Digital asset management (DAM) has become an essential tool for businesses to effectively organise, store, and distribute their digital assets. From images and videos to documents and audio files, DAM systems provide a centralised location for businesses to manage their digital content, streamline workflows, and improve collaboration. As the volume of digital assets continues to grow, the importance of implementing an effective DAM strategy cannot be overstated. In this article, we will explore the benefits of DAM and how it can help businesses optimize their digital asset workflows.
Efficient digital asset management helps you to organise digital assets more efficiently, making it easier to locate files that you need, when you need them. Digital Asset Management Platforms, aka DAMs, are incredibly valuable because they facilitate the organising, accessing, and sharing of marketing materials, sales collateral and general business assets. A DAM system stores and organises all your digital assets in one central place which can then be securely accessed through one platform.
DAM is a process focused on organising, collaborating, and storing digital files for brands, such as images, brand documents, marketing materials, and videos. As a central source of truth for marketing assets, a DAM system simplifies and manages the lifecycle of the content, from creation through to storage. A successful digital asset management system offers far more than just a simple repository of digital files, it offers increased visibility, providing a single source of truth that can be used by creatives, marketers, brand managers, CMOs, and other stakeholders to achieve their business goals.
In other words, a great DAM solution makes it easy to collect, manage, and interpret data from many sources, providing valuable insights on how to best utilise your digital assets in line with business goals. With a DAM system that makes assets easier to find via meta-information, tags, and keywords, organisations can help their teams operate more efficiently and effectively, making sure that more time is spent creating powerful content instead of searching for it. By labelling individual assets with specific key terms, you can create a cohesive DAM structure, one that significantly improves search capabilities over time.
With centralised management, all the visual assets and marketing materials used within the DAM solution will be coherent and relevant. DAMs will also enable marketing managers to share their assets directly from within the system on social media, and also with external users. Another advantage to sharing files from your DAM platform is that external users will never need any extra software to see assets.
A great DAM platform will allow you to easily manage your users and their access, with various permission levels making it far easier to maintain the security of digital assets and enable individuals to only access files that they need at a given moment. These permission levels aren’t just for the overall DAM either, with many offering different permission options for specific folders and collections so you can also share assets with your stakeholders from the same platform whilst maintaining complete ownership of your assets but also allowing for increased collaboration using insights to track usage, views and comments.
A DAM solution can optimise growth and act as the incubator of all your brand's content, allowing teams to brainstorm, create, share, and manage assets from conception through publishing. In addition to these benefits, digital asset management can help to remove bottlenecks from a media production workflow, providing access to all necessary tools needed for creating beautiful graphics and videos. A DAM system can set permissions that manage its lifecycle, protecting against theft, as well as the accidental damage, duplication or deletion of assets.
Here at Project Plan Services (PPS), we recommend Brandfolder, the #1 rated DAM based on user reviews and part of the Smartsheet family. A recently commissioned Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact study found that Brandfolder delivered a 273% ROI for customers. The study also revealed an increase in team efficiency by 40% and up to 90% of time saved searching for digital assets. So with statistics and results like those, it is no surprise that organisations such as McLaren, Zoom and TripAdvisor are already using Brandfolder. Are you ready to harness your brand’s potential?