Digital Asset Management (DAM) is nothing more than the organization, management, and distribution of any of your digital files.
This can include anything from images to text content and everything in between. When you have a good DAM system in place, not only can you easily find things but you also will be keeping those files safe and secure. Not sure whether you need DAM? Let’s look more into what digital asset management covers to help you decide whether you need it.
Content Creation
Creating content is a big part of effective marketing in today’s economy. By creating a system that makes it easy to find the content you’ve already created and can use, it will save time by helping you repurpose the content more easily. This also allows you to add templates, branded assets, slide decks and any content that you need to use frequently to the files.
Imagine how much nicer it is to not have to sift through tons of poorly-named files on your hard drive, in Google Drive, in Dropbox and your clients’ or team’s files. Instead, everything will be organized properly and be easier to find when you use good DAM processes and systems.
Management
When you have a good digital asset management system and processes, you can get so much more out of the digital assets you have created. Your productivity will increase because you’re not spending time repeating work or looking for collateral that you can use.
Well-organized files mean that you’re not going to repeat work that you’ve already done and you’re not going to spend extra time looking for things that aren’t named appropriately. You’ll be much more creative when you accomplish organizing your files properly.
Distribution
With a system in place, all your digital assets are now in one location and available for anyone that you want to have access to them. You can easily give access in a safe way to documents, images, and other files without concern. Most DAM systems offer version protection and more which eliminates deletion of important files and making sure that everyone with access has the most current version.
In addition to content you’ve created, you can use your DAM system to share important branding guidelines, marketing materials and more with employees, contractors and clients as needed. More than likely when sharing, you’ll simply share a link, and the user can grab the link to use the document or even edit the document or file. This is all so much easier with the right DAM system.
Preservation
The final important key to a great DAM system is that you can preserve the files better and use them for their lifetime. You can also ensure that files that should not be used are archived so that you can preserve them for history’s sake. No matter how your company scales in the future or what employees come and go, with the right DAM system, you won’t waste precious time keeping everyone on the same page or recreating the wheel. Now you can use your time to do more important things like growing your business.
Remember
Digital asset management will become an essential component of any successful business that has a lot of digital files. If you are beginning to have trouble finding digital assets and put them to use, and are wasting time wading through all your files, it’s time for a DAM system. At first, it might seem like a daunting project but taking the time to organize it now will save you so much time in the future. Even if you only do a little bit at a time, it’s better than leaving your digital files in chaos.
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Written By
Holly Kile – Marketing Assistant