Digital Asset Management

What is Digital Asset Management?

Digital Asset Management (DAM) is a system designed to simplify the storage, management, and distribution of an organization’s digital content. It aims to centralize the organization’s digital asset library, improve collaboration between teams, and streamline the entire marketing and creative workflow.

DAM solutions are particularly relevant for companies managing a significant volume of digital content or facing complexities in asset management due to diverse teams and channels, global distribution, complex compliance requirements, and numerous stakeholders.

What are digital assets?

A digital asset refers to a digitally stored and distinctively identifiable item that organizations can leverage to realize value. They include a wide range of digital content like product images, videos, banners, sales decks, social media, advertising graphics, and more. Primarily created by marketing, design, and online media management teams, these assets fulfill various organizational needs, such as product representations, advertisements, or web page visuals.

How are digital assets different from other files?

What makes digital assets different from other files is the added value they bring to organizations and their intent to be consumed by the target market or end consumer. They are often produced to achieve specific strategic goals that include strengthening brand identity, supporting the promotion of campaigns, or increasing online presence.

Digital assets typically undergo a managed lifecycle, accompanied by structured metadata, ensuring proper use and maintenance. This means that from the moment a digital asset is created, it follows a planned and controlled journey that includes stages such as creation, approval, distribution, and potential archiving or deletion. Acting as integral parts of the organization’s strategy, they contribute to their overall success through strategic value and controlled use of tools such as DAM systems.

What are the Benefits of Digital Asset Management?

More customers than ever are making purchasing decisions online now¹. Customer interactions today have gone digital, driven by platforms like websites, apps, social media sites, and more. To keep up with this trend, businesses need to fuel their customer interactions with digital assets. However, creating these assets isn't just about ticking a box— it’s a significant way to enhance customer engagement and boost sales outcomes. Statistics show that 86 out of 100 marketing professionals use video as a marketing tool, with 92% it as an effective return on investment².

To tackle the mounting challenge of handling growing asset volumes, efficient digital asset management is key. It's crucial for teams to execute campaigns swiftly and effectively to achieve the targeted business outcomes.  A digital asset management solution can help you do exactly that.

Here are some ways that a DAM can help a growing business:

Reduce your marketing operation costs

Because a DAM system efficiently organizes digital assets, it vastly reduces the time spent on searching for assets, translating to cost savings and enhanced operational efficiency. Also, since the DAM serves as a centralized repository it helps eliminate asset duplication and the indirect costs associated with content sprawl.

Collaborate effectively with local, global, and external teams

DAM significantly improves collaboration among internal and external stakeholders, regardless of their location or time zone. By providing granular levels of access controls, it enables the precise sharing of assets with both individuals and teams, including external partners, via public links. Since all asset versions are stored and can be easily retrieved from the DAM's Media Library, you no longer need to deal with the chaos of scattered communication across various channels like email and messaging tools.

Improve your marketing turnaround timesBetter organization of assets and smoother collaboration between stakeholders make your marketing teams operate at the highest efficiency and help manage your content lifecycle effectively. From asset creation, management to the final delivery – when using a DAM you boost your overall time-to-market.Protect and strengthen your brand

A DAM system safeguards brand assets and ensures that the right digital asset is used for the right purpose. Access can be controlled across your different departments, preventing unauthorized edits and striking a balance between asset security and accessibility. 

DAM also ensures a robust content validation process, allowing your legal and compliance teams to participate and help minimize legal mishaps and brand inconsistencies.

Encourage creative teamwork

Efficient access to essential digital assets boosts teamwork and accelerates collaborative marketing processes. With DAM enabling quick and intuitive asset discovery, your teams can swiftly reach their creative objectives. Centralized feedback via real-time comments within the DAM system supports teamwork, while accessible asset iterations simplify multi-team collaboration challenges.

Seamless integration with third-party applications

DAM integrates seamlessly with your other marketing tech stack components, such as Content Management Systems, Customer Relationship Management Systems, Data Platforms, and Product Information Management Systems. It facilitates effortless collaboration across all your platforms, contributing to a well-integrated MarTech ecosystem. In particular, integrating a DAM with your Content Management System (CMS) or using a unified DAM-CMS allows your tech to directly use assets from your DAM for publication to your app or website.

Strategic management of digital resources

Every asset added to the DAM’s repository costs money, time, and processing power. To keep a tab on this, DAM systems provide valuable metrics on asset usage, helping you optimize costs and ensuring you don’t over-consume resources.

Improve revenue opportunities

It’s a no-brainer that digital assets play a big role in driving revenue growth. That's why using DAM is not just strategically necessary but pivotal at every stage of creating and sharing assets. When you embrace DAM, you maximize your results and boost your net margins. Your business depends more on digital assets to grow revenue, so DAM becomes even more important.

DAM Software Features To Consider Before Making a Purchase

Clearly defining your DAM requirements simplifies the decision-making process. Here are a list of features you should assess while shopping for your DAM solution. 

Beyond centralized storage:

Providing centralized storage is integral to a DAM solution. But the scope of DAM goes way beyond just being a mere storage space for assets. Besides not placing limits on total storage and being scalable, DAM solutions are also able to accommodate various file types and sizes including multimedia, electronic forms, digital images, scanned PDFs, and emerging formats like AR, VR, or 3D. Also, cloud-based DAM solutions require no on-premise maintenance or setup costs, allowing you to realize the benefits almost immediately.

Efficient downloading and uploading of assets:

Uploading and downloading assets with a DAM solution is easy. It helps streamline the asset management process by allowing you to set default parameters for the assets you upload. Moreover DAMs provide various upload options like direct device uploads, uploads from cloud storage services (Google Drive, Dropbox) direct URL uploads and bulk uploads through APIs. Downloads can be individual assets or multiple assets, with the option to download them collectively as a zip file. Additionally, users have the option to export assets directly to platforms integrated into their workflow, such as Product Information Management (PIM) systems or e-commerce platforms. Because DAMs infuse practicality within the asset upload/download process, they boost efficiency.

Digital Asset Management systems often integrate with e-commerce platforms like Shopify or Magento or with PIMs, internal CMS, etc. This integration simplifies using assets from a central DAM storage across other publishing platforms.

Advanced search functionality: 

When searching for a DAM Solution, choose the one with advanced search functionality to help your teams swiftly locate and manage their assets. DAM’s advanced search offers precise searches based on your metadata, tags, and custom fields and aligns seamlessly with how you've organized your assets on the DAM platform. This saves you time, improves your asset organization, and facilitates easy file retrieval.

Frictionless sharing and distribution:

Sharing and distributing assets internally and externally can often pose challenges. A DAM system enables your internal and external stakeholders to work effortlessly on digital assets, transcending geographical constraints. 

Enhanced security:

Given the unique and often confidential nature of digital assets, it’s necessary to protect them. A DAM system does exactly this and helps you safeguard your digital intellectual property DAM software creates a,secure, and accessible storage system. from unauthorized access and potential data breaches. It ensures that your sensitive files remain protected, maintaining the integrity of your content and preserving your brand reputation. Because of its robust security measures, you can confidently manage and share assets, knowing your digital repository is fortified against potential threats.

Version control:

Ensuring a consistent brand experience is crucial for any organization. By always accessing the latest versions, you ensure that everyone involved in brand representation, from marketing to design teams, is working with the most up-to-date and approved assets. This consistency across materials, logos, and visual elements prevents unintentional deviations from brand guidelines. It safeguards against the use of outdated or unauthorized assets and enforces a unified and professional brand image across all channels.

Workflow enhancement:

Effective collaboration is a key aspect of any creative process. A DAM system enhances collaboration between stakeholders, ensuring a seamless workflow to minimize errors or duplication of effort.

Automated asset delivery:

Every business aims to effectively engage prospective customers with consistent, high-quality visual experiences across the devices they browse. This is only possible with the right technology governing media delivery. 

Built to primarily benefit tech teams, the delivery feature of a DAM system helps optimize and deliver images in real time to your website and app. By automating media optimization and enabling real-time transformation of media, automated asset delivery improves page loading times and enhances customer experience and personalization, ultimately leading to a positive impact on revenue. Tech teams play a crucial role in implementing and optimizing asset delivery and by using the automated asset delivery feature of the DAM, both marketing and tech teams can collaborate more effectively.

Software Features that ImageKit Offers

Cloud-based media library

ImageKit's cloud-based media library serves as a centralized hub, offering convenient storage and management for diverse content formats with the ability to expand as needed. The backup and sync features power continuous asset availability. Asset organization can be done using folders, collections, tags, and metadata. You can also create custom metadata tags for personalized organization by product ID, campaign, channel, creator, or other criteria. You also have the flexibility to create media collections without being restricted by your existing organization of folders. The advantage of Collections is that you can collate assets from many locations into a single Collection to share without duplication. What’s more, all assets in a collection are always updated to their latest version. 

For complex organizational challenges, this feature is a bonus. By streamlining asset grouping without the need for duplicating or moving files this allows you to curate collections based on your specific criteria, enhancing the overall efficiency of managing and accessing your digital assets.

Effortless drag-and-drop uploads and downloads

With ImageKit, asset upload is simplified through a drag-and-drop interface, minimizing your effort. The platform also provides developer-friendly APIs for bulk operations, enabling tasks like tagging, file deletions, and sorting into folders and collections.

Powerful search to “find anything”

ImageKit's advanced search capabilities include keyword-based search with AI tagging, facilitating business-specific searches. By supporting advanced search parameters, such as file format, dimension, size, and upload date, ImageKit’s DAM allows you to create complex search queries using filters and image tags. Autocompletion of search suggestions and saved searches further ease your asset searching process.

Granular access controls

ImageKit simplifies collaboration and sharing of digital assets within your teams, ensuring easy, safe, and secure access. You can effortlessly share assets and media collections with teams fostering broader collaboration beyond individual users. The system surpasses standard access levels beyond view, comment, and edit, providing nuanced controls for secure sharing within the ImageKit account. With the added advantage of using Collections, everyone has access to the latest versions, streamlining workflows and maintaining control over media resource distribution.

For external stakeholders requiring access to specific assets without entering your DAM, ImageKit offers a solution. Distribute assets securely via public links for assets, folders, or collections to ensure a controlled and secure sharing experience.

Top-tier security

ImageKit’s security features go the extra mile and prioritize the protection of assets during storage and transfers. Custom user permissions in ImageKit allow only your administrators to restrict access based on roles, ensuring secure asset management. Security protocols such as identity and access management, data loss prevention, and multi-factor authentication (MFA) contribute to a secure DAM environment. Notably, ImageKit is ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certified, emphasizing its commitment to information security.

Efficient version control for assets

ImageKit's version control acts as your protective shield, preventing the use of outdated assets and safeguarding original copies from unintended actions or application failures. With ImageKit's Media Collections, you can effortlessly compile and organize your digital assets into virtual collections. When updating a master asset, witness the seamless propagation of the latest version across every Media Collection. This streamlined process optimizes your workflow and ensures that your branding remains consistent with the most up-to-date assets, thus creating a unified brand experience.

Efficient media delivery

For assets to be delivered to a website or app, ImageKit’s DAM also has the ability to automatically generate the appropriate versions of assets for different devices and aspect ratios. This means if your Tech team delivers assets through ImageKit, your marketing teams no longer need to manually create various asset versions, thus saving their time, reducing manual effort and simplifying the asset creation and distribution workflow.

ImageKit offers a real-time URL-based API for automatic optimization, real-time transformations, and adaptive video streaming. This feature enables users to automate the delivery of a single master asset to different platforms in varying resolutions, formats, and layouts. With this your organization’s tech teams can utilize assets directly from the ImageKit DAM to post to the website or app, without needing to download and re-upload to a CMS or cloud storage. 

Share our Image Transformations and Video Transformations documentation with your tech team to explore these capabilities.

What is DAM Implementation? Learn How to Get Started

DAM implementation refers to the process of integrating and deploying a Digital Asset Management system within an organization's workflow. It's all about customizing the DAM software­ to align with the unique nee­ds of your business. This process include­s tasks like data migration, training users, and inte­grating the DAM smoothly into your existing Mar-Tech stack. Properly imple­menting DAM enhances your ability to e­fficiently manage, store, re­trieve, and share digital asse­ts. 

In this section, we'll provide an overview of the implementation process for a DAM System. Use these guidelines as an initial framework for initiating your journey into Digital Asset Management.

Step 1 - Navigating DAM selection 

Begin your DAM journey by understanding your organization's digital landscape. Key steps include:

• Evaluating Digital Assets: Conduct a thorough audit of your digital assets, workflows, and user behaviors, and where there is room for improvement.
• Adhering to IT Policies: Familiarize yourself with organizational IT policies and protocols.
• Stakeholders - Who else in the org do you need to have bought in on your DAM implementation? Don’t leave out Finance, Compliance and Information Security

Step 2 - Building a robust implementation team

Success hinges on a dedicated team that aligns technical prowess with stakeholder needs. Consider the following:

• Define DAM Task Force - platform owners, administrators and internal champions who will help drive adoption of the DAM platform.

• Defining Scope and Objectives: Clearly outline the task force's role, ensuring everyone understands their responsibilities.

• Stakeholder Involvement: Identify and engage key stakeholders to secure support and buy-in.

• Detailed Project Planning: Develop a comprehensive project plan with clear communication channels.

Step 3 - Prioritizing initial asset management activities

Kickstart your DAM project with activities that address critical challenges and benefit key users. Initial priorities should focus on:

• Uploading Assets: Identify, inventory, and enhance existing digital assets.

• Updating Metadata: Design a metadata schema for efficient cataloging and indexing.

• Establishing Workflows: Automate repetitive tasks and synchronize with related systems.

Step 4 - Defining clear user roles 

User engagement is paramount for DAM success. Clearly define roles and permissions, including:

• Administrators: Control access and management functions.

• Digital Assets Managers: Oversee uploads and metadata management.

• Contributors: Designers and content creators.

• Users: Various organizational functions.

• Guests: External professionals with 'view only' access.

Step 5 - Establishing rules for organized asset management

Organize digital assets systematically by defining metadata, governance policies, and a digital asset taxonomy. Key steps include:

• Metadata Definition: Clearly define metadata for easy asset retrieval.

• Governance Policies: Establish rules and a review process.

• Digital Asset Taxonomy: Introduce a structured taxonomy for consistent organization.

Step 6 - Tool integration:

A DAM solution is a valuable addition to your Martech stack. To enhance your DAMs functionality integrate it with systems that are used in your asset creation and distribution process. Common integrations  include:

• Content Management Systems (CMS)

• Cloud Storage Servers

• eCommerce and Digital Experience Platforms

• Product Information Modules (PIM)

• Operations Tools

Step 7 - Empowering teams through training

Ensure successful adoption of DAM by implementing effective training strategies:

• Leverage Vendor Resources: Utilize vendor training materials and support teams.

• Custom Learning Courses: Develop a tailored learning course for all DAM users.

• Advanced Training for Power Users: Identify and train users who extensively engage with DAM.

• Internal DAM Forums: Establish platforms for ongoing learning and collaboration.

Step 8 - Continuous improvement: 

DAM implementation is a continuous journey. Monitor and adapt with key metrics:

• User Metrics: Track user engagement, asset downloads, and search activity.

• Periodic DAM Analytics: Review analytics for workflow optimization.

Steps To Create And Manage Digital Assets Using a DAM

Once you’ve finalized your digital asset management strategy is not just a,mapped to the customer journey. and have your DAM solution in place, the next step is to actually start using the solution to execute your marketing and creative processes. Here are the steps involved in creating and managing your digital assets.

Organize existing assets:

As the primary step in the creative management process, your existing assets must be uploaded into the DAM’s Media Library directly or using APIs (largely used in the case of bulk file uploads). This requires careful planning, preparation in addition to doing sanity checks on assets to avoid duplicates. You’ll also need to ensure that the assets are properly categorized with metadata and tags according to your organization’s established DAM taxonomy. 

Create new digital assets:

Now that you have a clear picture of your existing asset repository, the next step would be to produce new content for your organization’s needs. The content would include images, videos, documents, etc. which fall in line with your organization’s branding standards. Like the previous step, you’ll also need properly categorize your digital assets with the relevant metadata and tags.

Set user roles and permissions:

Having control over who can access your digital assets, and to what degree, is paramount. That’s why a DAM allows you to set different user accesses according to your team’s needs and defined responsibilities. Administrators typically have full control over the system, while viewers may only have access to view assets without editing capabilities.

Manage asset lifecycle:

Every asset created must have its lifecycle properly tracked and managed. The DAM sits within your existing marketing workflow and helps monitor your assets throughout their entire journey — from creation to archiving or deletion. Almost every asset goes through multiple iterations, and a DAM’s version control helps you track that, giving you complete visibility into your assets plus nullifying your chances of using outdated asset versions.

Collaborate and review:

To create and effectively use an asset within a marketing campaign requires collaboration between stakeholders (both internal and external). Sharing assets through DAM simplifies and centralizes collaborative efforts, while built-in commenting enables your teams to provide feedback and ensure asset quality before distribution.

Distribute assets across channels:

Once assets are created and approved, they must be distributed to the right channels to realize your marketing goals. When distributing assets across channels like websites, social media platforms, or email campaigns, it’s important to ensure that the assets are delivered in the appropriate format and resolution for each channel to maintain consistency and effectiveness. And, yes, DAM solutions help you do that.

Maintain the DAM system:

Regularly updating and maintaining the DAM system is essential for optimal performance and security. This includes providing training and ongoing support to users to maximize their utilization of the system and ensure smooth operations.

Cloud-Based Digital Asset Management - Is There An Advantage

The shift to cloud-based Digital Asset Management (DAM) is not just a trend; it's a strategic move that offers a multitude of benefits. From effortless scalability and reduced costs to enhanced data security, the advantages are compelling. By embracing a cloud-based DAM, you can unlock a new level of efficiency, collaboration, and peace of mind, knowing that your valuable digital assets are not only easily accessible but also protected. This level of universal accessibility is a game-changer, and a cloud-based DAM solution makes it a reality.

Five key benefits of cloud-DAM over on-premise solutions

Accessibility

Imagine having the power to access and manage your creative assets from anywhere, at any time, and from any device. In contrast to On-Premise DAMs, which require you to be present on the LAN or at the physical location for access, a cloud-based DAM solution conquers physical boundaries. Cloud DAM vendors also provide mobile apps and user-friendly interfaces that allow you to access the system from any device.

Scalability

Cloud DAM offers instant scalability, with resources that can be allocated without delay and shared cloud servers that spare space for future needs, addressing the difficulty and time/resource requirements for scaling on-premise DAM. Cloud DAM vendors also provide flexible pricing plans that allow businesses to scale up or down as needed.

Reduced costs and resource overhead 

Cloud solutions tend to be cheaper than on-premise solutions in certain scenarios, particularly if your business requires flexibility, scalability, and lower upfront costs³. Cloud solutions are classified as operational expenses (Opex), which are typically lower than capital expenses (Capex) because they are spread out over time. Cloud solutions offer several cost advantages over on-premise solutions, including no upfront hardware or software costs, no hardware replacements, and lower maintenance and support costs. However, the cost of cloud solutions depend directly on the vendor’s pricing and the services offered, and in certain scenarios on-premise solutions could be more cost-effective.

Enhanced data security

Cloud-based DAMs offer advanced security features, such as encryption, SSO, and protection against various cyber threats. Although similar features are available on on-premise solutions, they are generally more current for Cloud Applications, as this is a key focus for cloud providers and they need to keep security systems current for thousands of customers. . Opting for a cloud-based DAM means your vendor takes charge of data security and compliance based on the server's region, freeing you from technical intricacies.

Popular Cloud Storage vs DAM - What’s Right For Your Business

Cloud storage platforms like Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive serve as essential repositories for valuable digital assets. But there is a fundamental distinction between such platforms and full-featured DAM. While the former primarily focuses on storing data, DAM systems offer advanced functionalities that enable efficient organization, retrieval, and utilization of digital assets. They ensure that digital assets not only find a secure home but can be efficiently accessed and utilized.

OneDrive Vs. DAM

Dropbox vs. DAM:

Learn the best Dropbox alternatives on our blog.

Google Drive vs. DAM - Learn the Differences

Top Digital Asset Management Use Cases

Learn how DAM systems address diverse needs, from maintaining brand consistency to fostering collaboration across business verticals and multiple stakeholders.

DAM Business Use Cases

DAM Use Cases for Internal Teams

Digital Asset Management Use Cases for Teams

DAM Use Cases for External Parties

Industry-Specific DAM Use Cases

How DAM can empower Marketers and Designers

Marketing teams are charged with executing complex campaigns, with staggered deadlines, coordinating across teams and bringing a host of marketing assets to completion on time, on brand and at the highest quality.

Designers, on the other hands are primarily focused on breathing life to a brand's identity through their designs. While the core objective is directed towards creativity, they often have to manage a large number of marketing assets which are in simultaneous development.

For both marketing teams and designers the management overhead of tracking a large number of marketing assets can become cumbersome, more so if expected to be done manually without a supporting DAM software.

The right digital asset management tool becomes crucial in assisting marketing teams and designers with the asset management aspects, providing a centralized and secure platform for efficient storage, organization, sharing, and distribution of the assets they create.

Here is how a DAM solution helps solve their mutual challenges:

A central storage in the cloud for all raw and exported files

Instead of designers storing heavy PSD or AI files and different exports on their system and using cumbersome file transfer methods, a cloud-based digital asset management system allows designers to upload all of their work to a central repository, which is virtually unlimited in size. Marketing teams benefit with both faster collaboration, since design files are available much faster, and automated version control which ensures everyone is working on the latest design.

Simplifying asset organization and search

Marketing teams work on multiple projects spanning different business goals or platforms like social, email, website, etc. Over time, these assets accumulate, and marketing teams end up with a difficult-to-browse repository. Designers are at the receiving end of this confusion, as everyone depends on them, as the asset creators, to find and share the latest version of an asset. This leads to wasting time finding the right file when needed and a lot of rework if you cannot find the asset that can be reused.

With a DAM in place, marketing teams can organize assets in folders and use tagging and structured metadata to organize and search for assets more effectively. This allows designers to spend less time retrieving their old work, and more time on creative output.

For example, Metadata fields can be associated with the raw or exported files that indicate the project they belong to, like "Thanksgiving Sale," "Halloween promotions," and so on, or the platform they are meant for, like "Facebook Post," "Instagram Story," etc. One can also tag them with attributes like color schemes, creative styles, etc.

Now, if someone from the design team has to find a PSD file made for Thanksgiving for the FB Blog post a few months later, you can use the advanced search capabilities of a DAM with these attributes instead of manually going through each folder.

Streamline how you iterate on assets

Marketing teams need to coordinate feedback and approvals from various stakeholders both within the marketing team as well as others in the company such as company leadership, Legal and even HR. Designers have to ensure that they are incorporating feedback from everyone.

This feedback process often becomes a challenge as feedback comes in on various channels, often on an outdated version, and may even be contradictory feedback from different stakeholders. Designers lose time every design iteration collating feedback, and marketing teams risk missing campaign deadlines.

A DAM solves this in three ways.

1. Collecting feedback in a central place - Instead of sharing exported files on Slack or email, which makes it challenging to collect accurate feedback from multiple people and increases the back-and-forth, a DAM allows relevant stakeholders to leave comments on the creative in one central place.
2. Version control - As you iterate, instead of resharing another version of the creatives via mail or messaging, you can upload the new variant to the DAM, and all relevant stakeholders can see it there. Everyone is always on the same page, can see different asset versions and all the feedback, and can refer to the latest iteration of the creative being worked on.

Simplify sharing of assets

With the assets ready to publish, designers have to share them with other marketing teams, external agencies, and even other departments in the company. For example, one would need to share it with the tech team to take some banners live on the website. This often means that a designer or someone else on the marketing team downloads the assets in the right resolution, attaches them to an email, and shares them with different people.

A DAM simplifies this to a large extent.

1. Invite other teams or individuals to the DAM and control who can access the creatives at a file or folder level.
2. Control the access level. For example, your fellow designer should be able to upload new creatives to a folder, but others on the marketing team or your tech team only needs to view the assets for them to publish them on the website.
3. Share assets with external agencies working on a specific project with a view-only link instead of inviting them to the DAM as a user.
4. Group creatives and other assets from different folders into a virtual collection. A collection helps you bundle together related assets like FB posts, Instagram stories, and Website videos associated with the same campaign that could be in different folders in the DAM into one shareable group without ever duplicating the assets.

Ensure brand compliance

With a growing creative repository and the market and product evolving, marketing leaders and designers are both accountable for ensuring that all creatives are on-brand and use the latest components that define the brand, like the current logo, font, or color schemes.

With the use of a DAM

1. All assets come in one central place. It makes it easier to monitor and QC that all assets being uploaded to the DAM and being published for use are in compliance with the brand guidelines.
2. If a particular creative has to be updated across the board, version control in the DAM is really useful. For example, a new version of the brand's logo can be uploaded in place of the existing logo file. For everyone referring to that creative via its URL or within the DAM, the brand's logo will automatically start reflecting the new version uploaded.

The Impact of Digital Asset Management for Small Businesses

While digital asset management (DAM) systems are often associated with large teams and high asset volumes, the evolving content production landscape has made them increasingly relevant for smaller businesses. 

Even small teams are now producing diverse content across multiple platforms, such as social media, emails, websites, apps, and more. Various content types, from sales banners and ads to product videos and user-generated reviews, necessitate a system that efficiently manages these assets. 

Here is how a DAM can be helpful for smaller digital businesses.

Centralizing assets for smaller teams

A key advantage of a DAM system is its ability to centralize all assets in one location rather than scattered across individual computer systems. This centralized approach is particularly beneficial for distributed teams, a trend on the rise for small businesses. By bringing all assets under one roof, a DAM system enhances accessibility, collaboration, and security. 

Organizing assets better for improved productivity

It is invaluable to organize all your website graphics, sales assets, or user-generated content and quickly search for the right ones. This is all the more important for small businesses, where a one—or two-person marketing team usually tries to manage hundreds of assets across multiple channels. Simplifying the search and retrieval boosts productivity, promotes asset reuse, and helps teams go live with new campaigns faster.

Ability to quickly iterate with confidence

For small businesses, the messaging, creatives, and branding evolve quickly. DAM systems allow versioning of assets, with the ability to publish new creative versions or instantly revert to an older version.

With all creatives in one place, team managers can also get control over branding and brand compliance, like using the right logo, font, or messaging on all creatives. 

This ability helps build and maintain a coherent digital experience across different channels with minimal risk of an outdated asset version being published.

Working with external agencies and freelancers

Small businesses work with external agencies and freelancers to augment their in-house capabilities and get work done quickly. In this process, they have to share or obtain digital assets from these external stakeholders, such as product photographs from an external photography agency or ad graphics from a marketing agency.

A DAM makes adding collaborators on one platform easy and granularly controls access and rights to files and folders. Instead of sharing bulky ZIP attachments via email or insecure file-sharing tools, a DAM provides a secure platform where everyone is always on the same page.

Ideal DAM for small businesses

As mentioned earlier, most of the existing DAM tools catered to enterprise users. To effectively leverage these benefits with a smaller team size, a DAM needs to be tailored for that size and devoid of complex features more suitable for larger enterprises. A platform like ImageKit is ideal for small businesses. It supports self-signup and onboarding, offers public pricing, and provides extensive documentation to help users get started. Furthermore, its billing structure is designed to grow incrementally as the user's asset repository or number of collaborators increases, making it a scalable and cost-effective solution as a business grows.

Sign up with ImageKit for free today.

Digital Asset Management for E-Commerce

In the e-commerce industry, visual immersion is crucial. It's the only way an end customer can 'experience' the product before purchasing, so these businesses rely heavily on product images, promotional videos, sales banners, category graphics, advertisements, and social media content. Apart from these assets, they generate user reviews, which adds another layer of assets to be managed.

The sheer volume and variety of assets make a DAM system an invaluable tool for centrally organizing, managing, and optimizing these resources for maximum impact. 

Asset organization that is suitable for e-commerce

It is common for e-commerce businesses to organize their digital images and videos using SKU IDs, product categories, or product attributes like the collar of the t-shirt, the style of the dress, its pattern, color, etc. These form a part of the team's shared vocabulary, but capturing all these details in the file or folder name is challenging. 

DAM systems add value by allowing the tagging and attachment of structured metadata to each asset. Combined with the DAM's advanced search capabilities, finding the right file is simplified, improving the productivity of internal teams.

Integration with other tools in e-commerce workflow

Regardless of where you store your assets, it would be a massive waste of time if to upload the product images to your e-commerce website - you have first to download all of them from the storage and then re-upload them one at a time to the e-commerce platform. 

Digital Asset Management systems often integrate with e-commerce platforms like Shopify or Magento or with PIMs, internal CMS, etc. This integration simplifies using assets from a central DAM storage across other publishing platforms.

Built-in collaboration with external and internal teams

Creating new creatives, category banners, or pitch decks requires approvals from multiple teams like CRM, Marketing, Sales, Legal, etc. It also requires an e-commerce company to work with external freelancers, photographers, and agencies. 

To help with this cross-functional collaboration and approval workflow, a DAM system

1. Allows adding all collaborators on the same platform and controls their access rights

2. Centralizes all iterations, feedback, and approvals in one place

3. Makes it easy to distribute assets to resellers or other external users of the assets without re-hosting them elsewhere

Bonus: Maintaining high quality while adapting assets for different screens

Product images and videos for an e-commerce business must be displayed in multiple resolutions across different devices - on the listing pages, a zoomed-in version on the product detail page, or small thumbnails. And one also has to remember that the images and videos should load quickly for the user. 

Manually resizing, cropping, and compressing these assets to get them to load fast across all devices can be very time-consuming. Some DAM systems, like ImageKit, provide real-time optimizations, resizing, streaming, and other transformations that allow the creation of multiple variants for different requirements from a single master asset. This simplifies the last step of putting out these high-quality assets on your online store without worrying about performance.

Enhance your customer's digital journey with automated image optimization for high-quality experiences. Discover how!

Understanding Digital Asset Management Pricing

Think of putting a Digital Asset Manage­ment (DAM) system to work? Costs matter. We­'ll dig into the most important factors affecting DAM system price­s. Let's understand these­ points and how they shape the total costs.

Number of users:

Pricing often includes a set number of users. Generally, users are not charged for basic functionality like view, search, and download. However, extensive user permissions can amount to additional charges.

On-premise vs cloud-based DAM systems:

On-Premise DAMs require heavy initial investments to set up on-premise infrastructure. Ongoing maintenance, IT staffing, training, integration, security measures, scalability challenges, potential downtime expenses, and license upgrades are the possible drawbacks of these solutions.

One significant factor influencing pricing in cloud-based solutions is storage usage. As data accumulates, the storage requirements increase, impacting the subscription fees. However, this model allows for payment based on actual resource consumption, offering cost-efficiency compared to the fixed overheads of on-premise solutions.

Features:

Basic functionalities are standard. However, incorporating advanced features like AI-based metadata tagging or collaborative tools can increase costs.

Customization:

Tailoring the DAM system to specific needs can incur additional expenses but aligns closely with your organizational requirements.

Customer service:

Initial support, onboarding, training, and ongoing technical assistance contribute to the overall cost, ensuring a smooth implementation process. Migration costs from another system to a DAM should also be factored in, covering data transfer and configuration adjustments. 

Our Pricing

Our plans begin at just $100 per month, providing user licenses and storage tailored for small teams.

Reach out to us directly to discover the right plan to kickstart your journey.