Your brand has finally decided to pull the trigger and splash the cash on a much-needed Digital Asset Management solution, brilliant.
The first step is to understand exactly what is needed within the business, often there is confusion between a Digital Asset Management, and Brand Management platform, with the distinctions becoming blurrier each day.
But getting this right is critical and we believe each of these are distinguished by how sophisticated your marketing needs are now and moving forward. Ambition is an important driver to ensuring you purchase a system that is fit for purpose.
- Digital Asset Management platform is the category defining solution. Effectively, it is the baseline system that safely stores, manages, and retrieves all the different types of assets that are in it. These systems vary in cost and complexity but is an essential first step when managing your assets. The selection is also dependent on the types of assets stored as this is not exclusive to marketing.
- Brand Management platform is a platform that not only focuses on managing the assets (as above) but also seeks to help marketing develop and manage the brand itself. Brands are complex business assets and are generally made up of marketing assets (logos, brand identity assets, guidelines, photography and tone of voice), and marketing content (TV adverts, digital media, press ads in all their varied forms). A Brand Management platform should help you Create (developing templates and adaptions and transcreations in all forms of media), Collaborate (with workflows, approval processes and creative annotators) and Learn (using Brand Training tools, and recommendation engines on what content to use).
The next step is to assess the options available, and the legwork has fallen to you. Whilst 9 out of 10 people may not have even heard of DAM or Brand Management platforms let alone what they do, there is a wealth of choice when it comes to companies offering said solutions. How do you sort the wheat from the chaff? For most teams that want to see everything on offer, the first step is to identify companies offering a solution and send them a Request for Information (RFI).
Without having hands on experience of DAMs, it’s not always the easiest to compile a complete list of pertinent questions that will tick all the boxes you need ticking to ensure that you and your brand have the clearest picture. With so many variables that come into play when finding a solution that fits your brand’s structure, if you’re not asking the right questions, you can potentially be stuck with a solution that doesn’t quite fit. This is critically important when the solution you chose to work with could potentially be with you for a lifetime, or at least it can feel that way.
The top 10 RFI questions we advise that you should be asking:
- What does it track and report on?
- How easy it is to use? Can anyone use it?
- Do you charge per user on the system? Or a fixed fee?
- Can you configure it to my Brand visual identity? Will it look like the home of my brand?
- How intelligent is it? Can it give me performance data of the assets in the system and then make automatic recommendations?
- Is it safe and secure?
- Does it support all types of files?
- Do you supply free training and support?
- Can it integrate with existing systems such as CRM systems and social media tracking tools?
- Can you easily create templates and adaptations of existing marketing content?
An RFI is never going to be the silver bullet that will instantly make your brands’ decision for you. However, creating a thorough and in-depth RFI will give you and your brand a strong foundation for the next step in the process, taking a tour of the best performers in the RFI. Only by getting your hands on a DAM will you start to work out which one is the right fit for your brand?
If you’d like to get our answers to the above questions or a free trial of our BrandHub, reach out or book a demo today and see exactly how our solution could be the best for you.
