8 Ways DAMs Streamline Digital Asset Production | Brandfolder

Gaby Arora
July 14, 2023

Digital asset management (DAM) software is one of the most sought-after solutions for brands with large content libraries because it improves file organization, makes content easier to find, and has advanced features to optimize asset usage — amongst other benefits.

But a lesser-known DAM benefit is that it can actually aid in new digital asset production: Brandfolder has features to update content, project management tools, and Content Automation, so you can make the best use of your existing content and easily create new brand collateral for upcoming projects. This is why DAMs are so popular for creative teams, advertising agencies, and marketers.

Our post explains how to use DAM to support and streamline the production (planning, creation, usage, and distribution) of new creative content. At the end, we’ll also answer common questions about DAM software and improving digital asset management.

1. They improve asset organization & findability so you can make the best use of (all) your brand’s content

The primary benefit of DAM software is that they make content easier to organize, search, and track. They accept hundreds of file formats so you can centralize content and manage everything under one roof. You have total control over the structure of your content library, so you can organize digital assets in various ways (by brand, project, or content type, or to support different user workflows, etc.), quickly find content, and see what’s available in the DAM.

This means:

Users can easily find brand collateral to use in projects… without asking designers what’s available or to send files.
Users can also find newly approved content for projects — designers can simply import content once it’s complete, and users can find the latest assets in the DAM.
All of your content — old and new — is easily searchable, so you don’t have issues with buried content or users re-using the same collateral over and over.
Managers and designers know what content already exists, so they can avoid lost assets and the hassle of re-supplying content. This also allows for more strategic content planning: you know where designers should focus their energies and can allocate resources responsibly.

2. They provide collaborative features & transformation tools to repurpose existing digital assets

Brandfolder’s digital asset management system has a number of collaborative features (we’ll talk about more of those below) so creatives can work together and track updates to existing content within the DAM.

When viewing a file in Brandfolder, you can click across several data tabs to see new info about the file (ex. the ‘Metadata’ tab shows metadata, the ‘Similar’ tab shows similar files, the ‘Usage’ tab shows usage metrics, and so on and so forth).

In the ‘Workflow’ tab, users can make comments to each other about requested changes to content. Then, when content is ready for updates, designers can push it directly into the native editing tool (via Brandfolder Integrations) for edits and back to the DAM when changes are ready for review.

We track the version history for each file so managers can review past versions (revert if needed), provide feedback, and help designers achieve a new end product.

Brandfolder also has user-friendly transformation tools so non-creatives can optimize content — convert, resize, and crop images; trim video files; make clips or GIFs — for different online mediums without replicating or altering the original file.

3. Content Automation facilitates content creation at scale & reduces designer burden

Speaking of brand consistency — Brandfolder also supports content creation in a huge way with Content Automation. This advanced templating feature puts an end to repetitive content requests and gives non-creatives the ability to produce new, on-brand collateral with a couple of clicks. Therefore, designers have more time to focus on other, more valuable design tasks.

Here’s how it works:

Designers create approved brand templates from scratch, in-product, or upload InDesign files.
Upon upload, designers lock essential elements of the template design to maintain the core vision and keep everyone on brand; this can also be crucial to meet compliance requirements if you’re writing product documentation, creating website content, etc.
Then, designers set rules to limit how users can personalize the templates’ customizable fields — specify approved media, headlines and copy, font sizes, colors, and more.
Designers share templates so end-users can access and customize them for new use cases.
Before customized templates are available for download, designers can instate an approvals process. Or, you can skip this step and make templates immediately available.

Content Automation improves asset usability and speeds up time to market for new projects and marketing campaigns — users can easily find the template for the type of content they want to create, make edits, and download (share or publish) the finished product.

4. They let you create and share brand guidelines so everyone (internal teams, external partners) can use your digital content

Although Brandfolder has several features to control asset usage and keep users on brand, we also have a Brandguide feature where you can publish style guides for users. You can customize these style guides (their appearance, the information within, who they’re shared with) so you can tailor each to their respective audiences.

Then users, especially outside partners or those just starting to work with your business, can reference these guidelines to learn about your brand history, how to use content, goals of current projects, and more. This gives users more freedom to work independently and reduces the number of questions brand managers have to field.

5. Workspace lets you manage new asset production (and other team projects) in the DAM

As mentioned above, Brandfolder’s collaborative features make it easy for teams to manage updates to existing content and work together on new projects in the DAM system.

Workspace brings teams together so users can plan digital content production, stage work-in-progress website pages, oversee new marketing initiatives, and more. It functions as a lightweight project management suite, so you can:

Create new projects.
Break the project into tasks.
Assign tasks to other users.
Comment on task cards about the goals/objectives, deadlines, feedback, etc.
Track task status from start to completion.

You can use Brandfolder in combination with other tools, like your graphic design software, CMS, eCommerce platform, etc., to push in-progress files between systems and publish approved content at the end of your workflows. This saves you from the tedious uploading and downloading between software, prevents user error (like accidentally uploading the wrong file version), preserves content quality, and keeps everyone working smoothly.

6. DAMs integrate with your entire tech stack to push digital assets between systems & simplify workflows

Continuing on our point above…

Another key benefit of using DAM to manage digital assets is they serve as a single source of truth — they house all file types to centralize brand content, and they connect with all of your other systems to receive and distribute digital files.

You can think of DAM software as the hub for your brand content, then all of the systems it connects to as the spokes:

Designers can push new content into the digital asset management platform (from popular apps like Photoshop or InDesign, Canva, Figma, or any design tool in your processes).
Brandfolder offers all the features to keep your file library organized and updated — duplicate detection to prevent clutter and maintain version control, expirations to retire limited-time content and manage the asset lifecycle, collaborative features to update existing content, permissions to control new uploads, etc.
Users can find brand assets, know they’re working with up-to-date, approved content, and then push files to the solutions they use in their roles.

7. Brandfolder facilitates communication and collaboration with freelancers & external partners

Brandfolder also has features to manage external digital asset production and distribute content to stakeholders and partners.

It’s not uncommon for brands, even with internal designers, to collaborate with freelance creatives — and if those users don’t have access to your DAM, you have to manage that content production in another tool.

To solve this problem: Brandfolder offers free guest seats and upload links so you can add outside users to the DAM, receive and review new content in Brandfolder, then work through the feedback process with our collaborative features.

8. DAMs provide valuable insights to optimize asset usage, maintain brand consistency, & guide future content creation

DAM solutions also support the asset production process because they give valuable insights that tell designers and brand managers what type of creative content is most successful — this lets you learn from past content and make more strategic decisions in future projects.

As we mentioned above, Brandfolder shows important asset usage metrics. You can see:

How often files are viewed, downloaded, and shared; we also calculate an average “health score” so you can quickly gauge the popularity of digital media.
Where each file is shared and who has access to it — you can see which content is shared most often, then track share link activity to see which files recipients download and use.
Where media files are published online — you can see active CDN links and which sites content is published to easily track online engagement.

These engagement metrics also let you discover buried content so you can update or share it with teams (and ensure the assets designers spend time making are actually used). They also help brand managers course correct when teams or partners accidentally misuse digital assets.

FAQs

Why are digital assets so valuable?

First, digital assets serve as a unique representation of your brand — publishing branded materials across your website, blog, and marketing materials allows you to establish and solidify a distinctive and memorable brand identity.

Investing in digital asset production puts you in the driver’s seat to control brand representation: you can refine your image, tone, and brand personality to create a one-of-a-kind user experience. Those who find and interact with your brand will remember you (and if they have a good experience, return to you in the future).

What are the different types of digital assets?

In the context of DAM software, “digital asset” refers to your business’s digital media — business documentation, marketing and sales collateral, website and social media content, brand elements, and more. DAMs accept virtually all file formats so brands can store all their digital content in one software solution (instead of storing design files in one, videos in another, website resources in another, etc.).

The list includes, but is not limited to:

Documents
Spreadsheets
PDFs
Images
Videos
Audio files
Animations
3D models
Design files
Metadata

How can you make digital assets more searchable?

For starters, upgrading to DAM makes it easier to organize, search for, and retrieve digital assets. This is because DAM search functionality operates off asset metadata: artificial intelligence in these platforms analyzes and extracts metadata from files, then metadata is stored with files so you can search assets by various identifiers.