Five reasons your marketing department needs Asset Bank

From faster time-to-market and better brand control - to higher productivity and lower legal risk - there are so many reasons marketers need DAM.

If you're looking to save time and money in your marketing department, here’s five reasons Asset Bank should be on your agenda. 

Because you have a need… a need for speed

Marketing is a full-throttle business. You’ve got deadlines to meet, competitors to beat, and a mile-long task list to complete. So you can’t afford to waste time. And yet so many marketers do - thanks to poor asset management practices.

By using Asset Bank, you’ll significantly streamline your creative process. DAM reduces friction in your workflow so you can deliver work quicker. Which means faster time to market and competitors wobbling in your wake.

For example, without a DAM, your team are at the mercy of departmental drives and shared storage, hunting down assets by half-remembered file name or an inkling of where they *might* be. This can seriously sap your team’s productivity.

With a DAM, they’ve got all of your organisation’s digital assets at your fingertips. And thanks to advanced search functionality and easy-breezy browsing, they can find what they need in a couple of clicks, even if they don’t know the file name. That adds up to faster design and delivery.

And that’s not the only snail-paced process holding up production...

It isn’t just finding assets that’s quick and easy. Uploading them is lightning fast too. The bulk upload function gets assets onto the system ASAP. And AI integration automatically tags assets with rich metadata that makes them instantly more discoverable.

Because no marketer is an island

Internal stakeholders, external agencies, freelance photographers, designers, suppliers, distributors… Your marketing team works with a lot of contributors and collaborators. And most of them will need to send files to you - or receive them from you - to keep work flowing.

But transferring files is a common pain point. Files are too big for email. File transfer sites are a faff. Maybe you accidentally send the wrong files to the wrong people...

Asset Bank makes it quicker, easier and safer to share files online. And all from a fully branded interface you’re proud to use.

With Asset Bank:

• Share links give users controlled access to your system - to download or upload assets
• Files are shared using your own secure system, not via third-party sites
• End-to-end encryption means there’s no risk of files being intercepted
• User permissions mean people only see what they’re authorised to
• Share links don’t expire - unlike some file transfer sites
• If you accidentally share the wrong file, simply change the folder contents or file permissions to correct the error

Because dilution is for cordial, not brand

In large organisations, it can be hard to keep control of your brand. Whether you’re a university with separate schools, a national charity with regional offices, or a retail brand with a network of stores, it’s sometimes necessary for colleagues to create their own comms materials.

And when that happens, there’s a serious risk of brand dilution. Because not all employees are as plugged into the corporate brand as you. They might not know that the logo’s changed, there’s a new font, or that you’ve revamped the brand photography.

Asset Bank is an ideal way to boost brand compliance and coherence. It provides all staff with easy access to everything they need to create on-brand materials - like your brand guidelines, logos, font families, preferred photography, video clips, sample designs…

Or even plug Asset Bank into a dedicated template app - like WeBrand or Brand Stencil - to give employees access to editable templates and approved brand assets.

This doesn’t just improve brand compliance, it reduces the time your team spends fielding repetitive requests for brand assets and policing other people’s outputs.

Because legal risk ain’t worth the risk

There are instances where the mismanagement of digital assets can have legal ramifications. Especially in industries where privacy and confidentiality are paramount. For example, using assets that you don’t have permission to use or assets being accessed by people who shouldn’t.

Asset Bank has built-in lifecycle and rights management, granular user permission levels, and powerful security features to protect you against risk. Using Asset Bank reduces your legal exposure by allowing you to:

• Attach information about copyright, usage rights and usage terms to all assets
• Set expiry dates for assets when you’re no longer allowed to use them
• Use approval workflows to discover why someone wants access to an asset
• Connect consent forms to digital assets - for example, for photographs of staff or customers
• Transfer assets between parties within the system, protected by end-to-end encryption
• Restrict access to assets within the system - for example, embargoed assets or IP

Because the final version is never the final version

‘Final version V2b final FINAL.indd’ Look familiar? Without a formal naming convention, it’s often hard to know whether you’re really accessing the final version of a file. And that can be problematic, especially with artwork, where modifying an earlier version of a file could mean some amends are missing. Ouch!

With Asset Bank, you’ll always know which is the latest version of a file, because we’ll tell you. Our savvy system keeps track of every version of an upload, and even lets you know what’s changed between them.

And that’s not all. Asset Bank’s reporting function lets you get to grips with how your DAM is being used, who is engaging with it and if any areas need work.

You can get actionable insights into:

• user and group engagement - so you can encourage and reward user adoption
• full audit trails - to understand where assets are being used
• search reports and asset popularity - so you can see what people need and use the most, to prioritise future budget on commissioning the most in-demand digital assets

That’s the clarity and control that comes as standard with Asset Bank.

In an uncertain world, one thing we know for sure is that marketing isn’t easy. But with Asset Bank, it can be easier. Stop doing things the hard way. Get in touch for your free demo today.