Branding is not just about having an impressive logo, a witty tagline, or a unique font. Yes, they’re still important (and the most fun to brainstorm over), but what you need to prioritise to make sure your great branding ideas actually deliver is consistency. The problem is that consistency is harder to strive for than ever, purely because EVERYTHING is digital nowadays — for good reason! Digital channels and digitised brand assets (basically the materials that make up your brand) offer greater accessibility and opportunities for amendments.
With that said, it’s a given that the pure wealth of digital assets in your arsenal is bound to get overwhelming. Even the smartest and most capable brand managers and marketers can only deal with so many of these assets. That’s where a DAM comes in.
Digital asset management (DAM) is a software system that stores, organises, and manages various digital assets of any given company to streamline access and management, fostering internal and external consistency for your brand.
DAMs have long been recognised for their power in catering to the increasing need to be consistent and cohesive with digital brand assets across all possible distribution channels and internal workflows. The global DAM market was worth $3.88 billion in 2020 alone!¹
So there’s the basic overview of why digital asset management solutions are ideal for great brand management. But you’re not here for the overview — you’re here for the details! Keep reading to find out more on why DAM solutions are the answers to your branding needs
Suggested reading: Already have a DAM? Heads up — it may be missing a key ingredient! Check out our blog What Your Digital Asset Management Software Is Missing to learn more.
Primed for digital channels
The benefits of taking up DAM solutions for your branding are very similar to the ones you get from catering to digital channels in the first place, including:
- Ease of implementation.
- Quick and long-lasting results.
- Better conversion rates.
- Easy to track and measure results.
- Global reach and scalability.
And what’s especially great about digital channels is just how far-reaching they are AND the level of actionable feedback you can get from doing your branding through them. Traditional campaigns can reach only so many customers, and digital campaign analytics are, bar none, the best insights you can get into your brand’s reception. It’s near impossible to tell how a non-connected audience feels about a branded billboard, but a Twitter campaign will let you know immediately and give you the chance to test what creative approaches resonate best.
So it’s safe to say that digital is here to stay. But the major challenge that brand managers and marketers face when using a diverse range of digital channels is how to streamline assets so that they don’t pile up and become an unorganised digital stack.
This is where a DAM solution delivers value. It keeps your digital assets primed for digital channels and creates a media ecosystem.
For example, Brandworkz’s Download Wizards can help you convert and download digital assets into any format with a single click, depending on the channel you use to send your assets through. We also have handy metadata management, which includes a fully customisable tagging system tailored around your information and automatic extraction and storage of digital assets.
While great, all of these benefits can seem almost overwhelming when stacked against the existing array of tools already under your brand management belt. Your DAM needs to do more than work well — it needs to work well WITH the branding strategies you already have.
Integrability
Every organisation these days is expected to take up different types of applications, tools, and systems that streamline work, increase productivity, and get better outcomes. These can range from apps that help you create documents, manage content, create images, maintain customer relationships, analyse data collected from different stakeholders, and transfer digital files.
The problem is, while those are all definitely helpful functions to have, an excess of tools can lead to unnecessary noise and confusion. Integration is the only way to reduce this noise, making sure that all tools, applications, and systems work in harmony to maintain consistency.
You need a DAM that can integrate with your existing applications and cut through the noise of having multiple tools to handle multiple digital assets. A use case to look at would be Brandworkz Integrations function, which enables its DAM and wider brand management software to be integrated with apps like:
- Adobe Suite (PhotoShop, Illustrator, etc.) and Microsoft Office (Word and PowerPoint) to create documents.
- WordPress and Drupal to manage the content
- Getty Images and Media Manager to create the image and video stack libraries.
And many more marketing apps!
👉 Want to improve your branding further? Use our free Brand Consistency Toolkit 👈
Total asset visibility
Making sure that your assets are easily accessible and viewable for everyone permitted to see them is crucial to fostering better branding strategy workflows and, of course, better branding. Visibility ensures that work gets done as quickly and efficiently as possible and leaves room for you and your team members to develop strategies for better branding by seeing what assets are being used when, how often, and for what.
DAM is the only solution that connects all tools to a central space and stores crucial assets easily and comprehensively. With the help of a DAM, you can control assets by giving user-based permissions to team members and outside stakeholders.
Brandworkz’s Metadata Management increases digital assets’ visibility, usability, and findability with the help of a fully-customisable tagging system. The DAM software of Brandworkz also improves workflows by streamlining, tracking, and auditing your marketing production processes.
Identify opportunities for creativity
Branding is a creative pursuit of ideas. Without creative digital assets, marketers fail to grab target customers’ attention and fully utilise coworkers’ valuable talents. A DAM’s advanced features, such as asset visibility, centralised storage, and approval workflows, can enable you to create a streamlined creative process that generates innovative ideas within your teams.
The reliability and centralisation afforded by a DAM engage teams’ abilities to brainstorm ideas, share information, evaluate concepts, and verify facts.
You can take things one step further by merging your DAM with brand management software functions like approval process control, real-time analytics, and advanced searches to allow teams to become as creative and streamlined as possible.
Consistency
A brand can only have a positive impact when its messages, images, and values are consistent across all platforms. 68% of organisations in a recent survey revealed that brand consistency contributed from 10% to more than 20% of revenue growth.
A DAM enables brand consistency by keeping everything centralised and easy to update so that nobody gets led astray by multiple different variations of the same assets. That said, brand management software capabilities are key to optimising your brand consistency beyond just maintaining it. BMS features like editable brand guidelines, digital and print templates, and approval workflows take you from simply storing your assets to bettering them within the same system.
Suggested reading: If we haven’t been clear enough on the importance of brand consistency, get equipped with our Brand Consistency Toolkit.
Brand management software is the ultimate solution
A DAM is so crucial to brand management in terms of helping out with sifting and sorting through tons of digital content that it’s not just a great solution: too many, it’s the ONLY solution.
However, the truly best solution that accounts for all the above and more is a brand management software and DAM combo. That’s the gap we strive to fill with our software, Brandworkz. Brandworkz’s brand management software can be integrated with all your existing applications and tools to bridge the gap between DAM capabilities and brand management functions.
Leaders across industries, including professional services, investment & wealth management, education, healthcare, automotive, and not-for-profit use Brandworkz’s brand management software for the following reasons:
- Tailored solutions that fit brands of any size.
- The flexibility of integrations with existing tools and applications.
- Flexible pricing structure.
- 24×7 premium customer support.
We’re not totally into talking about ourselves and would rather give you the chance to see the benefits of brand management software and DAM for yourself — book a demo with us today to get started!
