Your DAM in the MarTech Stack

MarTech stands for marketing technology, and includes all the software needed to meet marketing goals and objectives. The software products in the MarTech stack include dozens of different digital tools and technologies that help you automate and streamline processes, combine and manage data and ultimately reach your goals successfully. You have product information management (PIM), document management systems (DMS), content management systems (CMS) and, among many others, enterprise resource planning systems (ERP). And let’s not forget- Digital Asset Management system (DAM). You can’t attract, acquire, and engage with your target audience if you don’t have a proper collection of systems to manage customer data, creative content, and product information. Every team will require a unique set of tools and technologies to equip them to succeed, so your MarTech stack might look different from another company. But with so many different technologies, where do they all fit in, and which are the best for your stack?

What is DAM?

Let’s start with clarifying - what exactly is digital asset management? DAM allows organizations to easily store, organize, find, manage, create, distribute, and analyze all your digital content. Digital assets are critical for effective marketing, branding, and advertising. Using your digital assets consistently enables you to create and control your brand identity. A DAM platform is a searchable library for all of your assets. It has become a key marketing enabler by making rich media, such as images and videos, easily accessible for when you need to engage with your customers, improving your overall marketing performance. It is where all of your content is, which is why it’s become a foundation of the MarTech stack.

Benefits of a DAM

A DAM platform offers countless benefits on a brand level, team level, and individual level. Essentially, the benefits of a DAM can be loosely grouped into 4 categories:

• Brand consistency: Making sure that all the content your company produces is on-brand
• Marketing efficiency: Scaling content creation and saving time in marketing operations
• Improved collaboration: Helping all colleagues work on up-to-date versions and share work
• Maximize talent: Take away mundane tasks and allow your team to truly contribute

Which teams can use a DAM?

Your DAM platform isn’t only for your marketing or creative team. In fact, every team in your organization can use it to quickly and easily access the assets they need.

Marketers and creatives will use your DAM platform most heavily, as they will be responsible for developing brand guides, creating new content, and uploading new materials. They will also need to access all of these materials regularly during their creative processes.

Sales teams often need to send material to prospects and make presentations with little time to spare. They can quickly and easily access the presentation templates, brand assets, and sales enablement content on your DAM platform.

Digital assets go beyond creative assets for marketing and selling your product or service. Human Resource teams can use your DAM platform to store handbooks, company policies, and other forms that employees might need to access.

Agencies can be an extension of your marketing or creative team. Leverage a DAM platform to manage assets across your company and agency in a controlled, effective, and efficient manner.

Which industries can use a DAM?

A DAM is not an industry-specific software - it can be used by almost any industry. If there are digital assets to be organized, stored, and shared, a DAM can be used. Industries that have a larger volume of creative assets - images, videos, files, etc. - can often derive more value from a DAM than those that primarily use text-based files or documents.

Some common industries using a DAM include:

• Automotive
• Financial
• Manufacturing
• Education
• Multi-brand

Why DAM is the Heart of your MarTech Stack

DAM is the heart of your MarTech stack. Marketing success depends on the stories you tell and how well you tell them, and to succeed in story-telling, you need content. Content should be seen as a constant connection between people, process, and tech. You need the right content, that is accessible, to attract, acquire, and engage an audience. You need to be able to make that connection between your brand and target audience in order to share your brand story with them. Your DAM platform is the home of your content, the single source of truth. When everything is connected, you can tell your story.

MarTech stack working together

We’ve talked about the different systems in your MarTech stack, as well as the importance of your DAM platform being one of them. But how important is it for your DAM platform to connect to your other technologies? Well, to put it simply, extremely important. MarTech doesn’t work if your tools, technologies and systems don’t ‘talk’ to each other. Alone, each technology is great, but together, they can work to provide better quality data, design, processes and ultimately, better engagement with your customers. For example, once a piece of content goes through your workflow management system and is approved, you might have to download it and then upload it into your DAM. An integration between the two will eliminate the download/upload procedure, streamlining your processes and ensuring the best quality output of your content in your DAM platform.

Knowing how essential a DAM is in your MarTech stack, it’s clear to see why you need to make sure your DAM has the right features and functionality. Find out all that you need to know when choosing the right DAM.

Book a consultation with us to learn more.