Managing a Brand Course
Module 3 — Lesson 1
Welcome to the first lesson of our final module! By now, you will know how crucial content and asset management is for brand management. Many common problems in branding actually stem from inconsistencies and inefficiencies with how your content is organized, shared and stored. Today’slesson will introduce different systems for solving content management issues and give you tips for what kind of a solution to choose for your specific situation.
Let’s talk about the differences between a DAM, Digital Asset Management solution and a DMS or a Document Management System. Both systems are meant to increase productivity, where less time will be spent on finding the specific file that you need. Both systems enhance the storage of digital files and the organization around them, all in the cloud. Both have functionalities to share those files with other people, to increase efficiency. However, they fulfil different purposes.
The word DMS is the abbreviation for a Document Management System, which already implies that it’s a solution to manage your documents. As an individual, you can also use Google Drive and Dropbox to store your files, both DMS systems. You can easily save adjusted or new documents directly into the cloud and can accessthem any time on any device. Yet in business, a DMS comes in handy for other functionalities as well.
A DMS solution is especially valuable for: Documents such as forms, contracts, reports, and letters. Managing the entire document lifecycle, from its creation onwards, where live editing in the system is possible. Providing audit trails, showing who accessed a document and which changes were made. Check-in, check-out, and locking, where the changes of a user won’t overwrite the changes of the previous user. Controlling and managing different versions and making sure there’s one single source of truth. Activating a prior version of a document. Sharing documents, where it is easy to circulate large files. Tags, author name, document name and the description of a publication. All these features are very useful, especially when you use a lot of documents in your organization or team. Although, from a marketing perspective, a smoother and more visually appealing and visually oriented approach could be wanted.
Now let’s examine what makes a digital asset management solution so different.
Would you like to find a photo of a product taken at a specific side angle? Or would you like to use a campaign picture from two years ago and want to be sure that you are allowed to use it? Did the person in the picture agree to use this picture for future purposes? Or would you like to use a picture with the brand logo on it, which is still up to date?
A DAM solution is a Digital Asset Management solution, which makes sure that you can find, organize and share digital brand assets (marketing materials and documents) easily and quickly. You can find any specific asset in multiple ways, where only the most recent version will be shown to you.
The more robust possibilities for brand management of a DAM in comparison to a DMS are:
- Search (visual) assets based on a tag structure instead of a folder structure.
- Add metadata to assets automatically. Think about author name, approval status, image size, license rights, resolution, and color depth.
- Use a filter search that is especially devoted to pictures and videos, such as; color, categories, extensions, and resolution.
- Use the technology of Artificial Intelligence to find duplicates or similar images.
- Add permissions and create specific user-profiles and roles, so the assets for a specific group will only be shown to that group.
- Be able to track, approve and preserve assets in the system, in a workflow.
- The possibility to connect a DAM with other digital solutions within your company (CRM, PIM, etc).
- Enrich with extra functionalities, such as Create & Publish, to create marketing materials within the platform in a consistent and on-brand approach.
Should you choose a DMS or DAM? Which system is the better fit for your needs? In conclusion, if your company or team uses a lot of documents, proposals, forms, etc. a DMS will fit your needs. When marketing materials, such as pictures, videos, etc. become important, a DAM would be a better fit. If your company has several locations with many professionals that work with brand content regularly, or many partners and distributors, it’s more than likely that a DAM solution is going to give you the best return on investment. A DAM is especially valuable in an organization with a lot of unstructured data, where tags and metadata will come in handy.
Index
Module 1: Brand management
- Introduction video
- How to improve brand management across all channels
- Managing a brand remotely
- Pivoting a brand to fit customer objectives and revenue goals
- Managing brand consistency with external stakeholders
- Brand KPIs
- Brand metrics: measuring brand awareness
- Brand reputation management
Module 2: Content and brand
- Introduction video
- How brand ties into content
- Social media management
- Workflow management
- Why content marketing works
- Challenges and opportunities in modern content marketing
Module 3: Managing branded assets
- Introduction video
- What is the best platform for you to manage branded content
- What is the best taxonomy for managing digital content
- The benefits of Digital Asset Management for your brand
- The business value of Digital Asset Management
- Guide to choosing a DAM + Implementation checklist & ROI calculator
- Never download an asset again!
Originally published at https://www.lytho.com.
