Whats And Whys Of Digital Asset Management (DAM)

A noticeable spurt in media assets and tools has sparked an interest in systems to organize digital assets. 

In the light of coronavirus-induced pandemic, the adoption of new technologies and the rise in technological advancements have expanded by leaps and bounds. This new work environment has emphasized the importance of delivering rich digital media across all media devices to keep the business up and running.

However, with too much online sharing, comes the flux of storing the content effectively. The absence of a central position to store and manage digital media can take a toll on your marketing effectiveness.    

And this is the raison d’être of digital asset management. Scroll down to know the digital asset management meaning and related details in brief.

What is Digital Asset Management (DAM)?

‘Something represented in a digital form that has intrinsic or acquired value is a digital asset’, says Theresa Regli, a digital asset management industry expert.

Photos, audio, videos, documents, presentations, e-books, catalogs, creative files – These all are your digital assets. Digital Asset Management refers to a secured software or system that lets an organization(s) upload, store, find, manage, distribute, and assess their digital content from a single point. 

Put simply, a digital asset management system streamlines everything to eliminate existing bottlenecks, speed up the workflow, and boost productivity. To develop a user-friendly and highly functional digital asset management software, you can get in touch with a reputed mobile app development company. 

Digital asset management can affect an array of industries and disciplines, including:

1. Social media
2. Sales
3. Education 
4. Web development
5. Marketing & advertising
6. Entertainment
7. Photography 
8. Publishing
9. Finance
10. Retail
11. Government and much more

Also, you can learn about mobile apps in enterprises’ digital transformation. 

What are the types of digital asset management systems available?

Primarily, there are three types of digital asset management systems. Here’s a quick overview of what each type of system has to offer:

• On-premise: This DAM is hosted on the buyer’s own internal servers i.e. physical premises. Since it requires additional storage space, backup/recovery processes, as well as regular IT support & maintenance, on-premise DAM has high upfront costs.

• Cloud-based: Also referred to as a SaaS model, a cloud-based DAM stores your data on remote servers. This software-based system needs no hardware/servers to maintain. If you are looking for a cost-efficient and scalable option to store your digital assets securely (without any hidden costs involved), cloud-based DAM has our consent. Plus, you can hire developers for reliable cloud app development services. 

• Hybrid: Hybrid DAM software combines the best of both worlds i.e. on-premises and cloud. A hybrid solution lets you avail the benefits of the cloud and at the same time liberty of storing sensitive data on-premises. For teams that require working with large or heavy files, the hybrid system provides improved performance with the help of a local cache component.

Widen, Bynder, Brandfolder and Canto are some of the top Digital Asset Management system examples you can opt for, to manage your digital assets. You shall study about them in brief later in the blog.

How does digital asset management work?

Let’s begin with an example to understand the function of digital management work.

Say there is a person A who has created a PowerPoint presentation on the topic ‘Why Business should go for Digital Transformation technologies & how Appventurez can help companies embrace digital technologies.’ He saved the file as ‘BDTApp’ and saved it somewhere in Google Drive.  

The PPT was put on hold due to other ongoing projects and since person A found another job, he left the current organization. Sometime later, the PPT was needed. Person A’s teammates searched the ins and outs of his Google Drive but the presentation was nowhere to be found.  

Though the file was in Google Drive, the name makes no sense so the team wouldn’t even bother to open the file. The team has to build the PPT from scratch which wastes their valuable time. 

There is no such issue with digital asset management.

In a parallel universe, with the right Digital Asset Management System and making use of metadata, a uniform title format (say ‘PPT on the need of Digital Transformation’), and maintaining the digital assets in one centralized location shared among the team members, person A’s presentation is easily accessible and used whenever required. 

Why do you need to give a DAMn about digital asset management?

According to the Microsoft Digital Asset Management statement, “You can use it as a secure place to store, organize, share and access information from almost any device. All you need is a web browser, such as Internet Explorer, Chrome, or Firefox.”

We believe after so much detailed bragging about digital asset management, you might be thinking Why is digital asset management important? Simple – A digital asset management system plays an effective role in storing, managing, and sharing digital assets.

Some of the major advantages of digital asset management include:

• Enhanced efficiency

When it comes to marketing, interactive graphics play a pivotal role by adding to the visual appeal, holding on to your audiences slightly longer and keeping them engaged while they’re there.

A Digital Asset Management (DAM) system helps boost productivity and efficiency by getting rid of the need to request assets every time they’re used. By saving all illustrations and images in a common location, the design team can utilize their time in creating assets, not waste time in locating them. This saves time by preventing redundancy on the assets that have been completed already.

• Maintains brand consistency & integrity

It is crucial for the brand to maintain its consistency across all communication channels. Hence it becomes imperative to follow an omnichannel approach. However, with the presence of multiple channels, ensuring consistency becomes quite a task.

With Digital Asset Management (DAM), organizations can house all the content/media files in a centralized repository to keep everyone in the organization on the same page and well-informed about the latest versions of files. 

• Helps avoid redundancy of the existing digital content

If a person is unable to locate a file, he/she will ask for another at the very moment results in a waste of time and effort. By providing a complete picture of available content, DAM eliminates the possibility of miscommunication.

This also results in a virtual reduction in the costs that come with recreating lost assets. Once your assets are stored in the system, they are secure and easy to retrieve. 

• Safely storing digital assets

DAM understands how important your digital files and assets are to you. So, not only does it store your assets in one place but also keeps them secure. With Digital Asset Management, you get super secure software that is practically impossible to hack, watermark functionality on images, and in some cases, single sign-on functionality as well. It’s like 360 degrees of security.

What are the signs that you may need a DAM solution?

Why work hard when you can work smart? 

To be or not be? To use DAM software or not? Even if you decide to not, trust us, you will consider it in a month or two. 

Regardless of whether you’re a startup, SME, SMB, or a big-shot brand, DAM software can amalgamate all your digital assets into a single place, resulting in maximum efficiency. If you still aren’t convinced, below are some of the early symptoms of why digital asset management is important for your business.

• Most of your time and manual efforts are consumed in finding the digital assets you need.
• You spend a lot of time filtering through emails to locate the actual file you need. 
• You receive constant requests for photos, logos, videos, and other digital assets from different departments. Hours are spent in transferring those files to various people throughout the company. This often ends in chaos.
• You’re still going the old school way i.e. paper-based processes because you are prone to hard work and not smart.
• You have to share the files with clients or partners urgently but all of them are scattered in different folders and you are running out of time.

Sounds relatable enough? Digital asset management software can help! As stated above while discussing digital asset management meaning, DAM software creates a centralized, managed system for sharing your digital assets in an efficient manner. 

What are the things to look for when considering a digital asset management solution?

Now that you have realized that digital asset management (DAM) software is the ultimate solution for your assets, the next step is to choose the best DAM software that resonates the most with your company’s needs.

How do you choose the best DAM software? Listed below are our top tips for selecting the ‘ONE’:

• Carry out an audit 

The very first thing you need to do to choose the best DAM software for your business is to evaluate the size of your digital assets and figure out by how much rate they would grow in the coming years. 

Yes, we understand this can be quite a task but once you have figured out the types of files you manage or deal with, how many digital assets you have, where they are stored, or who has access to them, you will thank us in the long run. 

• Overall requirements 

Be crystal clear about your requirements i.e. types of file formats the software supports, the volume of content it needs to take care of, and types of features it should include.

If you are tight on budget or want to have a trial first, there are many free digital asset management software available you can try your hands on. 

• Powerful search and browse options

Being able to locate your digital assets effortlessly is one of the prime benefits of a Digital Asset Management system. Since they make searching your assets like images, videos, and others a walk in the park, check for simple and advanced searches. A good digital asset management system will include both.

• Making sharing, distribution, and publishing easy

Need a faster turnaround time? The best DAM software streamlines the process of sharing, distributing and publishing the assets so that your content is reached to your audience quickly and on time. 

The feature lets you build links for any type of assets you can share with your team and clients easily.

• The presence of several supported integrations

What could be better than leveraging the benefits of separate existing systems in a single one, right? Hootsuite Integration, Sitecore, Adobe Creative Suite connector, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Microsoft Office, etc – the best DAM software integrates with multiple platforms you can take advantage of while using your assets.

When you’re on the lookout for the best digital asset management software, check for the types of integrations it has to offer.   

• Metadata management

Metadata is the data that is attached to each asset. Title, alt text, keywords – these all are metadata. As the name implies, Metadata management is a feature that helps you organize and search all of your digital assets. 

For example, there is an eCommerce project and the creative team could label all its related documents as ‘eCommerce Creatives’ so that when the social media team wants to check the assets, all they need to search for is ‘eCommerce creatives’ for all the assets to appear.

Relevant metadata improves searchability and efficiency within your DAM.

Top Digital Asset Management (DAM) System Examples

From creation to archive – A Digital Asset Management system gives you overall control and management over your digital assets. Let’s get familiar with some of the best DAM software you can try for starters.

• Bynder 

One of the most popular digital asset management platforms, Bynder is the easiest DAM system to manage digital assets professionally. Real-time collaborative edits, easy file sharing, simple storage as well as auto-formatting for multiple file types – Bynder has a lot to offer.  

Not only this but you also get easy-to-use brand templates you can use to create marketing content for the platform. Spotify, Puma, and Canon are some of Bynder’s popular users.

• Libris

Libris is the best DAM software for custom solutions. Boasting a robust set of features, Libris is a great digital asset management software for storing and managing digital assets. It supports different formats and fulfills the needs of the organization, regardless of its size.

It comes with a graphics engine that lets you adjust/alter the photo resolution, file format, hues & shades, and more – right in the software. On the whole, it’s great at organizing all your digital assets in one place, with easy access on the web or on a shared drive on your computer. 

• Widen Collective

An enterprise-level, cloud-based digital asset management software, Widen Collective seamlessly integrates with multiple platforms including content management, social media platforms, and marketing automation as well as provides powerful content analytics. 

This software in particular is fairly easy to use and with over 7 decades of presence in the digiscape, it has earned the trust of SMEs. Additionally, this best DAM software is the most recommended tool to align, share, and distribute the content.

Enterprise-grade security, full previews, asset analytics, version controls, file conversions, and custom notifications are some of its noteworthy features.

• Daminion Standalone Basic

Daminion Standalone Basic is a free, open-source digital asset management software that operates on the PostgreSQL database engine. This best DAM software is pro in planning, organizing, distributing, and managing high-quality content across multiple channels.

A simple and clear interface, quick retrieval of stored files, exporting with optimized images, and integration with the external system using XMP metadata are some of its most practiced features.

• Cloudinary

Cloudinary is the most trusted, cloud-based end-to-end DAM software that has some of the top clients (Vogue, Buzzfeed, Sony, etc.) under its wings. Not only does Cloudinary store, manage, and share your assets but also tracks, analyses, and reports the performance of your digital assets.

Some of its standard features include file storage, image optimization, video APIs, collaboration tools, image manipulation, integrations, and more.

It leverages the power of AI to automatically tag assets. Cloudinary has customized plans for individual users, small businesses, and medium-level businesses and the best thing is that currently, it is offering a free plan for getting started!

The listed are some of the top suggestions you can consider when getting started. Rest, there are plenty of viable alternatives you can pick as per your business’ size and needs. 

How Appventurez can help choose the right DAM?

In this world of digitization, digital asset management software is no longer an option. For businesses to thrive, making use of intuitive, integrated software works as a driving force. 

On the whole, the best DAM software can leave a significant impact on your content and your brand image.

If you need help in acquiring a DAM system for your business, Appventurez can help. Get in touch with us via info@appventurez.com. Our team is quick to answer.