DAM in marketing – a strategic role

It might be easy to think of your digital assets as a passive part of your business’ marketing strategy – there to be used as needed. 

But given the vital importance of high-quality digital assets in how your brand can operate online, now might be the time to start thinking about them more seriously. And, this is exactly where a DAM system comes in useful.

Providing a centralized and secure space to store all of the company's digital assets, ranging from: 

• Photos
• Videos
• Infographics
• Presentation slides 
• Brand artwork

A DAM makes it easy for anyone in your company, including external subcontractors and partners, to access the materials they need, regardless of the project they are working on.

Not only that, but a DAM allows you to take control of multi-channel campaigns and ensure that they are optimized for whatever is called for by the marketing plan. 

The more you use your assets, the more important it is to be able to easily find, edit, and store them.

Many systems offer a wide range of tools to help streamline the whole process. For example, tagging tools allow marketers to find the assets they are looking for quickly.

A tool to drive collaboration and efficiency

Powerful marketing comes from your team’s ability to collaborate and execute campaigns. 

To succeed long-term with large projects, your team needs to come together to work on a shared goal. However, given the size of some marketing teams and the range of work that needs to be carried out, it can be challenging for teams to stay connected.

Digital Marketing News describes this process: “Teams may share resources and work together on projects in a collaborative environment that DAMs offer. Editing and reviewing digital materials collaboratively allows users to maintain consistency and quality throughout their whole body of work.”

Ultimately, DAM systems can bridge any gap that your business has between the work being done by marketing, design, and sales teams. 

When everything is centralized in a powerful system it reduces the possibility of errors and miscommunications about the use of assets. Everyone works from and has access to the same materials, so it’s easy to track exactly what one of your team members is referencing.

It’s not just enhancing collaboration, though, that makes DAM systems effective—it’s also about their impact on team efficiency. While high-quality work is certainly important, perhaps even more crucial is your ability to produce it quickly to hit deadlines to avoid bottlenecks forming in your team.

Having your assets all in one place allows for easy pivots in branding strategy without any wasted energy. This means that important issues like customer feedback, market trends, or even unexpected global events can have an immediate impact on your work.

Ideal for agile marketing teams

Increasingly, businesses are using agile methodologies as a part of their marketing work. Indeed, according to a study from MarTech, 91% of marketers said they plan to implement an agile framework within a year, showing just how far this way of thinking has become mainstream.

DAM systems are one of the reasons that many brands are switching to agile forms of marketing. These systems make it much easier for agencies to pivot and alter their branding strategy or client work. You only need to think about an example like a retailer with different seasonal specialities.

Having the flexibility to move seamlessly between marketing materials allows you to switch campaigns almost instantly. If all of your assets are stored in one place, the process is much more efficient and can be carried out faster. 

“A robust DAM system is crucial for seamless collaboration and allows us to stay consistent when launching new marketing initiatives,” says Maxine Bremner, Co-founder and Head of Content at Hive19. “With multiple subcontractors and partners supporting our agency’s growth, we rely heavily on a centralized system to streamline projects and keep branding assets up to date, ensuring everyone is aligned and consistent. In a rapidly changing industry like link building, the ability to adapt and execute quickly is what keeps us competitive.”

With so many businesses and agencies now relying on multiple revenue streams, it is important to allow any type of branding campaign to be fluid and changeable, and this is something that DAM systems facilitate.

Integration with other marketing tools

Integration between departments and indeed through systems has been another way we’ve seen branding transform. Companies understand more than ever that they must link up the work that they’re doing, both to ensure that there’s no duplication of effort, and, more importantly, to ensure consistency and on-brand messaging throughout.

If your business cannot produce consistent work it will create ambiguity in your messaging and branding, and confuse customers as to exactly who you are as a company. This is the last thing you want when attempting to create brand recognition within your marketplace.

Personalization at scale

One of the major benefits of working with a DAM system is that it can empower your business to give customers more of what they want. 

The key to quality branding is providing consumers with the right image of your company – and increasingly, this means offering personalized content based on their unique needs.

In many cases, customers expect a lot from a company if they’re going to part with their money. Effectively, they want a personal relationship with the brand and to feel like it connects them. Segmenting customer groups into specific audiences has been an important part of any marketing strategy for a long time. However, the challenge has always been in delivering the breadth of content tailored to a specific audience.

DAM systems can help streamline the production of localized and targeted branding materials, meaning your business can achieve far more personalized content for segments of your audience. Over 72% of customers are more likely to purchase a product if it is marketed in their language, showing the power of localization in this context.

Emerging trends in AI and automation

One more transformative trend that has been impacting every element of marketing and branding is artificial intelligence (AI). 

Marketers using DAM systems have seen that these advances in technology have already resulted in changes in the way they can be used. For example, the once lengthy and time-consuming process of tagging and categorizing branding assets can now be accomplished by AI.

As these systems become more advanced in terms of their AI integration, we can expect to see capabilities such as recognizing brand-specific details such as product names and color palettes.

AI also has the potential to transform how we think about marketing; powerful software can analyze a vast amount of historical data and usage patterns to offer insights and suggestions for improvements in content or more effective ways to run campaigns. 

As data becomes richer and more detailed, we may become reliant on the ability of automated systems to carry out analysis, as the task could become too much for individuals or smaller teams to manage.

Looking ahead

As we have seen, DAM systems are already playing a crucial role in modern branding and marketing strategies. But it is always necessary to look forward and consider how this can change over time, and what we can expect to see in terms of their uses.

One key element to expect more of is increased integration between DAM systems and other marketing tools. With customer experience considered a priority and more available customer data, we can expect businesses to provide an even more tailored and personalized approach to their branding.

Additionally, as channels of marketing adapt and change, we should view DAM systems as making it easy for businesses to pivot their strategy and reprioritize their work. DAM has transformative potential and can empower companies to innovate with their branding and utilize strategies that might have been impossible even a few years ago.