What Does a Digital Asset Management System Do?

A Digital Asset Manager is a person whose responsibility includes installing, maintaining, and upkeeping the Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution for the entire company. Their key responsibilities involve interfacing with the DAM vendors, communicating information about how and where to access files to the internal team and external vendors, and ultimately having ownership of how digital assets are kept and stored.

What Does a Digital Asset Manager Do?

While multiple people may be responsible for uploading digital assets to the DAM and changing or accessing those files, the Digital Asset Manager is the one accountable for ensuring it all runs smoothly.

This critical digital asset management role typically resides in the marketing or marketing and communications (MARCOM) department. The role may be assigned to someone who also has another role, such as chief graphic designer. It makes sense to assign a digital asset management responsibility to someone who frequently uses the assets, though some companies have so many digital assets, it's a full-time role to manage them with digital asset management software.

What Is an Example of a Digital Asset?

Digital assets include any non-physical document or product that the company creates and houses. This can include external-facing materials such as:

• Marketing collateral

• Website files and graphics

• Advertising videos

• Display ad images

• Social media copy and posts

• Product packaging files

• Commercials

• Podcasts

• Audio files, such as radio ads

• Customer education materials

• User manuals and instructions

Because many of these relate to selling and defining the product, it usually makes the most sense for marketing to own this role. Internal documents, used for internal communication and to manage product and service development, are also digital assets. Some of these assets, such as employee handbooks, are legally important to keep updated. These can include:

• HR files

• Prior internal communications

• Photos of company events

• Awards

• Searchable company archives

• Product development files

All digital assets can include multiple formats, such as audio, video, files, documents, images, and more.

What Does a Digital Asset Management System Do?

A Digital Asset Management software product helps companies centrally store, manage, and share digital files, both internally and externally through managing sharing permissions. Multiple departments share DAMs, and a DAM can be used to send and receive files from external partners such as freelancers, co-developers, channel partners, agencies, and even customers. You can set up a digital asset management software solution to organize your digital assets in a specific way, but generally, assets are also searchable by file type, department, tag, and other parameters you choose to set.

A healthy DAM is vital for your business' brand recognition, collaboration, and personalization within a company. As your company grows and scales, you want to ensure your message is unified, organized, and consistent, while still able to be customized to assist the customer or end user. Plus, you want to save time (and the company money) by reducing redundancy in asset creation with a searchable database of digital assets. Make sure everything is easy to find and use and ensure usability, findability, and accountability with digital asset management software.

What Is an Example of a Digital Asset Management System?

There are many DAM systems, and the best DAM vendors provide prompt service, frequent updates, and extensive customer support, knowing that a non-technical user typically takes on the role of digital asset manager. Prominent DAM vendors and digital asset management system examples include:

• Adobe digital asset management

• Canto

• Bynder

• Brandfolder

These four make up the most popular DAM vendors (though not the best DAM systems), but they require you to use a third-party solution or outside agencies and developers to create digital experiences accessible to internal and external stakeholders. Instead, Lumavate is the best digital asset management tool for companies looking for usability and those on a limited budget -- especially since companies like Adobe are known for their extremely high cost, which might work better for an enterprise solution rather than a small or medium-sized business seeking a digital asset management tool.

Lumavate’s DAM can be associated with product records in only a few clicks and used in digital experiences built without any technical resources. For employees more comfortable with customer interactions, marketing, and the overall front-end user experience in software such as Salesforce, Lumavate makes a lot more sense. It's scalable, fresh, and easy to install and use — while still providing the user with extensive customer support. While it's one of the newer digital asset management companies out there, it's among the most streamlined and usable digital asset management tools.