What are the benefits of a Digital Asset Management tool?

In today’s arti­cle, I want to dis­cuss the ben­e­fits of using a Dig­i­tal Asset Man­age­ment tool (DAM), fol­low­ing the pub­li­ca­tion of the IDC study « Prov­ing the Val­ue of Dig­i­tal Asset Man­age­ment », last June. Often con­sid­ered as a buzz-gen­er­at­ing trend late­ly, just like the DMP that we were recent­ly dis­cussing, the val­ue of a DAM is, how­ev­er, not yet ful­ly under­stood by many of us. The idea behind this study thus seeks to prove the pos­i­tive impact of a DAM on the ROI of a busi­ness, and shows that using a DAM can not only reduce asset cre­ation costs, but also reduce risks, and glob­al­ly increase pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and income.

What is a DAM?

First, it is essen­tial to define the DAM, a tool that tru­ly finds itself at the cross­road of the chal­lenges of the dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing and the cre­ation. In its offi­cial def­i­n­i­tion, the Dig­i­tal Asset Man­age­ment refers to the set of tasks and deci­sions, with­in an orga­ni­za­tion, that allows the col­lec­tion, clas­si­fi­ca­tion, search, visu­al­iza­tion, stor­age, and dis­tri­b­u­tion of the dif­fer­ent mul­ti­me­dia con­tent of the orga­ni­za­tion (pho­tos, videos, sounds, doc­u­ments, etc.).

More con­crete­ly, the DAM is a soft­ware solu­tion that per­mits to com­bine all media assets in one place, and that all stake­hold­ers (inter­nal­ly in the com­pa­ny, but also exter­nal agen­cies and ser­vice providers) can access. Every­one can get an updat­ed ver­sion of any con­tent (which can save the agency from using an out­dat­ed logo on her lat­est cam­paign for instance), but the DAM also allows to man­age seam­less­ly any for­mat, and to cen­tral­ize all con­tents created.

What are the ben­e­fits of a DAM?

The results of the study are clear: a DAM is an incred­i­ble gen­er­a­tor of val­ue, with 4 main benefits:

  1. Increase rev­enue: 79% of com­pa­nies using a DAM saw their rev­enue increase by at least 10% and, on aver­age, orga­ni­za­tions are even real­iz­ing a 24% increase in rev­enue. Indeed, the use of a DAM accel­er­ates time to deliv­ery for mar­ket­ing cam­paigns, but also per­mits to launch new prod­ucts more quickly.
  2. Reduced asset cre­ation costs: 97% of com­pa­nies using a DAM have reduced their costs of cre­at­ing con­tent by at least 10% and, this decrease in asset cre­ation is on aver­age 28%. This can be explained by a bet­ter asset reuse, as well as reduced dupli­ca­tions: orga­ni­za­tions avoids redo­ing what has already been done.
  3. Reduce risk: By using a DAM, 86% of com­pa­nies reduced their risk by at least 10%, and on aver­age, orga­ni­za­tions are see­ing a 23% reduc­tion in risk. Indeed, a DAM allows a bet­ter man­age­ment of rights, and reduces legal costs for rights violations.
  4. Increase pro­duc­tiv­i­ty: Final­ly, 97% of com­pa­nies have seen their pro­duc­tiv­i­ty boost­ed by at least 10%, while mar­ket­ing orga­ni­za­tions are real­iz­ing on aver­age a 34% improve­ment in pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, thanks to a reduced time spent search­ing for assets, more stream­lined review/approval process­es, and eas­i­er col­lab­o­ra­tion with exter­nal stakeholders.

So many ben­e­fits that we can won­der why any­body nowa­days should do with­out a DAM, these solu­tions being not restrict­ed to large orga­ni­za­tions, far from it, as many small and medi­um busi­ness­es are nowa­days invest­ing in a DAM. When it is pos­si­ble to save mon­ey, bet­ter man­age rights or increase income, why would any­body refuse to use a DAM? J

What about you, what is your expe­ri­ence in Dig­i­tal Asset Man­age­ment? Feel free to con­tin­ue the dis­cus­sion and share your views in the com­ments section!