How Do I Choose Digital Asset Management?

Your company’s digital assets present one of the most visible elements of your brand out into the world. Digital assets include everything from your all-important logo to sales resources, product images, and more. Therefore, understanding how to manage these assets and get the most out of them is simplified by incorporating a digital asset management (DAM) solution. This guide will explain the reason a DAM is necessary and help you determine how to choose the right solution for your company.

What Are Digital Assets?

Before delving deeper into the topic of digital asset management (DAM), it’s important to first clearly define the term digital assets. Digital assets are images, documents, video files, audio files, etc. Types of digital assets can include any type of content, information, or media that is in a digital format that has value for manufacturers, businesses, or organizations. These assets are usually stored, created, and then shared digitally.

What Is a Digital Asset Management Platform?

Now that we have considered what digital assets are, it's important to look at the importance of digital asset management platforms. A DAM is a solution that allows companies to conveniently store, manage, and then share digital files. A DAM is often shared across multiple departments within a business. It can also be shared externally with partners, such as agencies or channel partners, or used to create a digital experience. Digital asset management tools help organizations get the most out of their digital assets and implement them for a wide variety of uses.

Managing digital assets or digital content can include organizing and categorizing, as well as making it easy to share a variety of content. For example, the following is a look at how these companies help you manage your content with ease:

• Audio: Digital asset management allows you to easily access audio files that are stored within the DAM. 

• Documents: Excel spreadsheets, PDFs, Microsoft Word documents, and PowerPoint presentations can all be easily shared and accessed throughout the company with the right DAM. 

• Images: Add images such as SVG, GIF, JPEG, and PNG to a DAM platform and then easily share these images. 

• Forms: Create forms that can be integrated into your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution and then used to create digital product experiences. 

• Video: With the right DAM, you can easily upload videos.

• Text: Ensure that your digital products all feature the same plain text or rich text when it is updated automatically throughout all experiences that are using the digital asset management system.

Taking all these resources and then using them to further enhance not only employee experiences but the way that customers interact with a business is what makes this such an important tool for modern companies. For example, the following are a few ways these digital assets can be used to create digital product experiences:

• Product Onboarding: This gives helpful information about the product via videos, manuals, and images that provide buyers with the information they need to set up and get the most out of their products. 

• Product Information: This makes it easy for customers to troubleshoot their products by providing them with step-by-step instructions, GIFs, images, and tutorial videos, even providing the owner’s manual. 

• Events: This use of digital assets features manuals, videos, product images, and more that can be used by event teams at trade shows to create innovative digital experiences.

What Are the Digital Asset Management Companies?

There are several DAMs or Digital Asset Management companies, so it can become a bit confusing when deciding the best digital asset management company in the bunch. The top digital asset management companies include Brandfolder, Bynder, Canto, Adobe, and Lumavate. The first four digital asset management companies mentioned are stand-alone DAMs, meaning that you will still have to use a third-party solution, developer or agency to create your desired digital experience. In addition, Adobe is extremely costly and has a lengthy implementation time, which isn’t ideal.

Conversely, Lumavate is a DAM that also includes a full Product Information Management (PIM) solution as well as a Digital Experience Platform (DXP) within its platform. This means you can expect a seamless transition thanks to its built-in integrations across these three solutions. With Lumavate, product records stored in the PIM can be related to digital assets stored in the connected DAM. This means your team has a holistic view of every product and its related digital assets, such as owner’s manuals, troubleshooting guides, and sales sheets. This makes Lumavate’s system one of the top digital asset management systems and one of the top digital asset management companies or best DAM systems. When put up against other comparable solutions, Lumavate is 75 percent more cost-effective.

The following is a helpful breakdown showcasing what makes each DAM system unique and further illustrating why Lumavate stands above the rest: 

• Brandfolder: This is just a DAM and offers no way to build digital product experiences. It does help companies organize digital assets, though. 

• Bynder: Not considered very cost-effective as other solutions are needed from your tech people to create the preferred kind of digital experiences. 

• Canto: Pricing can be high when compared to other DAMs and users complain of it being a bit over complex.

• Adobe: It can be difficult to use Adobe for product onboarding and other campaigns as it's not a PXM purposefully designed for manufacturers. 

• Lumavate: This platform also features tools to manage product experiences like DXP, PIM, and more along with being a DAM.

How Do You Choose Digital Asset Management?

There are admittedly many DAMs or Digital Asset Management solutions available for businesses today. Therefore, your company should consider the answer to key questions when determining the best DAM solution for your business. For example, answer the following questions below to help guide your choice when selecting the right DAM for you:

• What is the primary problem or problem you are trying to solve with a DAM?

• How many digital assets do you have and what types?

• How will you structure the taxonomy of your digital assets?

• What other systems do you need to integrate with when implementing this system?

• Where and how will the digital assets in question be used?

Your carefully considered answers to the thought-provoking questions above will help guide you toward the right digital asset management solutions. Answering these honestly and with great thought will ensure that you determine the right solution that will best meet your business needs.

Choose Wisely

The right DAM can be an immense resource for your brand. It can promote collaboration, brand recognition, personalization, and more. Choose the company for your brand wisely to get the most out of all your digital assets. Consider the information outlined above when making this all-important decision.