Best Digital Asset Management (DAM) Software
Buyer's Guide
As the digital workplace becomes an increasing part of our daily lives, modern businesses deal with the constant pressure of keeping their digital assets organized, especially if they send and receive large volumes of files daily.
Digital asset management software helps keep your data organized, cutting down the time and effort your employees spend searching for files, recreating misplaced or lost ones and struggling to upload or download them.
Are you looking for a way up your company’s organization system or manage your CMS? Digital asset management software might be right for you. In this buyer’s guide, we’ll go over what digital asset management software is, how it could help your business and how to pick the best solution.
Executive Summary
- Digital asset management provides secure storage for a company's media assets and organizes them in a user-friendly way.
- Key features include search tools, version control and access control.
- Be sure to ask potential vendors any questions you have about the software before committing to a purchase.
What Is Digital Asset Management Software?
Digital asset management (DAM) software is a tool that helps organizations save, manage, retrieve and send digital assets from a digital repository. This media can include images, audio files, videos, documents, spreadsheets, PDFs, presentations and branding material.
Most modern companies deal with thousands of digital assets. Sometimes these important files and documents are scattered across hard drives, email inboxes and cloud folders. As the company grows, the amount of content at play increases, and it becomes harder to find the assets you need when you need them.
Digital asset management software stores your assets in a single, secure location, making them available to anyone with file access. This system uses metadata to identify content, allowing you to search for specific assets using keywords.
According to a 2022 survey by Statista, 91 million Americans have been offered to work remotely, either part-time or full-time. An increasingly digital work environment translates to an increasing presence of digital assets in modern companies. It’s more important than ever to find ways to effectively manage them.
Let’s find out what the software can do for your company.
Primary Benefits
1. Better Organization
When you’re dealing with high volumes of content, it’s easy for files to get lost or misplaced, especially if it’s unstructured content spread across multiple sources. Digital asset management software organizes your content and stores it in an easily searchable, centralized location, helping keep your assets safe and giving your employees access to the resources they need.
2. Better Collaboration
When dealing with a large volume of assets, it’s difficult to share them to colleagues or clients. Many email providers have maximum file sizes for attachments, and sending content in an unstructured format makes it easier to misplace.
DAM software allows you to share assets of all file formats both internally and externally. External users don’t even need a copy of the software to access your files.
3. Brand Consistency
Some companies work with multiple brands simultaneously, meaning they’re responsible for several projects, campaigns and media assets across distinct brands. With a digital asset management solution, you can easily store creative briefs, logos and other brand-related creatives, ensuring they don’t get mixed up or lost.
You can also use built-in tools to modify certain design elements, ensuring brand consistency across all materials.
Key Features & Functionality
| Search Tools | Use keywords or phrases to search for assets. Common search terms include file name, date of creation and author name. |
|---|---|
| Version Control | Save and track different versions of assets. Refer to earlier versions for transparency and to ensure mistakes aren’t repeated. Uploading a new version of any media automatically replaces the older one. An email is sent to users who've downloaded the previous version, notifying them about the new version. |
| Access Control | Form user groups to assign specific permissions to the right people, ensuring only certain users can access, edit, or share your files. |
| Shareability | Share large volumes of assets internally and externally, using collaboration tools like brand portals and the lightbox function for longer-term projects. Accumulate media from various categories into specific folders and share them accordingly. |
| User Experience (UX) | Use advanced search functions customized according to the company's internal language. A user-friendly, customizable interface ensures employees can navigate the software easily and find the files they need. |
| Security | Encryptions, multi-factor authentication (MFA) and strong passwords keep your sensitive and confidential media safe while it’s stored or during transfers. Adjustable user permissions control who can access what files in your repository. Assign different permissions to different departments, teams and individuals based on need. |
| Application Programmer Interfaces (APIs) | Simplify bulk operations by using APIs to upload and manage large volumes of assets without having to log in to the software. |
Software Comparison Strategy
While many digital asset management software have similar features, it can be overwhelming to decide which solution is actually best for your business.
Consider what your business needs. How many employees will use the program? Will they adapt to it easily, or will they need training? It’s also important to think about where your current media management solution falls short, and how a digital asset management software could help fill the gaps.
Once you have a sense of your needs, think about what features will address them. If you need a little help determining this, try using our requirements template to organize your thoughts.
It’s also important to research your software vendor. You can check online reviews, read industry guides and ask colleagues for their recommendations. Some vendors may even offer a free trial so you can see how your employees work with the program before committing.
Cost & Pricing Considerations
Most digital asset management systems offer two pricing models: perpetual license and subscription plan.
Perpetual License
This is a one-time payment model where you pay upfront to use the system indefinitely. The fee here is generally higher than in the subscription model, but may work out to a lower cost in the long run. The downside of this model is that updates might not be included, so you may miss out on some features when newer versions are released.
Subscription Plan
Many vendors offer monthly or yearly subscription plans. The upside of this model is that new features and software updates are usually included. You also have the advantage of being able to try out the software for a few months and switching to something else if you don’t like it, instead of being locked in.
The factors that usually affect subscription pricing include:
- Features and functionalities
- Number of users
- Data storage
- Deployment method
The Most Popular Digital Asset Management Software
Jumpstart your software search with our research team’s list of the most popular digital asset management software products.
Box
Box is a cloud-based collaborative platform for storing and sharing content. It manages the entire content lifecycle, including creation, sharing, co-editing and retention, and supports many file types, like documents, videos and presentations. The platform integrates with Salesforce, Adobe and Microsoft 365. It can be easily accessed via desktops, phones, tablets and laptops.
View insights using the admin dashboard. Source
Prezi
Prezi is a cloud-based platform used to create and store presentations in the cloud. It includes a zooming user interface (ZUI) that lets users zoom in and out of presentations for a better view. Users can create visuals with animation, speech bubbles and callout boxes. You can also convert existing PowerPoint presentations into Prezi files.
Navigating the user dashboard. Source
SharePoint
SharePoint is a web-based collaborative platform. Users employ it as a safe place to store, share, organize, manage and access content from any device. It offers features like reporting, analytics, digital and document asset management, and contract management. It can be deployed on-premise or hosted on the cloud.
View different sites simultaneously on one platform. Source
Questions To Ask
Get a better understanding of your business needs by asking yourself the following questions:
- What’s our budget?
- How many employees will use the software?
- Will our employees need training to use the solution?
- What core features do we need?
- What problems can this software help us solve?
Here are a few questions you can ask potential vendors to help you learn more about the software and the vendor:
- How many years of experience do you have in the industry?
- What customer support and training do you offer?
- How does your software integrate with other software?
- What company sizes do you typically work with?
- Is the software scalable?
- How do you ensure data security?
Next Steps
Digital asset management software can improve how you organize and use the rich media assets in your company. If you’re dealing with a lot of content, a tool like this can help ensure you always find the files you’re looking for.
Ready to take the next step? Get started today with our comparison report to gain insight into top software leaders. Good luck!
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