Today, digital assets play an essential role in running a business. These are files and documents containing the company’s digital information. In simple terms, it’s any content stored online. Examples of digital assets include blogs, videos, images, eBooks, audio files, slide presentations, logos, and spreadsheets.
Indeed, having digital assets enables users to access and share the required information easily. However, that might not be possible if those assets aren’t well organized or managed.
That’s where digital asset management comes in.
An Overview Of Digital Asset Management
Digital asset management is a modern technology that allows business owners to create, store, organize, retrieve, and share online content from a centralized location. In simple terms, digital asset management is the use of software that is designed to help manage online content.
Besides, digital asset management provides users with controlled access to the digital content library. This helps protect the company’s information from unauthorized users and all that goes a long way in enhancing a business cybersecurity strategy.
Benefits Of Digital Asset Management
A good digital asset management solution comes with several benefits. Some of these include:
Helps Save Time.
Saving time is a crucial element of running a successful business. However, it’s one of the most ignored aspects by business owners and managers. It’s therefore essential to find ways to save time. When you save time, workers can complete more tasks in less time which helps promote the overall productivity of your enterprise.
Running a business requires you to interact with your digital assets daily. For instance, you may want to share essential documents with workers or send promotional materials to potential customers. It’s, therefore, important to ensure you can access the required files in no time.
Failure to manage your digital assets can lead to a waste of time. This is true since you can spend several hours searching for a single document from scattered digital assets. You can avoid that by utilizing digital asset management solutions.
Digital asset management solutions enable you to store files in one location. It also lets you classify and store various online assets into different folders. As a result, you’ll only utilize a second or retrieve the documents you require. That goes a long way in helping you to save time.
Reduces Asset Waste.
Business owners use a lot of time and money to create digital assets. However, some of these assets are never utilized because they’re always misplaced. Therefore, when people want to use specific digital assets, they can’t find them, forcing business owners to spend extra money to create other new content. You can avoid such a mistake by finding a digital asset management solution that can help you organize and utilize your digital assets well.
The right digital asset management software will help you to categorize, classify, and store files more efficiently. As a result, users can retrieve the required digital assets with ease, which helps eliminate or reduce asset waste.
Enhances Internal and External Collaboration.
Collaboration is necessary for the growth and success of your enterprise. For instance, it ensures all the stakeholders are on the same page, which brings harmony to your business.
You can consider sharing documents via other means, like sending emails. However, such a method might not be good enough when sharing large volumes of assets. Besides, sharing the required files can take much time when you use outdated methods. And this can hurt your internal and external collaboration. This is why investing in digital asset management has become necessary.
Digital asset management enables users to share assets within a single system. This can help enhance collaboration within and outside the organization. You also need to understand that, with a digital asset management solution, external users require no additional software on their end to access or view your assets. However, you must select software that supports multiple asset formats.
Keeps Assets Secure.
Leaving your digital assets all over online exposes your company to cybersecurity attacks. And if you aren’t careful, you may lose critical information necessary for running your business. In the worst-case scenario, you can lose control of your firm. For that reason, consider investing in digital asset management.
Most digital asset management software comes with built-in security features. These include data encryption, automatic updates, anti-virus protection, auto cleaning, and single gateway hosting that helps protect your digital assets against unauthorized access and online attacks.
Reduces Marketing Costs.
Marketing is one of the areas that can attract a lot of costs and can hurt your company’s profits. It’s, therefore, necessary to find effective ways to reduce marketing costs.
You might think that investing in digital asset management requires a big budget and, therefore, no need to implement it. However, investing in one can help save a lot of money on your marketing budget. It can provide you with centralized asset management capabilities to help improve your operational efficiency. As a result, you can share promotional materials with target customers easily and help you reduce marketing costs.
Enables You to Access Files Anytime, Anywhere.
As competition increases daily, it’s necessary to run your business 24/7. This ensures that you continuously connect with clients even beyond business working hours. However, you can’t run an online business without digital assets. Possessing them enables you to share the required information with employees and customers remotely.
Just possessing digital assets might not be good enough to help run a successful business. You also need to manage them and you can achieve that by investing in digital asset management solutions. The right solution will enable you to run your business 24/7 and let you access files or documents anytime, anywhere.
Finding The Right Digital Asset Management Software
As discussed in the previous section, you can reap several benefits by investing in digital asset management solutions. However, you must utilize the right software.
There are thousands of digital asset management software on the market to choose from. Therefore, selecting the right one can be a big hassle. This is true, especially if you haven’t utilized such solutions in the past.
So, how can you ensure you find the best tool for your business enterprise? You can achieve that by implementing the following tips.
Find Scalable Software.
Today, you might be running a small business with a few collections of digital assets. However, your enterprise will grow over time, requiring you to create, store, and share more digital assets. For that reason, you should shop for digital asset management software with the possibility of your business’s future growth.
You must understand that opting for a non-scalable digital asset management software will force you to purchase and install another one when your business expands which leads to wastage of money and even time. On the other hand, scalable digital asset management systems will grow with your business. In simple terms, it’ll accommodate additions of new digital assets without deleting the existing ones. Besides, a scalable tool allows you to add more users as your company grows. Therefore, before you pay for any digital asset management software you see, confirm whether it’s scalable.
Select A System You Can Learn with Ease.
One of the reasons you’d want to install digital asset management software is to enhance the workflow of your business. But it’s only possible if you can learn how to utilize it. So, ensure you find a simple-to-learn system instead of investing in a system that will take you ages to learn.
Opting for a more complex digital asset management system may require more training. which leads to a waste of time. And as a result, it’ll hurt your company’s productivity and sales.
Apart from that, a difficult-to-learn tool may force you to hire an expert to train your business administrators on how to use it which only attracts additional costs and may eventually harm your profits.
On the other hand, simple to learn digital asset management software helps save time and money. You won’t need to spend several hours learning how to use it. Besides, it eliminates the need to hire experts to educate you. You only need to read the guide manual provided to get started.
Choose Software that Integrates with Other Tools.
Installing various kinds of business automation tools helps streamline different processes. As such, you’ll save money, time, and other resources. However, all the automation tools you’ve installed should work in harmony. That’s why you need to find a digital asset management system that integrates well with other types of software you use.
Selecting an incompatible digital asset management software with other computer applications hurts your workflow. It also leads to a waste of time. You’ll also be forced to keep exporting digital assets or taking them elsewhere. Ensure you select digital asset management software that integrates well with other automation tools like CRM, social media platforms, accounting automation software, marketing system, etc.
Purchase A Customizable System.
Your business is unique from others in the sector. It differs in how you carry out your process and procedures. For that reason, you should install a customizable digital asset management system. In simple terms, the software selected should suit your needs. For instance, it should enable you to update your systems and assets with colors that match your brand.
Search for A Tool Optimized for Mobile Devices.
Today, mobile devices form an integral part of running a business. You can use them for marketing your business and connecting with customers. When running your business, you may want to access digital assets while moving. That’s why you must find a digital asset management system optimized for mobile devices. These include smartphones, laptops, tablets, iPhones, and other related gadgets.
Having digital asset management software optimized for mobile devices provides a convenient way to access digital assets. Therefore, anyone working remotely or from home can utilize your company’s digital assets using mobile devices to complete specific tasks.
Purchase A System from A Vendor with A Positive Reputation.
The functionality of your digital asset management software will significantly rely on the vendor. For instance, you can’t expect the system to serve you better if the seller is known to produce low-quality products.
You also need to note that the vendor will be the one to maintain and support your system. Therefore, the selected software won’t serve you if the seller is unreliable. That’s why you need to know about the vendor’s reputation before you sign a contract with them.
You can know the reputation of a specific digital asset management software vendor by looking at other clients’ feedback online. Clients regard a service provider with a good reputation in high esteem. Such a vendor will have more positive feedback than negative feedback.
An established positive reputation indicates that most other clients were satisfied by partnering with the vendor in question. Therefore, the chances of getting high-quality digital asset management software from such a company are high.
Besides, a vendor with a positive reputation will likely offer premium customer service, including remorse support. This ensures that you receive the best return on your digital asset management investment. Therefore, before you contact a digital asset management software vendor, do independent research first and read online reviews about them to make sure that you find the right system from the best seller.
Select A Cloud-Based System.
Lastly, you may consider finding cloud-based digital asset management software to help your company grow. This is especially true if you don’t have enough budget to buy and maintain the required hardware.
Note that on-site digital asset management solutions require a lot of IT resources. And this might not be possible if you don’t have enough capital. On the other hand, a cloud-based digital asset management solution lets you rent instead of buying IT hardware. That enables you to save a lot of money in the long run. It also provides more security for your digital assets.
Takeaway
Adopting digital asset management technology can help maintain control over your digital assets. It helps promote your workflow and control who accesses and uses your assets. Ensure you find the right and best digital asset management solution. You can achieve this by implementing the tips detailed above.
