Are you ready for a world with 44 zettabytes of content by 2020? For reference, one zettabyte is equal to ONE TRILLION gigabytes! While much of this content is generated by consumers in the form of images and videos from their smartphones, business are generating their own sizable share of rich-media content. Rich-media content has become a key part of today's marketing strategies; 93% of marketers are currently using a content marketing approach to build awareness, generate leads, advertise and provide engaging digital experiences to customers and prospects.
Most of these marketers are mapping their content creation efforts to personas and/or audience segments, and then producing a variety of creative assets such as PDFs, infographics, or videos based on interests and behaviors, as well as organic search.
With so many creative assets needed, it’s no surprise that almost half of all marketers polled said that content production is one of their biggest challenges.
Unfortunately, the lifecycle of creative assets isn’t simply a “press record then upload to YouTube” process. Once someone has a gem of an idea, a creative asset starts its lifecycle. Mock-ups and proof are created, reviews and approvals happen, localization of various languages are tackled and then it goes live, hopefully living somewhere the right people can find and access. In an ideal world, it will eventually reach end-of-life and be retired and archived.
The truth is, most companies don’t have the tools and processes in place to manage and maintain the high volume of creative assets they are producing. They make due with various disconnected technology and tools. Asset requests are made in email where things like feedback and changes are easily lost. Specifications are put in Google Docs.
Files get shared in a confusing Dropbox or Google Drive folder structure but then the approvals are made via chat and on and on. This is just the process for creating an asset! Fast forward a couple months and the people who need these in the first place can’t find latest version. Often, old branded material is sent to customers, images with expired licenses are still live on the blog, no one can search for available assets across the company so people start making their own, and/or money and time get spent recreating assets that already exist but can’t be found. The bottom line is it’s a mess and a problem that compounds itself with every passing week.
While the creation and management of assets seems daunting, it’s a challenge that can be solved. The solution resides with a new generation of digital asset management (DAM) tools that are cloud-based and easy to use but also solve the process mess by providing a centralized storage location so assets can be accessed, updated and used at a later date.
What should a DAM do, exactly? Let’s break down what features you should look for in a DAM:
Centralized Repository
The reason creative assets are called “assets” in the first place is because they cost a lot of time and marketing budget to create. Keeping track of them should be important. Instead of a patchwork of email, Google Drive, Box, Dropbox, file shares, and local hard drives, all the assets being worked on or completed live safely in one place in the cloud. Now anyone who produces or needs access to creative assets know exactly where these files live, how to find them, and how to use them in marketing campaigns and building digital experiences.