Kevin — Autumn approaches, we are launching a seasonal campaign, exactly as we did last year. I need your plan first thing tomorrow.
Kelly — Tomorrow morning? You can’t be serious?
Kevin — C’mon, just the same as last year, just pull it out of the archives — simple!.
Kelly — Face palm.
A common conversation in the marketing and PR department
Well this kind of task is straightforward, only if you have efficiently organised archives. But in the real world after this exchange, the marketing department finds itself in a difficult situation.
- Archives may not be in order. It’s just a directory on the file server where closed projects are stored without meaningful organisation. It’s fine if you know where the campaign you wish to retrieve is stored, if not it can be frustrating to find.
- By luck you may find the old campaign folder, however in the folder some files are duplicated or the approved version varies, memory lapses can lead to confusion over these queries.
- Large media files are missing, they may have been too large to store, they are likely to be in the depths of the server or cloud, even in someone else’s cloud ( a sub-contractor sent an approved banner to the printers without saving in the file) Files may be too small, and retrieved from whatsapp chat.
You may find yourself looking at the clock and surprised to see its 16.30 and almost at the end of the working day. The result is a frustrating and unproductive day and the project deadline won’t be met.
Note: If you think we exaggerate and nothing is lost in reality, we would love to agree but alas, statistics show the opposite. According to SiriusDecisions, a global research and consulting company, B2B organisations of any size do not use two thirds of their content at all. They either can’t find the files they need or are left with small re-sized jpegs.
What it means for
Marketing Department
- a few hours of searching inside a pile of files in a desperate hope to find what you need
- job has to be redone from scratch and reapproved
- discrepancies with the previous years campaign, requiring extra resources to re-establish
Company
- expense on time spent searching, delay in campaign launch and risk of falling behind competitors
- expenses and manpower used during the repetition of the task
- consistency of the brand at risk, reputational risk
As a result of inefficient methods,staff face a lowering of morale and lost performance bonus payments for the marketing department. The organisation can lose sales and money with loss of reputation if a campaign fails or is late to the marketplace. All these problems can be easily avoided through efficient work, accessing held company archives.
DAM system: what it is and what it can do
DAM is Digital Asset Management, a system that manages digital archives. In a nutshell, this is a type of software organising corporate media libraries with access to advanced search capabilities.
DAM system is able to:
- store all varieties of media content
- systemise files by bespoke attributes
- search media content using selected metadata fields
- define and control levels of user access
All in all, DAM is convenient, safe and reliable. This system is a complete one-shop solution to manage digital assets, superseding the previous need to work with a multitude of tools such as file servers, cloud storage, messengers, email and sub contractor websites.
Note: probably you think a well organised library can be created in a cloud storage such as Google Drive — it’s enough to maintain everything in order. In fact, no. Zero security, complicated approval procedures, lack of access rights control, In the end, free services for storing and sharing files will inevitably bring about similar problems as found before dealing with only the directory on the company file server.
Tangible Benefits of DAM
Businesses never like dealing with the problems as illustrated above, but even more, don’t want to spend money on solutions that don’t deliver or live up to promises. Here are our clear and compelling statistics on the matter.
DAM implementation gives
- A 50% reduction on expenditure on photo and video recording, cutting out re-production tasks and costs,
- A 30% of working time isn’t lost to searching for files as assets can be found instantly.
DAM systems can be easily tailored to meet your specific business processes — tags and search algorithms can be adapted to facilitate the workflows of your employees. DAM is automated to enhance metadata fields using its built in algorithm to generate tags and captions. DAM delivers high levels of security, easy access control and approval to increase efficiency.
The conclusion is straightforward: the larger the media archive in a company, the bigger the opportunity to make leverage savings using DAM. We extend our offer to allow you to trial DAM to see the benefits for yourself. It’s easily integrated with the other elements of your IT infrastructure, active directories and websites etc. We are always available and on hand to showcase further the benefits of DAM.
