The Ultimate List of Top Digital Asset Management (DAM) Software Platforms
If you’ve made it to this post, you’re likely already aware you have a digital asset management problem.
Maybe you just spent 25 minutes looking for a high-res logo to send to a graphic designer.
Or you’re sitting at your desk searching for a spreadsheet, but you can’t for the life of you remember what it was saved as... and every keyword you enter brings up nothing.
Or perhaps you can’t even remember where the document in question is saved because you have no less than five different platforms for storing marketing materials. (ex. Dropbox, Google Drive, Desktop, H: Drive, or some other company server.)
It’s enough to make you want to pull your hair out.
Because there is nothing more frustrating than wasting your precious time on inefficiencies and problems that simply shouldn’t exist in the first place.
Well… you’ve come to the right place. This post will give you a rundown of all the best Digital Asset Management (DAM) platforms and software solutions to help you solve your asset disorganization woes.
The Ultimate List of Top Digital Asset Management (DAM) Software Platforms
Click To TweetDownload These DAM Templates to Get Started
Choosing a DAM is no easy task. Especially when it’s complicated by change management and project management challenges. This is why we’ve compiled a couple of no cost DAM planning templates to help. Below you’ll find:- DAM Business Requirements Document Template to help you gather internal requirements. (Word)
- DAM Implementation Roadmap and Project Plan Template to help you stay on schedule and manage the process better.
How to Select a DAM Platform
Selecting a digital asset management (DAM) tool is a big decision. Many options are extremely costly and you simply can’t risk getting it wrong. Here’s a helpful, step-by-step process to follow when determining the right DAM software for your organization. Recommended Reading: How to Get Better ROI on your Marketing Assets with Digital Asset Management SoftwareGather Requirements
Identifying your requirements is the first step in ensuring the DAM you choose will be a good fit for your business. Perform an evaluation of your existing system, looking at what problems you encounter, what functionality is lacking, what your future needs might entail, etc.- Integration: What tools and software do you already have and will the DAM system need to integrate?
- Security: What types of user roles will you need? Does it include client, freelancer or remote worker access?
- Access rights: Do you need to restrict the use of certain assets?
- Customization: Do you need lots of customization options like brand colors, etc? Or will a less complex solution with less customization abilities be suitable?
- Scalability: Will your DAM have to accommodate rapid business growth?
- Workflow customization: Do you need to modify or customize your workflow? Or can can per-set solutions fit your needs?
- Budget: This will ultimately dictate the options that are available to your organization. Have a solid understanding of what your must-have features are and be flexible on everything else.
DAM Use Case Scenario Examples
Here are some DAM use case examples to help you get started. Marketing Manager- Summary: These individuals are in charge of creating and managing the use of marketing collateral. Assets they create can differ slightly from version to version, where one sales deck might be translated into multiple languages or tailored to specific product areas. The ability to easily create and track different versions is important. They also are responsible for asset oversight, such as approving and reviewing materials before use.
- Features needed: Workflows, Collaboration, Version tracking, Creative tool integrations
- Summary: Brand managers use DAM software to create and monitor standards of all collateral created. Making sure that all materials are “on-brand” is important for brand managers. It must be easy to share brand guidelines, collaborate on documents, restrict editing and usage based on user role, region and department.
- Features needed: Collaboration, Advanced user roles, Sharing functionality
- Summary: Sales managers rely on marketing collateral to help them do their jobs more effectively. They need to quickly access documents based on keywords and easily be able to know what content exists and what needs to be created. In some cases, they might require the need to self-serve with templates, although most of the time a request feature for getting items produced would be preferable.
- Features needed: Content request feature, Metadata search, Self-service template support
- Summary: Sales managers rely on marketing collateral to help them do their jobs more effectively. They need to quickly access documents based on keywords and easily be able to know what content exists and what needs to be created. In some cases, they might require the need to self-serve with templates, although most of the time a request feature for getting items produced would be preferable.
- Features needed: Content request feature, Metadata search, Self-service template support
Research DAM providers
This part can be time consuming, but this post should help you understand what features each platform has and how those match up to the requirements you’ve researched in the previous step. There are also comparison resources like G2, Capterra, and Gartner that help companies flesh out the difference in each DAM software provider.Create a Short-list & Schedule a Demo
Once you’ve stacked up a laundry list of providers, you can fine-tune that list based on your can’t-live-without-features. From here, create a short list of about five providers and schedule a demo to learn more. Many DAM software providers are opaque about their pricing, so it’s a good idea to have a few back-up options should your preferred solution come in far over budget.Choose Your Software and Start the Implementation
The good news is, you have chosen your DAM software and now you can get to implementing. The bad news is, there’s more work to come. During the implementation phase, you will:- Create an implementation schedule with milestones
- Establish governance responsibilities and guidelines
- Apply and extract metadata
- Choose a system admin
- Train users
Top 9 Digital Asset Management Software Platforms for Marketers
Now that you know the process for finding your DAM platform, let’s dive into what tools exist, what features they have, as well as how much they cost and other considerations to account for. Let’s start off with CoSchedule’s Asset Organizer.1. CoSchedule's Asset Organizer
The Asset Organizer from CoSchedule is a complete digital asset management platform that allows you to…- Quickly find the files you need to get work done.
- Maintain control over your brand assets.
- Catalog your projects to avoid duplicate work.
- Share project deliverables with stakeholders.
Metadata, Tagging and Custom Taxonomy
With the Asset Organizer, you can use tags and other taxonomies to label content by topic, team, and audience. You don’t have to waste precious time trying to hunt down the files you need… they’re easily found through keyword searches, tags and more. You can also easily identify how and where photos, images, videos, and other content are used in projects across your marketing projects in CoSchedule to easily apply necessary changes.
Built-In Version Control
Your brand is the core of your company’s identity - the Asset Organizer makes it easy to stop off-brand creative from being distributed to external audiences. Update existing resources and record historical changes via built-in version control. Periodically audit and review your library to ensure the latest files, content, and design are on brand and up to date.
Universal Content Library
Stop spending time creating projects that already exist! Add your work to the Asset Organizer to build an organized deliverables library. Before taking on anything new, see if there’s an existing project file that could be used instead to avoid duplicating work. Type in keywords like “infographic” to understand what already exists, before you waste time and resources reinventing the wheel.
Secure File Sharing
Give stakeholders and internal teams secure, direct access to the content you create for them. Securely share folders and specific files using custom sharing links. And replace outdated files as you make changes, so everyone has the most recent versions. Simply create a link to share your file with anyone.
