What is Digital Asset Management?

What can a DAM do for your business?

DAM works as both a software solution and a business marketing tool. It allows the storage, organization, sharing and distribution of digital media assets including (but not limited to), videos, images, sound recordings and marketing templates.

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A DAM solution provides a centralized and secure environment for digital assets to be stored and as such provides controlled access to such media, both internally and externally.

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Enterprises can as such organize and manage media assets in a way that suits their individual business needs. Assets will be searchable thanks to metadata and can be attributed usage rights. This means that any media asset that is taken from a DAM platform can be tracked and analyzed in order to understand how it has been used and by whom.

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DAM provides a powerful tool to manage content. As well as storing assets created by companies, a DAM platform can ensure brand consistency across multiple markets and geographies. By establishing brand guidelines and controlling how media is distributed across a company, teams are given tailor-made access to various documents and content, ensuring that a brand’s message is distributed in the most consistent way possible.

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A DAM solution can even take content creation one step further. Through embedded Graphic Design Tools or lately as Artificial Intelligence, content can be modified and generated from within the DAM interface. Analytics tools allow for marketers to understand how the content has been interacted with once it leaves the DAM environment.

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Digital Asset Management is a strategic business tool which works both to enhance internal processes, for example easing up communications between marketing and sales teams, but also external actions. By acting as a Single Source of Truth (SSOT), businesses can provide a more centralized and consistent user experience for their audiences.

‘‘ More than half of the global software decision makers whose firms prioritize digital experience have implemented, are implementing, or are in the process of expanding their DAM solutions. ’’  - Forrester Analytics

What are the main benefits?

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With the increasing digital visibility of brands, it is now more important than ever to send out a consistent brand image across social media, websites and online campaigns. Hence, images, videos and advertising must subscribe to a brand’s values and having a DAM solution therefore becomes a critical resource in ensuring that the content that a company distributes is consistent and recognizable to its consumers. Through a DAM solution, marketers are able to carefully control the content that is being used across different channels and thus enhance the quality of their brand and its ability to be easily identifiable.

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Choosing the right DAM for your business

When deciding on the right DAM for your business, it is important to consider the challenges, needs and objectives of your company. How can the management of your digital assets be optimized?

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Ask yourself:

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• What challenges would a DAM respond to?
• Who would have access to the DAM and how would it facilitate communication between these actors?
• What is your budget?
• What other software (CMS, PIM etc) would need to be connected to a DAM?
• What kind of digital security do I need for my media?

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Understanding the needs of your company and the teams that would have access to a DAM solution is a key starting point for understanding what kind of DAM provider you would need to support you. Having a set of key criteria will help you create a shortlist of suppliers, depending on the scope of your projects, the size of your organization and the levels of security and features that you are looking for.

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The core of it:
features within the DAM

A DAM is a multi-faceted tool which supports marketing, creative and e-commerce teams, but what exactly lies behind the power of a DAM?

Connect it: Software integration with DAM

At a time where digital transformation is shaping the activities of companies, the software that a business chooses to use provides an essential means of reaching consumers, managing communications and handling business data. Across different industries and different types of companies, the need to collaborate and have a streamlined set of marketing and communication tools is key to investing in the new era of digital content.

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A Content Management System (CMS) for example is a software application that allows companies to build and manage their websites. CMS systems give marketers and communicators the ability to create and manage content and customize the design and layout of a website, without having to understand complex coding. Software such as WordPress, Drupal or Joomla are some of the most commonly used CMS software and are used by companies across the world.

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For the retail sector in particular, the use of a Product Information Management (PIM) can be particularly helpful. Product Information Management involves collecting, managing, and optimizing the data required for marketing and selling your products across a company’s sales and distribution channels.

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Most companies rely on DAM software or CDN to store and distribute assets like videos, images and sound clips. These assets follow brand guidelines set by your company and enforced through the DAM solution.

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Companies build their Martech stack according to their needs.

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For smaller companies, storing assets can be done using inexpensive options such as Google Drive or Dropbox. These solutions offer limited storage options and more basic features but for companies with moderate budgets and small teams, such choices can be perfectly suited to their requirements.

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Other enterprises may prefer to use internal ways of managing media assets, such as offline servers which can only be accessed from within the organization or internal portals. Working in this way means having a solution that is adapted to the organization itself but can result in complicated integration methods when it comes to connecting other types of software. What’s more, accessing resources from outside of the organization (for example if a creative agency needs to use visuals for an advertising campaign) is restrictive.

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For large, global companies, the use of a DAM solution can be a way of investing in their digital transformation. By intuitively storing and organizing content, companies are able to manage how assets are disseminated and to whom. Sitting at the heart of a marketer’s or communicator’s toolbox, DAM integrates logically into an ecosystem of existing software and tools. By being able to be plugged into a company’s CMS or PIM, DAM consolidates the tools needed by companies to allow them to precisely manage their content and data, reinforcing the belief in a SSOT approach.

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💡 Single source of truth (SSOT) is the philosophy of collecting business data from multiple sources and aggregating it into a central database or repository.

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Adoption: from change management to process execution

Introducing a DAM into your organization is a process which will take time, but one that will be supported by the team at Wedia.

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Once your company has received the adequate training, information and resources, employees will be empowered enough to start using DAM to support their day-to-day activities. The move towards change management within your organization is one that Wedia follows closely, making sure that change happens smoothly and users that have access to the DAM have the necessary resources and information to get everything they need out of their DAM solution.

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Once change management has happened within your organization, awareness will be raised and users will feel comfortable using DAM to enhance their processes and ways of working.

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At Wedia, we work to ensure change management happens seamlessly, going from adoption of the tool to the ordered integration of a DAM into the daily lives of users. Understanding the end goal and the intended usage of a DAM solution is part of Wedia’s strengths, a process which is defined alongside our clients.

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Wedia’s DAM: a solution you can trust

An established DAM player since 2010, Wedia operates on an international scope, having established itself as a leader in SaaS software and consulting relevant to marketing and communication.

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Wedia helps clients manage the complexity of their digital assets and support their business objectives, in terms of both sales and brand awareness.

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Based on over 10 years of development, Wedia integrates changing technological advances such as Artificial Intelligence into a DAM solution which is capable of storing large volumes of content and responding to the changing needs of large, international companies.

DAM solutions come in all shapes and sizes, from off-the-shelf to custom built solutions, and simple media libraries to advanced asset storage, there are many to choose from.

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Wedia provides a fully-rounded DAM solution, focused on innovation, reliability and performance. With high-performance, adaptive media delivery in digital operations, distributed marketing and analytics, along with in-house DAM expertise, Wedia prides itself on delivering more than a storage solution but a full-fledged customer experience solution.

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Trusted by prestigious companies such as Decathlon, Royal Canin and Sephora, Wedia has been recognized by Gartner and Forrester as a leader amongst DAM solutions vendors.

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With innovation at its core, Wedia works to be one-step ahead of the needs of clients, providing a DAM solution which suits the way of working of today and tomorrow. Therefore, Wedia emphasises the importance of core features that power how its DAM solution is used, making it as intuitive and agile as possible, particularly in the face of digital transformation. With technology advances being made every day and the need for businesses to multitask and move faster, the future transformation of DAM sits at the heart of Wedia’s preoccupations.

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What does the future of DAM look like?

DAM has found its place in companies’ MarTech stacks and in the lives of marketing professionals. The use of DAM has happened overtime and come from the increasing use of digital assets and the need for multiple stakeholders to access shared media.

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As innovation and technological advances continue to shape the future of marketing and communication activity, what does the future of DAM look like?

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With AI technology heavily impacting digital asset creation, the future of DAM looks set to change. Wedia’s DAM has an integrated Generative-AI tool, which allows assets to be generated based on text prompts. This allows marketers and users to create assets which don’t exist within their library. Combining Gen-AI with the ability to store, distribute and track media assets is a way to further enhance the management of media like videos, images and social media posts. With AI set to alter the way content is created, DAM is likely to evolve in order to keep up with the changing media landscape. At Wedia, thanks to our agile nature, our DAM evolves with you and the changes taking place now and in the future.

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Building the future together

#FutureDAM is a community that brings together users and specialists of Digital Asset Management (DAM). The idea is to share the innovations, changes and ideas that will shape the future of DAM.

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From Artificial Intelligence (AI) to User Generated Content (UGC), #FutureDAM is a way of fabricating how we use and will use DAM.

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By being part of the #FutureDAM community, you’ll have access to exclusive meetings to stay up to date with the latest news and trends, as well as content such as webinars, events and tutorials. There will also be the chance to have one-to-one appointments with specialists from the business.

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Shape the future together by being part of #FutureDAM.