First, structure your brand's guidelines.
"Structure starts with brand guidelines. Without guidelines, creatives aren't sure what they should create, why, and how. There's no consistency or purpose. Who is your brand trying to be? Distill the voice and identity with guidelines," said Jake Athey, VP of Marketing, Widen. "Second, automate as much of your workflow as possible. Can you prevent endless email threads before they tangle your flow? Can you get approvals without hunting people down? Finally, contract a digital librarian to establish a metadata structure that will make your content searchable. Digital asset management (DAM) without metadata is an airport without airplanes."
Second, activate your content to the right consumers.
"Activation is a fancy way of saying, get your content to the people who will use it. Making content 'self-serve' is a big part of this effort. If people need to email your team to retrieve new product images, they won't do it. Make your images on-demand, or there will be little demand for them," said Athey.
Third, connect with the right consumer channels.
"Connectivity is about channeling content into systems that reach the final audience. These include social media, marketing automation, CRM, and sales enablement tools," said Athey. "How? Mainly through integrations. Every time someone downloads and reuploads a bulky video file, they waste time and lose momentum. Bring your content library to the tools your social marketers, content marketers, and salespeople already use. Pro tip: embed asset links in different properties so that when you update an image in DAM, it updates itself automatically all over the web."
Fourth, monitor the channels and engagements.
"Analytics, tends to focus on the public's reception of content. That data is useful but misses how your processes affect that final moment," said Athey. "Study the analytics from your DAM or content library. What goes in and out? How do people say they use the assets? Which ones are most or least popular? How long do users spend searching for assets on average?"
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