Digital Asset Management Strategy: Here's What You Need to Launch it

Digital Asset Management (DAM) is not just software. It's a way of life. It's a long-term commitment that is not as daunting as you may first think. Once you have a DAM strategy and the means in place to implement it, you should start to see the return on your investment.

The benefits of adopting DAM into your marketing processes cannot be overstated. It will provide your teams with a way of working that will increase their productivity and reduce their risk of damaging your brand's integrity. With the correct procedures and strategy in place, using a DAM solution will change yours and your team's working life.

There are many theories are out there about measuring the value of brand recognition and loyalty. However, no one has ever argued that brand consistency is detrimental to a business's reputation and profitability.

A part of keeping that brand continuity is using the COPE model – Create Once Publish Everywhere. Taking this on board for your promotional activity will save your teams a lot of time (and therefore your budget). It means that you have something that is ready to go across channels, something you don't have to start again.

Knowing the benefits not only to your team, but across the business, once you have purchased a solution, the pressure is on to make it work. You need to have a solid plan in place.

Having provided DAM functionality to our customers over the last 21 years including some of the world's biggest brands – we believe we know a thing or two about what the key components of introducing and managing a DAM are and how best to plan your strategy for using it long-term.

Introducing Governance

Your DAM strategy begins with a leader with a vision. What are you looking to achieve? What are your measures of success for this project?

The most important thing to communicate is that the DAM is not a dumping ground. It should not be left to just one person to mop up after everyone else either. What if that person were to leave or go on holiday taking all their knowledge and experience of process, taxonomy and future roadmap with them? How is the DAM going to survive without them? – it cannot live with one person, as it will die there too.

An Eight Point Plan to Get You Started

Why are you introducing a DAM solution?
How will it work?
Who is going to manage the solution on a strategic level as well as a day to day basis – who is ultimately responsible for the success of this project?
Who is going to audit, direct and guide how the solution is used?
How is that direction translate into regular communication with service users?
What are the metrics you will use to report its success?
Who are the service users and what are their expectations?
What accountability is there in place for circumventing use of the DAM?

Your governance plan is a living and breathing being, it is going to change with regulation, with technological advances and changes to and within your organisation. It needs someone to anticipate and move with those changes to your internal and external environment.

Who is Touching Your Things?

If you have anyone 'touching' your digital assets, you need to know what is happening to them.

Who has access to them?
Who is using them?
Who should be using them?
Who oversees keeping asset banks up to date?

You're in a very visible position when you have teams of people relying on the content being up to date and easy to source. In a content driven world it's not enough to make the collateral to shove into a folder and forget about.

Workflows Working for You

Getting a handle of the right DAM workflows is something you need to be thinking about when engaging a supplier. It's too late once the sale is made. No one knows your business, your teams like you and you know how these things need to run. However, the right supplier can use the benefit of their experience to inform and advise so you can make the most of their experience.

With the right workflow in place, you can streamline and automate processes and increase communication between team members. Unfortunately, with the wrong workflow in place, you can end up with something convoluted, something that is easy to make mistakes hurt your team as they descend into a blame game as things go wrong.

Ring Fencing Your Assets – More About Security

As decentralised teams access assets and collate materials, it makes sense to have your DAM in one place. Your teams have reduced the risk of using out of date material or straying away from brand guidelines.

But what about the security of the central DAM solution?

You need to ask your suppler how are your assets kept safe? It might sound counter intuitive from everything we all know not to keep everything in one place.

Conclusion

We can't tell you what your full DAM strategy should be – only you know your business and how it works. Understanding your internal and external customers as well as key stakeholders in the process will help you to create something that is used as you envisioned.

If you are looking for a solution that helps you to integrate your marketing collateral in with your ERP/CRM solution – contact us to find out more.

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Digital Asset Management Strategy - Here's What You Need to Launch it