images, videos, documents, etc.) feels like the biggest challenge for a brand. However, if your team struggles to finalize, organize, and store assets, the digital assets will never achieve maximum impact. DAM systems are built to centralize brand assets and increase their usage.
Difficulty Finding Assets
Teams and partners shouldn’t waste time searching for the right assets. For many brands, digital assets are scattered across different storage systems (cloud drives, local folders, team member’s desktops, smartphones, etc.). This leads to numerous email requests like “Hey, can you send over the updated logo?” or “Do you have a version of this cropped for social?” A DAM provides a single source of truth with powerful search and filtering capabilities.
Inconsistent Branding
Maintaining consistent branding is a constant challenge, especially for organizations working closely with resellers and partner networks. A DAM ensures that only approved, up-to-date assets are available for download and use across digital menus, social media, email, and other channels.
Collaboration and Sharing Issues
When multiple teams (e.g., marketing, sales, product, and design) need to access and share assets, they face difficulties with version control or inefficient hand-offs. A DAM facilitates easy sharing, tracking, and collaboration on assets, creating clear roles and permissions for critical brand assets. This way, when an asset is finalized, it’s clear who’s responsible for storing and organizing it in the DAM.
Version Control Problems
Opening a folder to see “Sales_Brochure_V4_PRINT” doesn’t inspire confidence internally or externally. It’s normal to update existing assets to extend their useful life. However, if multiple versions of a deliverable are available online (especially if the naming convention isn’t clear), you will see confusion amongst your team and significant mistakes. A DAM simplifies version history and ensures teams continuously work with the most current files.
Inefficient Creative Workflows
Content creation often sounds easy, but it can be pretty challenging, especially for lean teams. If you find bottlenecks in your creation or approval processes due to manual asset usage tracking, a DAM can help. Marketers can automate simple workflows, centralize approvals and publishing, and notifications can keep your team on the same page. The right DAM streamlines production cycles and ensures your content engine keeps working.
Need for Rights Management
Stock images and licensed content are valuable for brands. However, ensuring those assets are not used after expiration is critical. Track asset rights and ensure compliance with DAM to avoid nasty cease and desist letters. No marketer should return to work on Monday and see one of those in their inbox.
Scaling Content for Multiple Channels
As your brand grows and produces more content for various channels (web, social media, email, print), your team has to learn new practices and be even better organized than before. A DAM can simplify the repurposing of assets for different formats while maintaining consistency and efficiency. Tagging assets for their intended channel or downloading the same asset in a different file format/size can save teams significant time each week.
Global Teams or Remote Work
A distributed workforce and/or an international customer base present distinct challenges. Accessing and sharing assets from different time zones or locations is often a hassle, especially if you’re planning for a global product/campaign launch. A DAM enables precise access for different users almost anywhere around the globe. Ensure that internal and external sales, retail partners, networks, and other brand partners have everything they need to help your brand succeed.
If these nine challenges are the standard for your team, then now is a great time to look for a DAM. Challenges related to finding, organizing, sharing, or maintaining control over digital assets can easily be a thing of the past.
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