Have you ever wondered how large businesses keep track of all their digital assets? They likely have a digital asset management system in place that streamlines the entire process. But not all businesses are that large, and even smaller businesses need to stay organized when it comes to visual content. Unless you’re the sort of business that thrives on chaos, it’s probably high time you implemented a more streamlined approach to managing your company’s visual content. Luckily, there are plenty of ways you can make digital asset management easier for your small business. Here are 6 suggestions to get things started:
- Define What “Easy” Means for Your Business
Before you even start looking into specific strategies, you need to make sure you’re on the right track. Be honest with yourself and ask: What’s causing the most headaches right now? What could you most use help with? What would make the biggest difference in your day-to-day operations? You might initially think that the best solution for your business would be to outsource all of your visual content creation. But if you have a small team that works well together, outsourcing could disrupt the natural flow of things, making things more difficult rather than easier.
- Host Everything on One Platform
If you have a hybrid marketing strategy, it’s crucial that your entire team uses one platform to host all of their digital assets. This way, everything is in one place and can be easily accessed by everyone. If your team is currently using a mix of various tools for different types of visual content, it’s time to consolidate your efforts. One of the best ways to do this is to find a DAM with integrated storage. When you host all of your images on one platform, you eliminate the need to transfer files between systems, as well as the potential to make mistakes.
- Find the Right Asset Management Software for You
Once you’ve figured out which types of visual content you need to track, it’s time to find the right software to help keep everything organized. Before you start shopping around, you need to figure out the type of platform will work best for your business. For example, if you have a lot of image content, you’ll want to find a platform that supports images. If you have a lot of video, you’ll need a platform that can manage video files. You’ll also want to think about the volume of content you’ll need to store and the number of users who will have access to the platform.
- Automate as Much as You Can
This is one of the best ways to make digital asset management more efficient and manageable. You can use automation to schedule the publishing of your visual content, as well as to publish to social media. Since visual content is meant to complement your marketing strategies, it’s important that it’s published on a consistent schedule. This way, your followers will know when to expect new content, and they’ll be able to see your brand in their feed as regularly as possible. When it comes to publishing to social media, you’ll want to select the right platform for each type of content.
- Don’t Forget About Video Content
If you’re just focused on creating visual content, video might seem like an afterthought. But video is quickly becoming an essential part of marketing strategies across all industries, so it’s important that you not forget about it. If you’re strapped for time and resources, you can still create video content. You can take advantage of online tools that let you record and edit videos on the fly. You can also use visual content creation apps to help create simple videos with your smartphone.
- Rotate Your Stock Photos
Stock photos are helpful, but they can get stale after a while. If you’re using the same photos over and over again, your content isn’t looking fresh and you’re missing out on potential opportunities. If you’re using an IIMS to store your visual content, you can use an automated system to rotate your photos. This way, you’ll always have a fresh supply of photos to use for your content, as well as for your marketing strategies.
Summing up
Digital asset management isn’t just important for large corporations. It’s an essential part of any business’s marketing strategy. Whether your brand is using website visuals, social media posts, videos, or images in email campaigns, there’s a good chance your team is managing the visual content creation process. By investing in digital asset management solutions, you’ll be able to streamline and organize the creation, management, and distribution of all your visual content. And the best part is, you don’t need to be a large company with a huge marketing team to benefit from digital asset management solutions.
