Store, manage and share all of your digital assets from one cloud-based Digital Asset Management System
A Brandworkz digital asset management platform is a central content hub sitting at the heart of your marketing ecosystem. Your approved, on-brand, multi-channel marketing content is centralised, managed, and distributed from one simple, intuitive, online system and drives up brand consistency.
Brandworkz digital asset management is essential for marketers struggling to control a vast volume of content. There are so many digital media channels to manage and huge volumes of marketing content to manage and distribute accurately, it is hard to ensure consistency.
What you get with Brandworkz Digital Asset Management
No more manual admin
Marketers with DAM see an 85 per cent reduction in requests for digital assets to central marketing by external teams. So marketing can focus on strategic tasks.
Brandworkz enables faster storage, search and distribution of marketing artwork and content because teams help themselves to materials.
Brandworkz integrates with your other software platform meaning your content can be pulled directly from one central location into your CMS, social media or marketing automation platforms without needing to download first and upload into a separate system.
Re-use of marketing materials
When marketers share marketing materials or campaigns through the digital asset management system, they have a high chance of being re-used because others can find them. There’s a decrease in the purchase of near-identical assets or images and far fewer artworks being unnecessarily re-created in local markets.
Protecting your brand’s reputation
Avoid the risks and costs of losing brand control, such as using assets past their licence expiry date, or the risk of leaking sensitive and restricted assets. You can control what individual users can and can’t see in the system with asset date-limits and log-in permissions.
Brand consistency
Guarantee consistent, on-brand verbal and visual communication externally. Everyone responsible for building your brand always has the most accurate and up-to-date materials to hand. Research amongst Brandworkz clients reveals that brand consistency is increased by 30%.
Reduce time to market
Central storage of tool kits, how-to videos and templates help to reduce time to market by as much as one month, because they can be downloaded and used instantly.
One Master Artwork
You need only upload one master artwork for each digital asset. Brandworkz has many download options thanks to our Image Transcoding software, giving your end users the assets they want in the format they require.
Simple Drag and Drop
Assets can be uploaded individually or in bulk. Simply drag your assets into the HTML 5 Uploader and see them appear in the system. Large numbers of files can be added via FTP. Assets that appear more than once will be de-duped and prevented from being reimported.
All Files Welcome
You can store, manage and distribute any file type you can imagine in Brandworkz, and they can be accessed and downloaded from anywhere in the world. Everything can be previewed in the system with large thumbnails.
Simple Preview
You can preview any digital files like images, videos, Office files, multi-page PDFs and creative files in your Brandworkz system, without downloading first.
Searching
Brandworkz search is super fast and intuitive which makes it easier for your users to locate the right asset. The feature offers Faceted Search with hierarchical filters, multi-select filters, suggested search and hit highlighting.
Effortless Sharing
Integrate Brandworkz with your CMS to push digital assets from your DAM system directly to your CMS/website. You can also share approved assets directly to social media without needing to download and re-upload first.
Tagging your assets
Brandworkz offers a flexible metadata tagging system based on the information you need to identify an asset. You can also add a ‘download reason’ report to learn what an asset is being used for after it has been downloaded.
Image keyword recognition
Brandworkz can scan images as they are imported and automatically generate a keyword list for you to associate with your asset.
Managing asset tagging
Basic asset information like file format, the size, pixel resolution and colour are automatically added to the asset’s metadata. You can add extra meta tags and keywords as required.
Edit Images within Brandworkz
You can edit images in Brandworkz without 3rd party software. Apply a crop, edit the file type, apply a watermark and rotate an image all from within the system. Access to these tools can be controlled with Brandworkz Permissions.
What is Digital Asset Management?
Find out what digital asset management is and how it will help you and your brand
Why use a digital asset management system?
An online DAM platform makes the brand, its assets, and everything associated with communicating it’s meaning available to those responsible for building that brand.
It is equally important for communications and marketing departments to understand how to express a brand and its messages as it is for every employee, supplier and external agency employed. A digital asset management system offers simple yet powerful tools to help brands communicate seamlessly, whoever is doing it.
Internally, a new manager or an external marketing agency are empowered to produce better campaigns which truly further the product and company in the right way when it’s crystal clear what the main differentiators are and they have easy access to all the right visual assets such as strategic positioning information, guidelines, logos, images and artworks.
A DAM system enables all parties to access the right brand materials at the right time and produce consistent marketing communications to maximize impact in the market
What is a digital asset?
Your digital assets are any files which need to be used by multiple teams in different locations, and/or need to be reused many times. In the context of Brandworkz, they will most usually be brand assets and guidelines documents; marketing content and campaigns. Depending on the industry your business is in, there may be more of one type than another. For example, a law firm might have a larger number of text documents in Word format and PDFs while a design agency might have more images and videos or advertising layouts over documents. The common theme is that all these files are business-critical and being able to access and share them easily is extremely important.
These digital assets need to be made available centrally so that decentralised teams can self-serve what they require.
What are the different types of DAM software?
There are several different types of systems that digital assets can be stored in and these are defined by the technology that underpins them. Here is a broad list of the different types:
Cloud-based DAM System
A cloud-based DAM System is an online tool that is specifically designed for the storage, management, retrieval and delivery of digital assets no matter where in the world the user is located. A DAM system is better at managing digital assets because sophisticated tagging and metadata options and other specifically designed features that facilitate easy search are available.
Metadata is often described as data about data and used to make finding what you are looking for as easy as possible. We will cover metadata in more detail later but it is important to note the importance of metadata management when it comes to selecting an appropriate DAM Platform.
A modern DAM system will look like a website with visual cues, dynamic elements and a navigation bar. Some DAM systems will be ‘skinned’ to represent the brand, displaying brand colours, logos, fonts and other branding elements that are designed to increase brand consistency and to provide an immersive brand experience.
File hosting service
Over the last decade, there has been a rise in online file storage sites that provide a cloud-based solution that is similar to your internal file server. Brands such as Box, DropBox, Google Drive, Apple iCloud and Microsoft OneDrive provide an online space where users can store and manage their files and sync them across devices.
While these services do allow you to access your files outside of your internal network and on multiple devices, they suffer from the same problems as your local file systems. Folder structures quickly become unwieldy, you are presented with a list of filenames with no visual indication about what the file contains and search functionality is very basic.
These systems were designed for personal use and they work well in that use case but when businesses with multiple users start using them the same issues of poor governance, access and sharing start rearing their head.
Internal server or file system
If you are reading this on your laptop or computer you will probably have some sort of file system on your desktop where folders and files are stored. Your company might also have an internal server that is only accessible to people within the business where digital assets are stored. This will be most people’s first interaction with digital asset management and unfortunately, it might not be a great first experience.
The issue with these systems is that they often get crowded very quickly as there is no proper governance or people in place to manage them. People will save multiple versions of the same file in folders buried deep within the structure. This makes finding anything a cumbersome, time-wasting activity which results in people saving files on their desktop, therefore eliminating any chance of file sharing which will increase the amount of individual file request made to team members.
We speak to many businesses who realise that they need a digital asset management system after properly auditing their internal file server and realising the amount of time, money and effort being wasted.
The benefits of a DAM system vs file hosting or an internal server
A DAM system makes it easier to store, manage and share your digital assets. You and your users will have a centralised portal where they can find the digital assets they need. When you find the asset you are looking for, there are additional tools within the system enabling you to manipulate the asset as required. This could be downloading the asset in the format that suits best, sharing it directly from the system or making basic edits without the need for third-party software or associated design skills.
Search
Search functionality is the most important factor to consider when it comes to your digital assets and a DAM system. On average, marketers waste up to one hour a day searching for digital assets. With a digital asset management system that has developed best-of-breed search functionality, that time is cut to seconds.
While that’s great when you know what you are looking for, being able to discover assets that you were not aware of is a very important part of any DAM platform. Having features like hierarchical metadata which allows you to drill down to a set number of assets that meet your requirements, makes choosing the right asset a very simple task.
An internal file server or lightweight DAM system is not capable of delivering anywhere near the same level of functionality.
Permissions
With a DAM platform, you can set site-wide permissions that control the access your users have to the materials within the system and the actions they can take with those assets. Confidential information stays confidential.
With lightweight DAM offerings such as Google Drive or Box, it is possible to invite others to view or edit a document, but this is done on a file by file basis which is often too restrictive. The default of most users is to make all files public which risks exposing confidential documents.
User interface and user experience (UI/UX)
Having a DAM system that is designed to deliver an intuitive user experience and a visually appealing user interface that reflects your brand has numerous benefits when it comes to brand consistency, the usability of the system and engagement. A world-class UI and UX makes it easier for users to find what they are looking for, take the actions they want and to discover new materials.
Metadata management
As we’ve said, metadata is data about data. In the case of digital asset management for marketing, this will be the data about your images, videos and other files. The types of data will range from basic file information such as the created date and file size to more client-specific data types such as which channel the asset should be used in and what audience it is aimed at. Basic DAM and file management services do not have the functionality required to manage metadata correctly and this is one of the contributors to why it is so difficult to find what you are looking for without a proper DAM system.
File preview
You have finally found the asset you have been searching for the last 20 minutes, the file name is vague but you think it might be right. Now, without a decent file preview, you will be forced to download and open the file to ensure it is correct. With a digital asset management system, all files (images, videos, PDFs, Office files, artwork files) have a large preview that you can use to review the file before downloading or sharing.
