Digital Asset Management (DAM) software is a business process management solution which provides you with a centralized online hub to create, manage, share, track and find digital assets, to manage the creative process.

A DAM streamlines management of all files including; documents, video, audio, design files and presentations. Digital Asset Management is a core part of Marketing Operations Software but also integrates easily with other technologies such as Content Management Systems, ensuring that your DAM isn't an island – but rather, the single source of cohesion for your marketing stack.  DAM software can come in many shapes and sizes and can be hosted on the cloud or on premise. When you are looking for a DAM solution, it’s important to note the different types of DAM systems out there.

Stand Alone Digital Asset Management systems are used to simplify the process of managing and distributing creative files such as images, audio, video, Microsoft Office, Adobe CC and PDFs. The driving requirement is to centralize files, categorize them according to the business and make them easy to both share and track. Functionality includes:

• Upload files one at a time or in bulk
• Embed metadata
• Assign metadata and categorize files
• Search with advanced queries and filtering
• Create lightbox collections
• Email links to registered and non-registered users
• Share and embed files into third party applications (for example, your CRM, CMS and AdobeCreative Cloud)
• Set review dates as to when a file needs to be retired or expired
• Manage talent-use rights with alerts
• Assign permissions and user groups
• Transcode, crop, resize and manipulate files on the fly
• Approve creative before it is downloaded

As a feature of Marketing Operations Software, Digital Asset Management can be truely leveraged to increase efficiencies and ensure brand and marketing compliance.  Enterprise businesses who need processes around creative production, campaign management or operate in highly regulated industries where compliance requirements need to be met are shifting away from stand alone DAM systems and instead opting for these features as part of Marketing Operations. In doing so they can achieve the following:

• Manage creative workflows
• Collaborate creatively via version control, comments and markups
• Manage creative projects, including submitting creative briefs online and tracking the status of marketing projects, including budgets and designer workload
• Manage tasks against a project, including the reporting on stages and completion rates
• Manage alerts and reminders
• Edit web-to-print templates
• Publish digital brand guidelines for easy updating