We're big advocates for DAM administrators. After all, admins play an essential role in the success of any digital asset management (DAM) system. They lead technical system maintenance; marketing global processes and procedures; metadata creation and consistency; training; and user support.

Businesses are creating more content to meet the demands of new channels, products, and markets. More content means more challenges. Marketing and creative teams are dealing with questions like: What content do we have? Where is it stored? Can I reuse it? Do we have it translated in German? Is this graphic available in PNG format? Is this the most recent version? While file storage tools can work as a temporary fix, more and more businesses are using a digital asset management (DAM) system to centralize, organize, govern, and distribute content.

As a marketer, you know first hand how important it is for your potential and existing customers to feel good about your brand. It creates expectations around the quality and value of your offering, and what it will feel like to use your product or service. Those expectations impact what your market buys.

Which trends are marketing-driven organizations focused on? Inquiring minds want to know! If you said artificial intelligence, actionable data, customer experience, and building the right technology mix, you’re spot on. Connecting digital asset management (DAM) to these trends needs to be a priority for all marketing teams who want to maximize content value, create deeper emotional connections with their audiences, and improve the overall customer experience.

When a t-shirt is no longer wearable, is your instinct to throw it away or to turn it into a dust cloth? When you cook bacon, do you toss the grease or save it for your favorite chili recipe? Repurposing is a smart and effective way to get more use out of your resources while preventing waste.

We’re all faced with a challenge, how can we do more with the resources available? The reliance on content to communicate, build an audience, and sell has turned up the pressure on marketing and creative teams. Fortunately, there are many tools available to help do more with the same. Workflow management software not only seeks to improve productivity but to do so while removing friction to managing and reviewing work before it’s published.

The choice to incorporate a digital asset management (DAM) system into your business’s repertoire of invaluable technological resources is a decision that will have a significant impact on marketing strategies. The DAM is the central source of truth for assets. With it, you can improve cross-functional collaboration, automate manual tasks, simplify asset searching for everyone, and deliver a consistent brand across all channels.

With so much at stake and so many vendors selling DAM systems, carefully consider what your business values.

Your brand is the culmination of every experience a person has with your organization – which leaves a perception in their mind. Digital assets are behind many of those experiences including in-store signage, social media posts, advertisements, packaging, and sales materials. And more teams, devices, and channels are forming those experiences than ever before.

Dashboard messages welcome your users as they enter the digital asset management (DAM) system, the Widen Collective®. You can use them to guide new users, highlight timely content, or notify users of changes. That’s why we’ve made it easier for you to create dashboard messages with new updates coming November 8, 2018 - no HTML or coding required.

Editor's note: This post was originally posted on March 29, 2011. We updated this article and the corresponding whitepaper to reflect the current state of the DAM industry.

The decision to implement a digital asset management (DAM) system is a step towards gaining operational and intellectual control of your digital assets and is not one to be taken lightly. It brings with it great responsibility as to how the organization’s assets will be efficiently and effectively managed in its daily operations. Yet, the decision itself to go with a DAM system enacts a chain of questions to be carefully considered before proceeding down the path to DAM.