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Digital Asset Management

9/19/2014
In the current slow growth global economic environment, cost cutting has been a primary way for companies to improve their balance sheets. Driving efficiencies across the enterprise has been a CEO and CFO mandate and has been rewarded by Wall Street. Within marketing departments, non-working dollar expenditures are often an easy target for cost-cutting programs. However, in an age of digital communications, does it really make sense to reduce the budget that is directly responsible for driving brand awareness, sustainable growth and profitability?

Each year, companies allocate larger budgets to provide sufficient levels of consistent brand engagement using social media, mobile, e-mail, web sites, apps, content marketing, etc. Marketers’ need to increase investments in relevant brand content appears to be in direct conflict with corporate’s need to cut costs. But, is it really necessary — or even prudent — to sacrifice consumer engagement and potential brand growth for a need to cut expenditures? The simple answer is “no”. By developing a Digital Asset Management (DAM) capability, both objectives can be satisfied — costs can be reduced and efficiency goals enabled via digital asset distribution can be met.

A DAM capability is the process of collecting, managing, organizing and distributing any type of digital asset from a central repository to any point of use, from a web site to a sales presentation. DAM can manage traditional advertising assets such as brand copy and images, as well as sales “play books” and point-of-sale materials, promoting content reuse while trimming waste.

DAM addresses the workflow challenges associated with:
  • Finding Files: 84 percent of businesses report that finding assets is the biggest challenge when working with digital assets, according to marketingtechblog.com
  • Sharing Assets: 71 percent of organizations experience problems providing staff members across functions with access to assets, which reduces collaboration between departments and geographies, also according to marketingtechblog.com
  • Managing Assets: 10 percent of a creative professional’s time spent is on file management, according to GISTICS.

In fact, 92 percent of the industry respondents report the top reason to implement a DAM is cost savings, according to Gleanster Research in September 2013.

A centralized DAM process and capability can also improve both content sharing and reuse across markets and content reuse within markets, protecting brand integrity.  If a particular piece of content is cool in Kolkota, it might have a rousing impact in Rio. If the traditional media team has developed an asset for a traditional media campaign, that same asset may well be relevant for an online video campaign. Think of it as “green marketing reuse” with a measurable economic value.

Additionally, as digital content creation moves from the responsibility of agency partners to in-house resources, the need to store, manage and distribute mass volumes of global content will be critical to marketing and sales departments. DAM systems will become must-have necessities for managing the ever-increasing volumes of digital assets that are proliferating across organizations and will be hypercritical for effectively and efficiently engaging brands with consumers.

The intersection of cost reduction and the consumer mandate for brands to engage via digital channels is driving fundamental change within marketing departments.  Advances in technology are helping to meet the needs of modern marketers and the implementation of a DAM system will be mandatory for marketers driven to meet this challenge. So, where is your content?
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