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The best way to store, collate and manage an organisation’s digital media is with a digital asset management (DAM) system. Here we share the best practices required to ensure your DAM continues to serve your needs.
Digital asset management (DAM) is now a critical part of modern commercial and marketing departments. It allows marketers and creatives to work optimally with an exponentially increasing number of digital assets without becoming overwhelmed by the volume or complexity.
As with any tool, DAM is not a silver bullet — and to maximise its potential, teams will need to follow best practices to get the most value. Below are a few of these practices marketers can implement, both concerning the workflow and the technology system itself.
DAM platforms aren’t there to become burial grounds for the v1s, v2s and v3s of creative files, nor is it somewhere designed to become cluttered with outdated assets. Teams should regularly audit their assets to determine how many they have, what types they use, whether they are up to date, and where they are stored.
Auditing your team's current digital assets will also help you ensure that your DAM solution continues to meet your needs. If the media types in your asset inventory change or evolve, the DAM system will need to evolve with it. As you can imagine, how a DAM system manages high-definition video content will be different compared to audio content like podcasts, and then different again for pitch decks.
When you have stock of your assets, look to make your DAM platform the centre of your team's collaboration efforts. There are two main reasons for this.
First, if your team is already using another tool for collaboration that doesn't include digital asset management, then you can add a DAM tool or even bring in a complete marketing work management system.
This ensures all of your systems are suitably integrated and working in unison, this, in turn, will free up your team's budget and resources. Second, one of the primary benefits of a DAM platform is its collaborative features. It allows your team to work remotely with access to all of their assets and the correct versions, wherever they are.
Without collaboration, a DAM system may be nothing more than a glorified cloud drive, so ensure to use this guide to make the most of your system.
A DAM system should be easy to use and accessible to everyone who needs it. This can be achieved by integrating workflows into one system, or at least a few systems that work together. That way, there’s far less to manage, less training needed for teams, less logging between systems and a far smoother workflow.
More and more enterprise apps are integrating built-in automation features, not just digital asset management. One example is Google’s Vision API automatically assigns keywords to images to speed up categorisation and improve keyword searches for content. There’s also the Encodify Creative Automation Studio that connects to your DAM solution to reduce silos and automate the creation of marketing content.
Consider the human element of your digital asset management tool. After all, this is a system designed for teams to be interacting daily.
According to McKinsey, “focusing on people as much as technology” is one of the critical components of making digital tools work for your team. Integrating your workflows should reduce the need for unnecessary training, but are team members getting the training they need to understand the DAM technology? Is there clear documentation they can use to troubleshoot issues as they go? Have you created suitable feedback processes to hear what’s working and what isn’t for those using the platform, so the system continues to meet their needs?
These are all issues digital asset management best practices can address.
For more information on how Encodify can help you with managing your digital assets, find out more about our Digital Asset Management system, or book a meeting with our team.
In addition to offering DAM tools, Encodify also provides in-depth insights into automation and other digital solutions for marketing and creative teams. To stay updated on the latest opportunities and platforms available to you and your business, continue to read up on our Insights Blog.
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