Is your marketing team working as efficiently as you’d like? Can everyone find the marketing materials they need instantly? Can you be sure everyone is using the most up-to-date and approved content so your brand is consistent wherever your customers are coming into contact with it? If you answered ‘no’ to any of these questions, chances are you need a Brand Management System or Digital Asset Management Platform. So we’ve put together a check-list of signs that indicate you need one.
1. You’re constantly receiving requests for digital assets
If your team members can’t find the content or brand assets they need they are going to call or email your team. That’s a big drain on resources as you’ll need someone dedicated to answering requests.
With a digital asset management platform, you centralise all your content in the cloud and give password permission-based access to those who need to get hold of materials. They only see and download what they are allowed to see and download. You’ll massively reduce phone and email interruptions because users can self-serve.
2. Your digital assets take too long to find
Asset requests start a chain of emails and phone calls: ‘Is this the version you wanted? No? Which one did you mean exactly?’ If your assets are stored in multiple places such as the company server, individual hard drives or out-of-date file sharing platforms, chances are you and your colleagues won’t be able to find content quickly.
Centralising brand assets and content in a digital asset management platform puts the correct, approved assets into the hands of those who need them, instantly. And with a lightening-fast search, you will never leave users without results.
3. You are spending time and resources recreating content that exists already
When teams can’t find what they need, they’ll sometimes make their own, which is bad for brand consistency, or commission an agency to recreate what they were looking for, which is inefficient and expensive.
With a digital asset management platform everything is centralised. A fast search feature, a well thought out folder structure, good sized thumbnails and in-system file viewing make it easy to locate the right materials and eliminate the need to recreate content.
4. Your team is relying on free file sharing applications like Dropbox
There is no problem with using Google Drive or Dropbox when you have a small team and you are managing a small number of digital assets. It becomes an issue when you start requiring content in the right format for use in multiple media channels, by multiple internal teams. Things can get disorganised quickly if there is no way to manage a large number of files efficiently.
When you use a Digital Asset Management platform, digital assets can be shared to a person or a group in your company in a couple of clicks. You can also specify the format you would like the recipient to download the asset in.
5. You are struggling with brand consistency
Inconsistency is bad for brands. But unless your teams can get hold of the brand assets they need to remain consistent, you’ll be fighting a losing battle.
When your teams use a DAM platform you make it easy for them to access the materials they need to stay on brand. And when you integrate brand guidelines in the same system, you can educate users about what the brand stands for and how to use brand assets accurately.
6. You don’t know who is using what
We’ve seen many of our clients came to us saying they don’t know which of their assets are being used and if they are being used correctly.
With the right DAM platform every asset download, upload, login and usage can be reported to you. In addition you set a permission-based system meaning you can specify which assets users and groups can access, what versions they can download and who can upload where and when.
7. You find it difficult to keep track of digital asset effectiveness
It is expensive to create an asset so keeping track of how effectively they are being used and reused is vital. It saves you time, money and helps with decision-making about what to create more or less of.
A DAM system will report on how many times an asset has been downloaded, used and whether it has made an impact in the success of a campaign.
