Digital asset management (DAM) is a business process that allows for the centralizing, organizing and managing of the digital assets/files of your company. A digital asset can be anything from a single image to an entire video. Here are the reasons why your business needs digital asset management.
It Will Make Company Communication More Efficient
You’re more likely to have smooth communication between internal departments if you are using Digital asset management (DAM) software. If you do research and read more here you’ll find that DAM is a central repository that enables teams to collaborate. This is because a DAM system makes it easier for employees to find the files that they need, making collaboration a lot simpler.
It also makes processes like file storage and retrieval work more efficiently since information can be shared across different platforms within your organization.
For example, you might find the need to share images or videos for a marketing campaign with employees from other departments such as human resources and sales. Without DAM, it would be time-consuming to track down those assets and your business risks losing valuable assets in the process.
Digital Assets Are Important To Business Growth
Just about every company has some kind of digital assets/files, be it still images or video footage. Images are necessary for social media posts, while videos are great marketing tools. Your business needs these digital assets to stay relevant in the eyes of your customers and improve its brand value/image.
For example, if you want to print business cards as a part of your marketing strategy, you would need the images that will be on those cards. You don’t want to give out unprofessional-looking cards and if you’re missing the necessary digital assets, it’s going to be difficult for your company to achieve its goals and vision.
You Can Improve Your SEO Through Proper Metadata Management
Metadata is “data about data”. In the context of web design, metadata is “information about a webpage that search engines can read. It helps search engines understand what a web page is about and who it is for.”
In other words, a DAM system allows a business to input proper keywords and meta-data into all their digital assets so that they can be easily found through a search.
When a search engine crawls a webpage, it uses keywords and meta-data to understand the page’s content. This means that if you have all your files correctly labelled with appropriate keywords, they will be found more easily by both Google and other search engines.
For example, let’s say you need an image of a bridge for your website. Without digital asset management, you would need to manually track the image down every time you wanted to use it.
Search engines can’t see images so how will they know that “bridge” is one of the keywords attached to the file? With DAM, all your files are properly labelled and catalogued so that search engines can crawl them more efficiently.
You Can Maintain High Image Quality
While it’s true that high-resolution images are necessary for attractive photos, they do take up a lot of space on your device and DAM software makes it easier to maintain high image quality.
If you’re using an inefficient file storage system with your digital assets, there’s a chance that you could lose some of your files when the originals are overwritten. This is why digital asset management software makes backups simpler and more efficient.
For example, if an image is not labelled properly or has no meta-data, it’s unlikely to be found during a search. If someone in another department tries to find images of bridges for printing on t-shirts, they’ll likely struggle because there’s no meta-data attached to the unhelpful “bridge” file.
It Helps You Streamline Your Business Processes
DAM software streamlines business processes by allowing you to automate tasks that are time-consuming and repetitive e.g. When an asset is approved, it is automatically added to a new set of folders or just within a project folder.
This saves time and reduces human error as people don’t have to manually move things around. So this way DAM saves time and makes your processes more efficient.
You Can Easily Manage Digital Assets Across Multiple Platforms And Devices
Storage has become extremely cheap and with cloud services like OneDrive and Dropbox, we’re used to having files at our fingertips wherever we go. However, they do not offer a central system through which employees can access the multiple files and folders of a digital asset.
Pictures taken with your iPhone can’t be accessed by someone using a work computer and vice versa, causing confusion and miscommunication. This is why digital asset management software makes it easier to manage all your different devices and platforms simultaneously.
You Can Easily Access Your Digital Assets
Instead of having to search for files manually, digital asset management software makes it easy to find the file you need within seconds. With a system that’s organised and streamlined, employees can easily access all their assets which simplifies business processes even further.
For example, say your company is working on a marketing campaign. Your Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages need images to promote your brand. If you’re using digital asset management software, employees can search for something specific like “marketing campaign” instead of browsing through folders one by one which saves time and energy.
You Can Communicate More Efficiently With Stakeholders
If you work in a business where there are multiple stakeholders (employees, clients or customers), digital asset management software makes it easier to share assets with them. For example, if you’re working on a project with a client and send them an email with images attached, they won’t be able to view the pictures properly.
With DAM software, stakeholders can access all your assets online so that there’s no need for emails or downloads. This saves time and paper!
It Can Save Your Business Money
Digital asset management software is a lot more efficient than the traditional file storage system. This means that it won’t cost your business as much time and money as other methods do.
Instead of having to purchase external storage devices such as portable hard drives or invest in an IT person, all you need to spend on is DAM software which will save you money in the long term.
Digital access management software allows for easier organisation of files no matter the device they are stored on. It makes communication with stakeholders more efficient by allowing them to access all assets online. File storage is streamlined and automated, saving time and increasing efficiency within a business.
Spending money on DAM software is far more cost-effective than spending money on hardware such as portable hard drives. Business processes become easier to manage as employees don’t have to move assets manually from one platform to another.
