What Is Digital Asset Management and How to Choose a DAM for Your Business | soona
What Is Digital Asset Management and How to Choose a DAM for Your Business
Unlock the power of Digital Asset Management (DAM)! Learn its significance, benefits, and future trends. Choose soona for streamlined workflows and increased sales. Explore now!
Claire Oswald
product marketing manager
July 15, 2024
A quick jaunt through the internet will make one fact abundantly clear: the sheer amount of visual, video, and textual data available to humankind today is mind-boggling. Sorting through it is a mammoth task, which is why we have search engines such as Google and Bing to help us do it.
With their aid, all goes fairly well. Markers like metadata, image descriptions, hashtags, and headings all help to ascertain relevance and return the best results for a given purpose. This helps people and businesses find what they need, when they need it, in the online space.
But what about inside companies? Even within a single organization, reams of photography, graphic design, video collateral, and copy can make a simple search for, say, photos from your latest cosmetics drop a challenge of Herculean proportions.
And when you can’t find what you need, you have a hard time increasing sales, which is the goal of every business. Luckily, there’s a solution: digital asset management.
What is digital asset management?
Digital asset management, or DAM, refers to the process of organizing, storing, and retrieving digital assets such as images, videos, audio files, and documents.
A DAM system enables companies to manage their digital assets more efficiently by providing a centralized repository for everything. This makes it easier to search, retrieve, and share them across different teams and departments.
Types of digital assets
Digital assets do include:
- Images, both stock photos and your own branded images
- Videos and animations
- Graphic design elements, such as backgrounds or vector clips used in creating new content
- Audio files such as interviews, podcasts, or music
- Documents, particularly product copy
- Presentations for onboarding or outreach
- Games and interactive assets
- Brand guidelines and branded collateral to define your product marketing approach
- Works in progress kept in a centralized location so everyone can contribute
Benefits of a DAM system
Improved organization
Imagine a clothing company that used to keep all its photos in separate file folders, arranged on a local drive, accessible only to the person who was using that computer or server.
Now compare that to a company that keeps its files stored in the cloud, using curated permissions to make its photos accessible to all. Which company has an easier time finding files?
Streamlined workflows
Then we must ask, with improved organization, which company can get more done? It will obviously be the one that knows exactly where to go to get the needed files, rather than hunting for them for half an hour before finally calling someone else for help.
Single source of truth
Shareability and collaboration
For instance, many companies build their brands by encouraging influencers to create user-generated content, which they will either post on their page or contract for by providing free product or paying the influencer. This dramatically increases the amount of content to which a company has access, but does not dramatically increase the marketing budget.
Features of a digital asset management system
Asset management
As we’ve already discussed at length, a digital asset manager gives you a place to put all the collateral your organization needs.
Metadata management
In a nutshell, metadata is data about other data. It summarizes basic information about data, which can make it easier to find, use and reuse particular instances of data.
Version control
Version control is a key element to managing your digital assets.
Access control
As your business grows, so will its people. That makes it important to have the ability to determine who can and can’t see and manipulate your assets.
How to choose a DAM system: 5 things to consider
Know your budget
Any digital asset management platform that works for you will have to fit into your budget.
Plan for scalability
Like budget, scalability helps determine if a digital asset management tool can work with you now and later.
Understand file types
Most DAMs can handle a wide variety of file types, but don’t assume they all can.
Determine integration options
As such, it’s important to check that it integrates with your current systems.
Look at the UI/UX
The user interface and user experience are both critical aspects of any good digital asset manager. Test out any DAM before committing your organization to it.
Implementation and adoption
Your DAM must:
- Use simple protocols for bringing new assets online.
- Make it easy to create user accounts, set clearance, and train people.
- Offer APIs that integrate easily with your current software.
- Provide cheerful customer service for help when anything goes wrong.
Meet soona, the future of DAM
If you want to streamline your workflow, prevent the loss of important documents, and create a single source of truth to maximize your sales and profits, then Soona is here to help with a groundbreaking digital asset management platform.
Digital asset management FAQs
What do you mean by digital asset management?
Digital Asset Management (DAM) is a system or process that involves organizing, storing, and retrieving digital assets, such as images, videos, documents, and other multimedia content.
What are examples of digital assets?
- Images: Photos, graphics, logos, and illustrations used in marketing materials, websites, and social media.
- Videos: Promotional videos, tutorials, advertisements, and other visual content.
- Documents: PDFs, presentations, Word documents, and spreadsheets.
- Audio files: Music tracks, podcasts, voiceovers, and sound effects.
- Design files: Editable files from design software (e.g., Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign).
What does a digital asset management specialist do?
A Digital Asset Management Specialist is responsible for overseeing the organization, storage, and distribution of a company's digital assets.
What is another name for a Digital Asset Manager?
A Digital Asset Manager can also be referred to as a DAM Specialist, Asset Librarian, or Content Librarian.