Edward Boatman • May 9th
Whether you’re just starting as a small business or operating a large enterprise, your brand relies on digital assets in some form. Even brick-and-mortar businesses and retail shops use digital assets to create marketing campaigns, update their websites, and develop product packaging.
Managing a handful of digital assets is simple enough, but that becomes more complicated when you have hundreds of graphics, PDFs, and videos. Digital asset management (DAM) systems allow you to store and organize your digital assets in a centralized location, so they’re easy to find when you need them.
If you’re not using a DAM system to streamline asset management and content creation, you’re missing out. Fortunately, it’s never too late to get started. Learn more about the benefits of digital asset management systems and how they can help boost your business.
A digital asset management (DAM) system allows you to store and manage digital assets, such as images and videos. Think of DAM systems as a digital version of your file cabinet. Instead of storing physical copies of your files in a cabinet, you’re storing digital copies in folders within your digital asset library.
Digital asset management systems are used by companies of all sizes to ensure content consistency across all channels. For example, you could use your DAM system to update your company logo on your website, social media accounts, and anywhere else you’re currently using your old logo.
Now, you might be envisioning a Google Drive or a Dropbox since we’re talking about storing assets in folders. This is a little different. With either of these solutions, you can store a file in a single location to access it. With Digital Asset Management Systems, you store the asset in a library and that asset can appear across multiple folders, or kits, allowing you to leverage a single asset in many different ways.
Digital assets are important because they’ve become a key part of running a business. Whether you’re launching a new product, collaborating on a marketing campaign, or creating content for your website, your digital assets allow you to maintain brand consistency across numerous channels.
Let’s say you’re redesigning your website to incorporate new company colors or an updated logo. Normally, you’d have to send your new colors and logo to individual teams to make sure everything is up to date. With a digital asset management system, designers and social media managers can simply grab the latest version of your logo and company colors from your library and update them on your website and social media accounts.
Digital asset management systems are crucial because of the sheer number of digital assets many companies have. You might only have a handful of digital assets when you’re just starting, but large enterprises with thousands of digital assets can’t afford to waste time sifting through folders to find an image or PDF.
DAM software empowers internal and external teams to do more in less time. From helping you save time and money to ensuring brand consistency, there are countless benefits to integrating digital asset management into your business.
Whether you’re updating your website, creating a billboard ad, or posting on social media, everything your brand does should reflect your brand identity. Unfortunately, that’s not always easy when your brand is changing. Digital asset management systems allow you to share and update brand guidelines and assets in a centralized library, so everyone has access to the latest version of your company logo, brand colors, and product information.
Without a DAM system, you have to manually send out updated versions of your digital assets to your design and marketing teams. Instead, those teams can quickly grab the latest assets from your library and use them to create graphics, redesign your website, and more.
Efficiency is one of the biggest keys to success in the business world. If you’re not doing things efficiently, you’re wasting valuable time and money that you could use to grow your business. Digital asset management systems allow you to streamline content creation and asset sharing, which means you can spend more time focusing on important tasks.
Using a DAM system also helps your design, marketing, and content teams work more efficiently, which reduces the cost of these crucial services. Not only do you save time and money, but you have more resources to put toward future design and marketing efforts.
It may not be a big deal if people see your company logo or brand color palette, but some digital assets contain sensitive information you don’t want to share with just anyone. When you’re sending digital assets via email or team-based communication platforms, security can be a concern.
Digital asset management systems address your security concerns by allowing you to control user permissions and monitor digital asset access and usage. You can decide which users have permission to view, edit, and download digital assets. You can also check stats to see how many times a file has been viewed, downloaded, or shared.
If you recently started your business and you only have a handful of digital assets, you might not think you need DAM software. However, that can quickly change as your library of digital assets grows and becomes more complex. If your digital assets aren’t organized well, it’s going to be difficult to scale up as your library grows.
DAM systems are usually designed for scalability, which means you don’t have to worry about migrating to a new platform when your digital library grows. Even better, you won’t pay for storage you don’t need when you’re just starting out.
There was a time when creating a simple brand website was enough to attract and connect with customers, but times have changed. In modern times, even small businesses need to utilize multiple channels, including social media platforms, to reach as many people as possible. The problem is that distributing content across all these channels can be tedious.
With digital asset management, all your teams have easy access to your digital assets and can repurpose them for various platforms. For example, you can resize graphics to meet social media requirements or shorten a video for TikTok or YouTube Shorts. This makes it easy to distribute content across multiple channels without wasting resources.
DAM software is designed to integrate with the existing tools and software your company relies on. For example, DAM software can integrate with your content management system (CMS) to allow you to grab assets from your digital library and integrate them into your blog or website. Some DAM software can also integrate with design software so designers don’t have to switch between different windows to grab graphics when they need them.
If anyone in your organization relies on a specific piece of software, consider looking for a DAM solution with built-in software integrations.
Time is money when you own a business, so anything that saves you time also helps you reduce overhead. Automated DAM workflows allow you to streamline processes like asset distribution and approval, and you can expand your collection of automated workflows as you learn how to use your DAM system. You can use code to automate a wide range of DAM workflows in Lingo.
Digital rights management (DRM) is one of the biggest obstacles in modern media. All the digital assets you create are technically owned by your company, but that means it’s your job to track and control ownership, usage rights, and access controls. Plus, if you licence certain images for commercial use, they may come with limited usage rights, like for instance, an expiration date.
Digital asset management software gives you a centralized library where you can store all your files and control DRM. Download requests allow you to monitor who’s downloading your assets, and you can also track the number of downloads and views for each individual asset. Plus, you can set ownership and usage rights inside your DAM software to control who has access to your files.
Sometimes you might want to revert to an older version of a digital asset. Maybe you’re creating a retro version of your website, or perhaps a designer made a mistake with a recent update. Standard files on your computer can’t be reverted to older versions, but you can achieve that with DAM software. Version control allows you to view older versions and track changes to digital assets inside your digital library.
If you’re not using DAM software to store and organize your digital assets, it’s never too late. Switching from traditional storage to digital asset management can help you save time and money while producing more consistent social media and marketing content.
With Lingo, making the switch to DAM software has never been easier. Lingo makes it easy to find what you’re looking for with AI-enhanced search, so you don’t have to waste time manually tagging files. Plus, every file is automatically converted when it’s uploaded to save you even more time.
Now is the perfect time to make the switch to digital asset management, and we’re here to help. You can book a demo to learn more about the benefits of a digital asset management system, or you can start your free trial and see how easy Lingo is firsthand.