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.

A DAM administrator maintains and promotes the global digital asset management (DAM) solution. They lead in areas of technical system maintenance, marketing global processes and procedures, communications, metadata creation and consistency, training, and user support.

Editor's note: This post was originally posted on May 13, 2011, and updated on October 26, 2018.

Back in 2011, referencing “the cloud” still felt fresh and cutting edge. At this point, the cloud seems to the be standard for collaboration, communication, project management, and many other business solutions. Digital asset management (DAM) is no exception.

Want a surefire way to make your legal team love you? Learn how to properly manage stock photos and other licensed assets with your digital asset management (DAM) system.

Implementing a DAM system can feel like a big undertaking. After all, the last thing you want to do is start your journey off on the wrong foot. But have no fear. Many others have been in your shoes, wrestling with the complexity of it all, and lived to tell their stories. In fact, they have some pretty sound advice. Check out what these ten implementation survivors have to say about the key to a successful DAM implementation!

WatchGuard is a company that’s more than nice to have around. For over 20 years, they’ve provided simple, smart solutions that have taken the world of cyber security by storm. Backed by big-data visibility, their products and services help businesses of all sizes feel confident that their network and WiFi are safe and secure from the villains and perpetrators of cyberspace. But, like all superheroes, WatchGuard’s success was not without a few challenges (and victories) of their own.

“We’ve been able to provide people with materials, templated materials, that deliver on our brand equities on a much stronger basis than what we were doing earlier, where people were pulling things out of nowhere and putting them all together.” –– Josh Hafer, Heaven Hill Brands

Gartner reports that “managing marketing assets and scaling content operations are top priorities for marketing leaders today, which is driving increased investment in digital asset management (DAM) platforms.”

Digital asset management (DAM) can be an intimidating subject.

The goal is clear. Help people find and use the digital assets they need. But the metadata, taxonomy, roles, permissions, and integrations to make that possible can give even the savviest teams hesitation. Then you factor in the unique organizational structures, workflows, technologies, and change management and it’s no surprise that some DAM programs stall.