Capturing and holding your ideal customer's attention has become more challenging than ever, requiring constant and varied content creation.
If you're simply creating marketing content without a structured plan for managing those assets, you may experience inefficiencies, increased costs, and missed opportunities to engage your audience effectively.
Often overlooked, digital asset management is the unsung hero of marketing teams and brand managers. In this post, we'll unpack the reasons you need marketing asset management (MAM) and guide you through five tried-and-true practices to enhance your brand's digital presence with ease.
What is a digital marketing asset?
A digital marketing asset is a digital file or tool used in marketing efforts to achieve business objectives. These assets include product images, engaging videos, informative podcasts, distinctive brand logos, eye-catching ad graphics, and more.
Revenue links directly to such assets — especially when used correctly and strategically by all departments within an organization. For instance, marketing campaigns rely on quality assets to amplify brand visibility, build trust, and generate sales. If other departments can’t find or don’t know which assets to use for other projects, it can lead to disjointed brand messaging, affecting the brand’s ability to grow its revenue online.
Types of digital marketing assets
Digital marketing assets are dynamic and ever-evolving. They not only educate and inform but also drive audiences toward desired actions. Common types of digital marketing assets include:
Internal marketing assets
Internal marketing assets are exclusive tools and processes intended for internal use by your team. They serve as the backbone, guiding daily operations and establishing the brand’s identity and standards internally.
Common examples of internal assets include:
- Letterheads
- Business cards
- Tools for professional networking
- Standard operating procedures (SOPs)
- Internal brand guides
Website
Your website is a central hub of all information about your brand online. Above all, your website should showcase your products and services and make it easy for people to buy from you.
Examples of website-related assets include:
- Product images
- 360º shots or virtual tours
- Hero banners
- Sales content
- Informational blog content
Cornerstone content
Cornerstone content consists of high-quality, foundational content pieces that are extensively researched and offer immense value to audiences. Such content pieces influence the perception of your brand in online communities and can include:
- eBooks
- Whitepapers
- Industry reports
- Case studies
- Infographics
- Explainer videos
- Thought leadership posts
Social media assets
Multimedia assets include image, audio, and video assets. They are often the most effective means of communicating a brand's visual style across various platforms, especially social media. These elements are also highly appealing and can convey messages quickly, all while building brand awareness and engagement.
Here are some examples of such assets:
- Podcasts
- Product shots
- Lifestyle shots
- Explainer videos
- Product demonstration videos
- Infographics
- GIFs or memes
- Short-form videos
Email sequences
Some brands rely on email marketing to build their audience. You might send pre-determined sets of emails to guide subscribers or customers through a journey. Using a sales funnel process, you could use timely email communication to launch a new product.
In either case, here are examples of email marketing assets you might rely on:
- Email signatures
- Branded email templates
- Welcome series
- Lead nurturing email sequence
- Abandoned cart emails
Brand style guide
A brand style guide outlines the visual and textual elements that define and represent the brand across various platforms. These documents typically feature the following assets:
- Logo files
- Logo variations
- Fonts
- Color palettes
- Brand-approved templates
What is marketing asset management?
Marketing asset management (MAM) is the strategic process of managing, organizing, storing, and retrieving digital marketing files. Management usually requires a marketing asset management system to keep track of all digital marketing files. This tool lets marketers quickly find, use, and share the right assets with the right people and teams and control electronic asset permissions and usage rights.
Asset management streamlines marketing workflow and ensures that all assets are up-to-date, consistent, and easy to access. By utilizing marketing asset management, businesses can maximize their resources and get the most out of their marketing efforts.
What are the benefits of marketing asset management?
In fast-paced digital environments, marketing teams often feel pressured to respond quickly and more agile. MAM provides the technical infrastructure for them to do so, as well as these additional benefits:
- Maintain consistent brand messaging: Centralize brand standards to ensure stakeholders access up-to-date brand assets consistently. MAM also guarantees cohesive branding across platforms and eliminates risks from outdated materials.
- Streamline the creative process: Refine management of brand assets, offer organized digital files for quick access during creative processes, and eliminate scattered resources across platforms.
- Enhance collaboration: Facilitate inter-team collaborations, enabling real-time feedback and quicker approvals.
- Ensure compliance and reduce risks: Create a fortress for intellectual property, control access, and remove unauthorized asset usage.
- Measure performance: Gather insights into assets' performance and make improved campaign decisions based on engagement metrics.
5 top marketing asset management best practices
Managing marketing assets can quickly become a nightmare if you don’t have the proper infrastructure and processes in place. Stay on top of all your assets and keep everyone in the loop with these five best practices.
Audit existing assets thoroughly
Start by auditing your current digital marketing assets. Examine the file storage, access methods, and version control management you’re currently using for all files. You should also consider which assets are performing well and what internal measures are in place to monitor them.
The outcome of your audit should:
- Identify redundant or outdated assets
- Determine ways to streamline version control
- Ensure critical stakeholders can access the correct files at the right time
- Declutter your asset library
- Clarify the status of each asset
Establish clear workflows and processes
Effective asset management relies on transparent workflows and processes that everyone uses consistently. If you observe common patterns during your audit, establish procedures to help ensure consistency.
Some examples of things to consider include:
- Setting up guidelines for creating, approving, and distributing assets
- Creating an established folder system for storing assets
- Clarifying version control processes and archiving outdated files
- Using your asset management software properly
- Setting up asset usage and performance reports
Maintain a standardized organization system
The key to a streamlined asset management process lies in organization. Keeping all your assets in a centralized repository or marketing asset library can streamline workflows. Your storage system should support a variety of asset and file types and offer accessibility from various locations and devices.
You can also actively organize your asset library by:
- Standardizing file names (with dates and versions)
- Implementing a dedicated repository or system
- Categorizing assets appropriately
- Archiving outdated resources
Choose the right marketing asset management software
Although you can use a cloud-based drive to store marketing assets, teams may have difficulty finding what they need as your library grows. Specialized tools with purpose-built asset management features offer more features to streamline asset management intuitively. A marketing asset management tool should include the following features:
- Central file storing and management: Holding assets in a unified, cloud-based storage system that is easy to access.
- Metadata and tagging: Assigning keywords and descriptions to assets to make them easily searchable.
- Access control: Identifying who can view, modify, or distribute assets to maintain security.
- Version control: Keeping track of asset changes and storing different versions to avoid confusion and mistakes.
- Lifecycle management: Monitoring an asset's stages, from creation to archiving or deletion.
- Collaboration tools: Allowing teams to share feedback, approve assets, and work collaboratively.
Provide training and guidance
Like any other system, marketing asset management is more useful when users are well-trained. Comprehensive training ensures team members can easily navigate the system, understand version control, and stick to asset usage guidelines.
Happeo makes marketing asset management easy
Leveraging a superior marketing asset management system can be the difference between ordinary and extraordinary collaboration within marketing teams.
At Happeo, we have a purpose-built suite of advanced features to enhance asset management. Our platform is easy and intuitive to navigate and ensures all your marketing assets remain organized, up-to-date, and easily accessible anytime, anywhere.
How people access these files is the key — our integrated search engine works across all your company's tools and can help people find anything they need, no matter where it’s stored.
Ready to elevate your marketing asset management? Request a demo or explore our resources and blog to learn more.
12 mins read