Creative Asset Management: Your Marketing Strategy Game Changer

The right set of creative assets can make or break your next marketing campaign. That's why defining a clear strategy around creative asset management is a game changer for content production, campaign execution, and overall results.

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 proofs are created, reviews and approvals happen, localizing various languages occurs, and then it goes live — hopefully somewhere that the right people can find and access. In an ideal world, it will eventually reach end-of-life, be retired, and then archived where it can be easily accessed, like a digital asset management (DAM) solution.

But 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 produce. They make do with various disconnected technology and tools. Asset requests are made in email, where feedback, changes, and files are easily lost. Specifications are put in Google Docs. And then scrambling and content chaos ensues. 

Without a strategic approach to managing creative assets across their lifecycle, organizations can easily waste resources and diminish the impact of their work. With a solid strategy, you can deliver engaging omnichannel marketing campaigns that convert and build brand loyalty. Here’s a look at what creative assets are, what asset management entails, recommendations for software, and tips for getting started.

What are creative assets in marketing?

Think of any digital file you use to create experiences on your website, mobile app, ads, print, or social channels. Anything you can think of that’s directed toward selling or building awareness for your brand, products, or services is a creative asset. The hero image on your home page with the clever tagline overlaid? That’s a creative asset. 

Your creative content could be produced in-house, by an outside agency, or both. Counting all the different sizes and versions in addition to the original files, you could produce thousands of assets every year. Most of the people outside of marketing take these assets for granted until they see how much work goes into creative asset management.

What is creative asset management?

Creative asset management includes every step in the lifecycle of your digital marketing files from their ideation and creation to their storage and distribution.

What really sets a modern DAM solution apart from basic cloud-storage options like Dropbox, SharePoint, or even a local hard drive is the out-of-the-box capabilities for managing the assets. These include:

• The use of artificial intelligence (AI) to identify and auto tag assets
• Configurable permissioning structures for easy and secure system access
• Multiple search options like quick search, category search, collection search, and more
• Integrations with other marketing systems and digital experience platforms (DXPs)
• Advanced analytics and reporting capabilities
   

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Capabilities like version control, file resizing, annotations and markups, download format options, scheduled publishing, automated approvals, and change notifications are just some examples that make a DAM system invaluable to marketers and creatives alike.

Anyone who’s produced creative assets for marketing knows that the process begins in meetings where creative briefs are formed. From there, you submit requests so you're woven into the production schedule of creative teams before the work on each asset begins. As a new creative asset is developed, a number of iterations of it will be produced as you go through the approval process before landing on the final version. 

Managing this whole process from start to finish requires clearly defined workflows, cooperative teams, and collaborative software.

What is creative asset management software?

Creative asset management software helps teams efficiently manage, store, and distribute creative assets across teams and through systems — both internal and external. 

These software platforms allow you to manage all of your digital assets and improve your creative workflow. This marketing technology lets you make changes to a file in one place and cascade those changes across websites and other systems. And you can organize your file library with detailed metadata so that creative assets are easy to find and share. 

Yes, your remote workforce and global creative team can all work together on the same files, no matter which time zone. Here are a few creative asset management software suggestions. 

Monday.com
Monday.com is a relatively newer player in the creative asset management space that excels at workflow automation and collaboration. The company has designed a clutter-free interface where you can work on your creative marketing assets and manage them in a secure workspace. 

• Store and manage branded assets
• Search and find in seconds
• Accelerate your feedback loop
• Keep your information safe
   

MediaBeacon
MediaBeacon centralizes feedback, review, and approval into a single stream. It helps drive asset creation, makes creative assets easy to find, and distributes your digital assets across teams and through systems. 

• Drive asset creation
• Enable asset discovery
• Empower asset (re)use
   

Acquia DAM
Acquia DAM (Widen) simplifies how your creative assets are delivered to market. It supports cross-team collaboration and  brand control across the content lifecycle. Acquia DAM delivers the centralized foundation for your entire content workflow and creates operational efficiencies by providing a central source of truth for your creative assets.  

• Catalog, control, and deliver rich media assets from a central source of truth
• Coordinate distribution to support great customer experiences
• Track and measure assets and build site performance dashboards
• Streamline collaboration, reviews, and approvals with online proofing

Tips for using creative asset management software

Once you find the right creative asset management software, you’ve got a big sandbox to play in. So where do you get started? Instead of losing time in corners that don’t add value, here are tips on how to use your new software. 

• Store and organize campaign images, videos, graphic files, 360º photography, and more
• Centralize brand documents
• Eliminate versioning issues
• Define creative asset workflows
• Automate creative asset publishing
• Organize metadata categories and standards

Get started with creative asset management

Creative asset management can help you optimize your marketing workflows and get results in your campaigns. The right software provides a central source of truth that makes all of your digital assets a snap to organize, access, and distribute across complex teams and systems. You end up with a library of marketing images, videos, rich media, 360º photography, and brand documents that are a strategic asset instead of a frustrating mess. 

More than 800 of the world’s most respected brands use Acquia DAM to store, manage, and publish their creative assets for marketing campaigns and product offerings. Request, watch, or click through a demo to see how a DAM system can support your creative asset management.

Note: This article was originally published on Widen.com.