Businesses need a lot (and we mean a lot) of digital content. Product images, sell sheets, videos, branded graphics, and more — there’s no shortage of content types organizations rely on to power their online and offline efforts. There’s a problem though. Managing all of these files, plus the workflows to support them, is tough without the help of digital asset management (DAM). 

Today we’ll discuss what DAM entails and how it’s helping a wide range of organizations, industries, and roles harness the true power of their content to build stronger brands and deliver superior customer experiences.

Managing all of your product information and content is one of the most complex challenges you can face as an organization. Typically, this vast amount of information is managed across fragmented silos and systems, but it doesn’t have to be that way. The right enterprise information management system (EIM) can help you manage documents, content, and product information (including extensive product catalogs) for all of your company’s needs.

Using an EIM tool can help you get the most value from your information, secure it, distribute it, ensure compliance, and make it easily accessible to the right people and systems. That means you can work more efficiently across distributed global teams, coordinate remote workforces, and create new omnichannel customer experiences with greater ease and higher-quality results. EIM can mean many things to many different organizations, so we’ll start by defining enterprise information management.

Omnichannel and multichannel may sound like they're the same thing, but in reality, these two strategies are quite different. Although they both involve many digital channels and steps along the customer journey, multichannel focuses on pre-defined sales pathways for each channel, and omnichannel focuses on how you sell based on evolving customer behavior.

Both are effective e-commerce strategies and you often have to get multichannel selling right before you’re able to excel at omnichannel e-commerce. Let’s explore the key differences between the two and take a look at how to choose which approach is right for you.

If you’re in e-commerce and want to grow a successful digital brand you need to focus on something fundamental — your product information. You need quality product information (product data, marketing content, and digital assets) to build omnichannel customer experiences. When you define a product information management (PIM) workflow you can transform your brand and improve efficiency across your company.

Your product information can either be a messy liability or a strategic asset. To cultivate accurate, robust, up-to-date, and compelling product details you need to create a clearly defined way to work with your product information. The basic components of any PIM workflow can be broken down into four parts — product onboarding, content updates, sales channel syndication, and communication.

Before we dive into the specifics of each component, let’s start with a definition of what a workflow is and then build a picture of what makes an efficient PIM workflow. 

It’s easy to confuse digital asset management (DAM) systems and content management systems (CMS). That’s largely because the words “content” and “digital assets” are often used interchangeably. But each term can have quite different meanings to marketing teams. That overlapping language isn’t likely to change, so understanding DAM vs. CMS starts with knowing what each type of system does and how they can work together.

A CMS is responsible for managing content on your website and a DAM system manages content for your whole organization allowing for distribution across multiple channels. DAM systems can publish and manage content on your website too (and a good one does) but that’s not its only function. Let’s start with a clear definition of each and then take a close look at the differences between DAM and CMS tools. 

If you want to elevate your customer experience you need to personalize and enhance interactions with your products at every step. Developing your product experience management (PXM) strategy takes an understanding of how to sync the customer journey with product information and digital content across all channels.

In order to build memorable product experiences for your customers, you need PXM software that can help you deliver your information and content at exactly the right time. With the right technology, you can give customers personalized interactions that reduce product returns, encourage positive product reviews, and build brand loyalty. Let’s define product experience management and then get into some examples of how to do it. 

E-commerce wouldn’t exist without product information; plain and simple. The problem is there’s a lot of quality information needed to support a single product. A digital buyer can’t take a product off the shelf, feel its weight, and experience it in the same way they can in person. They rely on the information they read, see, and hear about a product online — the product’s specs, text about its benefits, how-to videos, images, and so much more. 

Organizations need accurate, robust, up-to-date, compelling product information to compete (and ultimately win) in the digital arena. Managing all of this information is challenging without the help of product information management (PIM). Today we’ll discuss what PIM entails and how it’s helping a wide range of organizations and roles harness the true power of their product information to find greater e-commerce success. 

The right set of creative assets can make or break your next marketing campaign. Coming up with a clear strategy around creative asset management can be a game changer for content production, campaign execution, and overall results.

Without a strategic approach to managing creative assets through their lifecycle, you can easily waste resources and diminish the impact of your team’s 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 some tips on how to get started. 

Incorporating 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. A DAM platform is the central source of truth for content that can help you improve cross-functional collaboration, automate manual tasks, simplify asset searching, and deliver a consistent brand across all channels.

With so much at stake and so many vendors selling DAM systems, it’s important to carefully consider your business priorities.