How Automation Can Empower Your Branding Assets

First impressions count, but so do the second, third, and hundredth impressions. Making a positive, consistent impression with every document, email, and digital asset you send out to consumers requires a modern solution—one that supports and works with the employees creating these assets.

Enterprises set aside significant portions of their budgets for branding, with some industries like consumer packaged goods allocating nearly 24% to marketing. With billions of documents leaving enterprises each year, including everything from marketing collateral to client contracts, digital asset and document governance should be a top budget priority. If marketing leaders are serious about guaranteeing brand consistency, it’s important that they consider new automated tools that allow every employee to use, maintain, and share the company’s branded assets efficiently.

The Risks of Poor Document Governance

Generally, employees will look for the fastest, easiest way to create documents. But corporate compliance requires that employees work according to strict standards, and following these branding guidelines can lengthen turnaround times. That can create serious productivity issues: Thirty-nine percent of employees report broken document management processes within their organizations, including troubles with locating, sharing, and approving documents—causing a 21% loss in productivity.

Poor document governance also degrades the brand. When employees fail to use branded assets accurately in documents, emails, and presentations, consistency is lost and the integrity of the brand takes a hit. Not only is this lack of consistency confusing for clients and customers, but companies also run the risk of giving the impression that their brands are disorganized and unprofessional. Even something as small as outdated email signatures can derail an extensively planned brand strategy.

Investing In Brand Automation

To repair broken document processes, enterprises should look for solutions that make brand compliance simple. Brand automation tools are equipped with a variety of features to help ensure that documents are both fully compliant and created efficiently.

• Access: While digital asset management systems are great storage solutions, they often require users to leave the programs they are working in and log in to a separate system to download the asset. Brand automation tools, on the other hand, bring branded assets to the user through the applications they are already using. These tools also allow for increased control over who sees and uses the assets. As enterprises transform into digital workplaces, easy, controlled access to information will become a major branding advantage.

• Assisted assembly: Automated asset access can suggest next steps to users. The system learns users’ typical tasks, suggesting the next piece of collateral they may need while they move through their workflow. As users put together presentations, documents, and emails, the system also alerts them when they mix certain styles like colors, fonts, or other assets that are not compliant with the brand’s guidelines, adding extra assurance that they are adhering to company standards.

• Validate: Users work quickly and are not always concerned about whether a provided asset is up to date. Brand automation gives enterprises high-level visibility into and control over the assets being used. With automation tools, brand managers can update assets and roll out changes companywide, sending alerts to users that the assets they’re using are out of date and offering the latest version. Brand changes happen frequently, and automation makes sure every user is equipped with the correct assets at all times.

Automation Builds Trust In Brands

When brand assets are automated and up to date, employees with a hand in document creation can easily see if something is out of synch with current standards before it’s sent off, so they are catching mistakes in real time.

Consistent assets help to empower a company by building trust in the brand and making it memorable. When done right, branding is immediately recognizable to consumers—so with a reputation at stake and investments on the line, there’s no time like the present to elevate your brand assets with automation.