3 Key Factors for a Successful DAM
Every Digital Asset Management (DAM) system is different, but there are three key factors that contribute to every successful DAM:
Reuse,
Accessibility,
and Preservation.
Let's take a look at each one in detail.
Reuse
The ultimate goal of a DAM is to produce the highest return on investment (ROI) possible. DAMs require a lot of resources—financial and human—and the only way to recoup those costs is to integrate and make the DAM part of your organization’s infrastructure. One key factor for success in a DAM is the ability to reuse existing content, and making it easy to find and repurpose.
Producing new content is expensive and time-consuming If you commit to a sustainable “reuse” process, internal staff who create media can draw first from a well-organized and tagged library of media, before creating new content.
Accessibility
For reuse to be integrated into workflows and be successful, accessibility becomes paramount. But making media easy to view and distribute can be a hurdle for many organizations. A final version of a given piece of media is often far too large to be easily viewed or transferred over the web. A good DAM solution makes sure that the media it hosts is available for all system users – whether that’s a low-resolution web-streaming copy (proxy) for an executive to review, or a bigger file, transferred over FTP so designers and editors can work with a high-resolution copy.
Whether your team works in the office or remotely, access is key. You need a strong connection for uploading and downloading media, and the ability to access the DAM regardless of physical location.
Preservation
Preservation and proper storage of media, both current and historical, is a key feature of any DAM system. Historical assets are invaluable to a company’s culture and brand identity, but older media types are often inaccessible. Transferring these assets to a digital format for long-term preservation and ease of access will future-proof your asset library.
And as a company continues to add media to their storage, the issue of space will always need to be addressed. (Today’s current, run-the-business media will be tomorrow’s historical asset.) A well-planned DAM will have a roadmap that addresses this challenge, with contingencies in place for long-term archival storage and access.
