In short, digital asset management (DAM) is the organization, management, and distribution of any of your digital files, from images to text content and everything in between. A good DAM system will also keep your files safe. Let’s take a look at what digital asset management covers to help you decide if you need it.
content creation
Content creation is a big part of marketing today. By creating a system that makes it easy to find content you’ve already created and can use, you’ll save time by helping you reuse content more easily. Additionally, you can add templates, brand assets, slides, and any content you need to use frequently to the files.
You won’t have to go through tons of misnamed files on your hard drive, in Google Drive, or in the files of your clients or co-workers. Instead, everything will be organized correctly and easier to find when you use good DAM processes and systems.
Management
When you have a good digital asset management system and processes in place, you can get so much more out of the digital assets you’ve created. Your productivity will increase because you won’t spend time reworking or looking for collateral you can use.
Well-organized files mean you won’t be repeating work you’ve already done. You will not waste more time looking for things that do not have the appropriate name. You will be much more creative when you manage to organize your files correctly.
Distribution
All your digital assets are now in one place and available to anyone who wants to have access to them. You can easily and securely give access to documents, images and other files without worry. Most DAM systems offer version protection and more. A proper DAM system makes all of this super easy.
You may want to share brand guidelines with contractors, marketing campaign materials with your Facebook ad manager, and writing guidelines for your social media marketing virtual assistant. When this information is easy to grasp and use, it will be used and respected.
Most likely, you simply share a link and the user can grab the link to use the document or even edit the document or file. It will be much easier with the right DAM system.
Preservation
The other key to a great DAM system is that you can better preserve the files and use them over their lifetime. You can also make sure that files that aren’t meant to be used are archived so you can keep them for history’s sake. Also, you can include versions, permissions, and much more that makes your workflow easier.