Edward Boatman • May 20th
Whether you’re just starting out as a small brand or you’ve been in business for a decade, effective branding can make a world of difference. Consistent branding helps you build brand recognition and increase customer loyalty, but it’s not always easy. To create a strong brand, you must ensure your visuals and messaging are consistent across every channel.
Creating a centralized library of brand assets is one of the most effective ways to strengthen your branding. When you have a digital asset library, internal and external team members can quickly access your latest brand assets and use them to keep your brand consistent. These libraries are a key aspect of digital asset management (DAM).
So, why is DAM important? Should everyone be using DAM software? Get answers to some of your most important digital asset management questions in this guide.
Digital asset management (DAM) is the process of storing, organizing, and sharing digital assets. These digital assets include the visuals you use to represent your brand, like your brand logo and typography. However, your DAM library can also include other types of graphics, as well as video files, brand guidelines, and other key elements that represent your brand.
Digital asset management plays a key role in driving business value because it’s an excellent way to increase efficiency and make your brand more recognizable to your target audience.
When you have a library of digital assets your design and marketing teams can use, it’s easier to maintain consistency as a brand.
Let’s say you’re working with a marketing firm on a multi-channel marketing campaign. Everyone has access to your latest logo and other visuals, so they can make sure your marketing campaign aligns with your brand.
Having a digital asset library also speeds up content creation. Whether you’re working on a marketing campaign, a blog post, or a website redesign, teams can be more efficient when you have a centralized library of resources.
Understanding why digital asset management is important can be confusing, especially if you don’t fully understand digital asset management. In this section, we’ll take a closer look at some key things you need to understand when it comes to digital asset management.
Digital assets is a catch-all term for the assets you upload to your DAM system. For most brands, this includes things like your brand logo, color palette, typography, graphics, and other visual elements you use to represent your brand. However, digital assets can also include videos, documents, and anything else you use for marketing, branding, or content creation.
These digital assets are important because they help people identify your brand. When you consistently use the same digital assets across multiple channels, it increases brand recognition.
Digital workflows are also an important part of why digital asset management is important. Whether you’re launching a marketing campaign or redesigning your website, you’re using digital workflows to make your brand more recognizable.
A lack of organization can result in long, drawn-out projects and missed deadlines. When various teams are scrambling to find digital assets to use for a project, it’s hard to stay organized.
Creating a library of digital assets means everyone has easy access to the visuals and documentation they need to create content. As a result, you can streamline your next marketing campaign or website design to save time and money.
If you’re not using a digital asset management system, you should be. Digital asset management helps make your business more efficient, bringing teams together and streamlining workflows with a centralized library of assets.
Implementing digital asset management can boost your return on investment (ROI) and strengthen your brand. Learn more about some of the ways digital asset management systems enhance efficiency.
When you’re creating content for your website or launching a social media marketing campaign, efficiency is key. While workflows vary depending on the project you’re working on, digital asset management helps you streamline all your workflows by giving all your teams access to the latest visuals that represent your brand.
Let’s say you need your graphics team to create a new graphic for social media using your brand logo, color palette, and typography. Normally, you’d have to send these assets via email or use a file-sharing system like Google Drive.
With digital asset management, your teams can simply grab the latest digital assets from your library or kit without you having to share anything. Not only does that make your teams more efficient, but it also ensures everyone is using the latest brand visuals.
Teamwork is an essential part of branding, but collaborating and communicating become more complicated as your brand and its teams grow. It can be difficult to keep everyone on the same page, and sending out constant emails can feel like a waste of time. Digital asset management systems give you one centralized system for collaboration.
When you’ve got new brand visuals or documentation, you can upload those assets to your DAM library. When your next project comes up, your design and marketing teams can pull the assets they need. You don’t have to worry about holding meetings or having teams reach out to each other via email; your digital asset management system takes care of everything.
Having control over your brand and its assets is crucial if you want to build a strong brand. Digital asset management systems have built-in digital rights management (DRM) capabilities, allowing you to secure your digital assets. If somebody uses a digital asset from your library, you can see when it was accessed and downloaded, and who accessed the file.
Having an up-to-date library of digital assets also helps you maintain consistency across multiple channels. When your design and marketing teams have access to your latest brand visuals, you can be confident that any content they create will be aligned with your brand.
When you have your brand visuals in a digital asset management system, you can get a clear overview of all your assets, their digital rights, how they’re being used, and who’s using them. This information helps you better utilize your assets, which in turn boosts your return on investment.
A good DAM system should have built-in analytics capabilities. Analytics allow you to gain deeper insights into how your assets are being used, including any changes made to your digital assets. The better you can quickly visualize your digital assets, the more control you have over how you use them.
Digital asset management systems are one of the best resources for brands, but there are some potential downfalls. Before you implement a DAM system, you should have a plan in place and know about some of the common mistakes people make with DAM. You can learn more about some of the common pitfalls in digital asset management below.
Identifying and optimizing your core digital asset management workflows is one of the keys to success. There are different DAM workflows for different tasks and projects, whether you’re launching an email marketing campaign, redesigning your website, or creating new content for social media.
While it’s important to define and optimize these workflows, you don’t want to make them overly complicated. DAM workflows should be simple and easy to follow, with clearly defined steps and guidelines for when to use a particular workflow. You may also find that you’re able to optimize your DAM workflows over time as you use them.
Digital asset management systems are convenient, but security can be a concern. When you’re storing hundreds or thousands of digital assets in a centralized library that’s accessible from anywhere, your assets are susceptible to data breaches and other attacks.
A good DAM system should have built-in security features, and it should allow you to control file permissions and determine who can access your brand visuals.
If there are strict regulations outlining how you have to store digital content, it’s important to choose a digital asset management system that meets your compliance needs.
Digital asset management systems are designed to enhance efficiency, strengthen your brand, and make it easier for internal and external teams to collaborate. However, you should always implement DAM with specific business goals in mind. Are you trying to make your design and marketing workflows easier? Is consistent branding your main goal?
Whatever you’re trying to achieve through digital asset management, make sure you’re implementing your DAM system in a way that aligns with those goals.
A robust digital asset management system should allow you to store and organize all your digital assets, including photos, videos, typography, and color palettes. AI-enhanced search streamlines the organization process, while built-in DRM allows you to protect your digital assets from unauthorized use. Other features include custom URLs, automatic file conversion, and custom branding.
Digital asset management improves efficiency by making sure everyone has convenient access to your brand visuals. Whether your teams are coordinating a marketing campaign, creating content for social media, or redesigning your website, they have easy access to all the resources they need to get the job done without you manually sending anything.
Brands of all sizes can benefit from digital asset management. If you use digital assets like your typography and color palette to create graphics, ads, and social media content, you can save time and money with a DAM system.
Digital asset management systems are one of the simplest ways to enhance efficiency and increase brand recognition. A robust DAM system helps you protect your digital assets and keep all your teams on the same page, so you can streamline your DAM workflows to save time.
Lingo includes all the features you expect from the best DAM software, including AI-enhanced search, automatic file conversion, custom domains, custom branding, and download requests. Start your free trial or contact us to find out how Lingo can help you enhance efficiency and boost your bottom line.