In today’s digital-first world, businesses are being asked to create and use more digital assets than ever before. From images and videos to documents and presentations, these assets are essential for businesses to communicate their message and connect with their customers. However, managing these assets can be a challenge, especially for businesses with large or complex content libraries.
This is where digital asset management (DAM) comes in. DAM is a system that helps businesses organize, store, and distribute their digital assets. By providing a central location for these materials, DAMs help companies improve brand consistency (governance), productivity, collaboration, and security.
Below we explore these benefits in depth, compare DAMs to content management systems (CMSes), and introduce leading DAM partners for WordPress VIP, an enterprise-grade CMS.
What is digital asset management?
As central repositories of digital assets, DAMs simplify the organization, storage, and distribution of images, videos, and documents, for businesses of all sizes, helping make sure everyone within the organization is working with the most up-to-date and accurate version of each asset.
According to Forrester Research, “Digital asset management systems play an instrumental role in supporting content teams to keep pace with the ever-increasing demands of personalized digital experiences by decreasing time to market with new products and digital experiences, reducing production costs for rich-media assets, and mitigating copyright and trademark infringement.”
Benefits of DAM for businesses
DAMs offer a range of benefits for businesses, including brand governance, improved productivity, enhanced collaboration, and better security.
Brand governance
DAMs help businesses better manage their brand and how customers perceive it. By providing a central location for all digital assets, DAMs help an organization’s content creators, marketers, customer support teams, and other users quickly find and use the most up-to-date and accurate company materials. In turn, this internal consistency improves the customer experience and builds trust with customers.
Related, as part of the content lifecycle, DAMs can help regulate what’s current, what’s old, and what’s expired (e.g., a licensed third-party image or research study.)
Improved productivity
Providing a central location for digital assets also helps businesses improve productivity. DAMs make it easier for employees to find the materials they need, which can save time and improve efficiency. DAMs can also automate tasks such as asset tagging and version control, which further improves productivity.
Improving organizational efficiency, DAMs streamline content creation workflows by providing quick, easy access to digital assets, removing the need for employees to search through multiple folders or drives.
Enhanced collaboration
DAMs can help businesses improve collaboration by providing a platform for employees to easily share and collaborate on digital assets. This is especially helpful for businesses with geographically dispersed teams or those working on projects that require input from multiple stakeholders.
Teams can effortlessly share and comment on digital assets, facilitating seamless collaboration and efficient decision-making.
Increased security
DAMs help businesses increase security by providing a secure location to store, control, and track sensitive digital assets, keeping them confidential and safe from unauthorized access or damage. This is crucial for all companies, but especially those operating in regulated industries.
By employing various measures such as access control, encryption, and audit trails to safeguard data, DAMs help businesses maintain compliance with industry standards and regulations.
DAM vs. CMS
Digital asset management and content management systems are both essential tools for businesses that need to store and manage digital content. However, there are key differences between the two systems that make them better suited for different purposes.
DAMs are specifically designed for storing and managing rich media files, such as images, videos, and audio files. These systems typically provide a centralized repository for all of a business’s digital assets, making it easy for employees to find and access the files they need. DAMs also often include features for editing and organizing digital assets, as well as for sharing and collaborating on files with others.
CMSes, on the other hand, are designed for managing and publishing web content, such as text, images, and videos. They typically provide a user-friendly interface for creating and editing web pages, as well as for managing the structure and navigation of a website. While CMSes do contain image libraries, they don’t offer the same level of control, governance, and cross-system functionality of DAMs.
The best of both worlds: WordPress VIP and DAM
For larger organizations who need the flexibility of both technologies, a DAM can augment a CMS platform, helping deliver digital assets directly to a digital touchpoint or even front-office system like ecommerce, customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation platforms.
By combining the power and flexibility of CMS and DAM solutions, WordPress VIP and DAM-focused partners like Aprimo, Cloudinary, and Scaleflex enable businesses to build a digitally advanced operating environment, including:
- Creating a single source of truth for digital media assets
- Getting campaigns and content to market faster
- Streamlining and democratizing content collaboration across teams
Learn more about WordPress VIP, an enterprise-grade CMS purpose-built for large organizations, media brands, and public sector agencies.