DAM! Digital asset management, from definition to solution
Digital asset management (or DAM), another typical anglicism in digital marketing. But what if we told you that this article was about managing your digital assets?
With the ever-increasing dematerialization of media, which accumulate year after year on your servers, it's becoming essential to organize and store them correctly from the moment they're created, downloaded or purchased, so that you can exploit them easily and optimally.
In this article, appvizer sheds light on digital asset management, and introduces you to some of the trends in digital data management.
Digital asset management: definition and translation
What is digital asset management?
Digital asset management, or DAM for short, translates as " management of digital resources":
- still images (illustrations, photos, etc.),
- moving images (animations, videos, etc.),
- sound recordings (music, speeches, etc.),
- and other multimedia documents.
Digital asset management is defined as a software solution whose functionalities cover :
- feeding,
- annotation,
- classification,
- storage,
- backup,
- search,
- sharing,
- distribution,
- backup,
- optimization,
of these digital resources.
In a way, it's an advanced online media library, particularly popular for marketing and communications activities.
The benefits of digital asset management
The ROI (return on investment) resulting from the adoption of a DAM lies not only in the storage of files. It also comes from :
- effective use of media,
- sharing and exploitation, both internally and externally,
- or their integration with other corporate solutions.
Digital asset management is therefore a powerful tool, from which professionals can draw a number of benefits. These include
- secure centralization of documents on a single platform ;
- rapid search and sharing of digital files (search by similarity, etc.);
- reuse of resources, eliminating redesign costs;
- support for inbound marketing strategy, which requires optimization of resources for better targeting;
- managing copyright and usage restrictions;
- compliance with increasingly stringent regulations;
- distribution of unified communication media;
- integrated image editing (single image, thumbnails, variants);
- image history and versioning ; etc.
With all these benefits, DAM provides an answer to many of the challenges facing organizations today.
DAM challenges
Enhancing corporate image
Enhancing brand image has become a major challenge for companies. And with good reason: if it is well constructed, it constitutes a positive differentiating factor in an increasingly competitive market.
Digital asset management provides organizations with a tool for unifying their marketing and communications strategy. In short, DAM brings coherence to the deployment of a stronger, more impactful visual identity and brand image.
Efficient digital asset management
Digital asset management is undoubtedly an asset in terms of productivity and ROI for marketing and communications campaigns.
In fact, this tool guarantees more efficient handling of digital assets, by automating and facilitating previously time-consuming activities. For example, many solutions feature modules that enable content to be created in line with corporate requirements, with just a few clicks. Production workflows ensure efficient media quality control. Last but not least, DAMs can be interconnected with other tools, guaranteeing fluid processes.
Improving collaboration
DAM solutions have gone from being simple storage bases for digital resources to becoming truly collaborative platforms. This is particularly true for international deployments. Using a digital asset management solution means working together easily around a common brand, while integrating the specificities of each country (copyright management, for example). Ultimately, digital asset management supports a company's glocal marketing strategy.
DAM versus PIM: towards a common platform?
Another marketing acronym is PIM (product information management) .
The latter is defined as a management technology that centralizes and harmonizes all marketing and technical information for product catalogs.
These are two complementary practices in product offering digitalization projects, but their file organization processes differ greatly:
- DAM manages media files and enables creative workflows between marketing, graphics and sales teams;
- while product information management, although aimed at the same teams, involves numerous categories and sub-categories that are incompatible with media storage.
Professionals agree that the two tools must be able to communicate with each other, but remain distinct.
Examples of digital asset management solutions
How do you choose your DAM software?
These tools require a great deal of thought beforehand, as well as the involvement of your teams and the support of your service provider.
There are several steps to follow before choosing the right solution.
- Define clear, precise objectives: do you want to streamline sharing processes, or automate photo uploads to your site, for example?
- Define an implementation schedule and a team dedicated to monitoring the project.
- Identify needs in terms of ancillary services (project management module, photo editing, etc.).
- Comparison of solutions and contacts.
💡 A few tips :
- Tip No. 1: It's advisable for the DAM project manager to come from the department from which the digital asset management requirement emanates (marketing manager or IS manager, for example). In any case, specialists from each of these departments should participate in the project to express their specific needs and constraints, such as the interoperability of the DAM tool with third-party applications.
- Tip 2: Setting up a DAM tool, like creating a website, requires legal expertise (in-house or external) to ensure compliance with legal notices, as well as copyright and usage rights.
- Tip no. 3: A person dedicated to content management, such as a documentalist or content manager, can be very useful in defining the website's reference framework.A dedicated content manager, such as a documentalist or content manager, can be very useful in defining the future media library's repository and an optimized classification plan.
Examples of DAM
Phraseanet is a good example of open-source digital asset management.
In SaaS mode, we find :
- Bynder, an intuitive, intelligent software package with many advantages:
- ergonomic interface,
- online photo library,
- management of duplicates and obsolete file versions,
- Bynder analytics tool for calculating ROI per file,
- integrated visual identity management and graphic design tools.
- Wedia supports major groups in the deployment of an omnichannel, personalized customer experience, using a powerful DAM:
- optimized content management, even for very large volumes,
- advanced video services (e.g. 360° video) and high-quality steaming,
- compliance with regulatory constraints (copyright, image rights, RGPD, etc.),
- support for brand compliance and customer experience consistency,
- optimizing content publishing and distribution as part of a glocal marketing approach (adapting to local markets, for example).
Manage your visual identity in total security
Some would say that using Google Drive, or Dropbox, can do the trick when it comes to storing and sharing digital data.
That may be, but here's what these storage solutions don't offer: visualization. The DAM is, in fact, a much more visual platform, optimizing creativity. It also makes collaboration, interactivity and search much easier and more intuitive.
Whether you're in e-commerce, marketing, communications or other sectors, you have to manage an immeasurable quantity of images and multimedia data.
To avoid wasting time and money (we keep coming back to this), a good digital asset management strategy and the use of the right tool are the keys to organizing your visual identity and collaborating seamlessly.
Digital transformation has only just begun, for the benefit of your productivity!
Article translated from French