Consumers today have continual access to content across devices and channels, making it hard for marketers to cut through all the noise. Creating a quality product at an affordable price is no longer the only factor in a customer's purchasing decision. Brands need to meet customers where they’re at — wherever that may be.

Want to know how PIM and MDM differ? Master data management, or MDM, centralizes all of an organization’s information, while product information management (PIM) centralizes product data. A PIM solution is actually a subset of MDM and is most often used for marketing and merchandising purposes. At their core, both are information management systems that make it easy to create, manage, and distribute product data. 

A lot of hard work goes into launching profitable products. Many teams and stakeholders are involved — including product marketing and product management. This may appear to be different ways of saying the same thing, like Gershwin's "to-may-to" and :to-mah-to, but they’re actually more like apples and oranges. They’re separate disciplines with distinct and equally important responsibilities. The two roles need to work together to create harmonious interactions between people and products, so naturally there’s some overlap. 

Selling is a lot more complex than it used to be. Gone are the days when a little wit, a few product samples, and a firm handshake would close the deal. Sellers today need to do more. They need to communicate with and win the attention and trust of buyers. They need to “make the sale,” but do it in a way that upholds the integrity and image of the brand they represent. And they need to move fast. Doing all of this requires 24/7, on-demand access to the latest marketing brochures, demo videos, one-pagers, pitch decks, and more. 

Locating the current version of a creative file — be it for a white paper, image, or event banner — can often feel overwhelming. You might have a dozen to choose from, each with a slightly different headline, or logo, or font. Why have they all been updated recently? Did the company font change? Which one do you use?

Trying to manage various versions of brand assets can be downright maddening. 

Fortunately, version control can help you easily organize every last asset and retrieve the one you need instantly. Leveraging version control functionality can help you keep tabs on the latest version and can even display notes as to what changed and why. Staying on top of each of your asset versions will help ensure you’re not wasting time or money recreating assets or misusing old ones.

More on that later. Let’s get into exactly what version control is first. 

The foundation of search engine optimization (SEO) starts with the content that makes up your pages. Digital assets like images and videos can add SEO value to your website pages when they have keyword-relevant information associated with them and are published in the appropriate format and size. Often, managing images for SEO can seem daunting but a digital asset management (DAM) system makes it easier to optimize all these crucial SEO factors at scale.

That’s because DAM features enable you to fill out the specific digital asset SEO details that build maximum value on a page once they’re published. You can use a DAM solution to do tasks such as standardize file names; add alt text to images and videos; and resize your assets to optimize page load speeds. 

Here are the main things to consider when it comes to using DAM to support your SEO strategy.

With freelancers, marketing agencies, internal teams, and many others using your brand in communications and content, it's easy for inconsistencies and misuse to arise, such as applying an outdated version of your logo, misusing colors, or uploading an off- brand image. 

A brand kit can help by providing teams and stakeholders with the tools and information they need to uphold your company’s brand consistently. In fact, a brand kit is an absolute must-have for all organizations.

Understanding how and when to use copyrighted materials like stock photography, logos, videos, and more can be a full-time job. Using a piece of content incorrectly could result in a fine or even a lawsuit. On the flip-side, there’s also the possibility of someone using your materials without proper permission. Neither scenario is desirable — and without consistent copyright management, you might not even know it’s happening.

With new material being created at a rapid pace, having a single gatekeeper to keep track of everything is unrealistic — but you need some way to easily see how your content’s being used. That’s why many companies are turning to digital rights management (DRM) tools to keep tabs on their digital content.

Go to a Major League Baseball game and you’ll be hard-pressed to make it out of there without a bag of peanuts (allergies permitting) and the familiar jingle of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” playing through your head. Talk to any digital asset management (DAM) vendor and you may not get snacks and a catchy tune, but you will hear at least one member of the vendor team proclaim in a singsong voice that “no two DAM implementations are alike.” And it’s true. 

Your organization’s structure, bandwidth, workflows, assets, and technologies will factor into your unique implementation experience and strategy. That said, there is one major characteristic all DAM system implementations share — and that is their importance in driving the long-term success of DAM within an organization. So given their monumental importance, how do you ensure your DAM implementation is a success?

It’s no secret that today’s brands run on imagery: logos, company photos, product imagery, social media assets, and so much more. Brands use this content to tell a unique, compelling story about their company’s mission, products, and services. Without these images, this story is a lot harder to tell. That’s why it’s critical to store all of these visual brand assets in a secure and easy-to-access location, but what does that look like?

Just as people have relied on physical libraries for centuries to access, organize, and manage physical content, digital libraries exist to do the same for digital content. Without a central source it becomes much harder to keep track of brand assets, putting teams at risk of wasting time, money, and resources to recreate or track down the content they need to use to tell their story. That’s where image management comes in.