Creative assets carry a company’s marketing campaign. Managing them effectively can have a huge impact on marketing campaign implementation, including content creation. It might sound elementary, but unfortunately, a number of companies often don’t bother to put in place an effective plan in managing their creative assets. This results in hours being wasted by the creative team combing through archives searching for assets they require.  

Implementing creative asset management safeguards your brand; your creative team can stay consistent and on point working with assets that are safe and organized. Moreover, a focused and consistent creative asset can help your marketing campaign deliver content effectively through various avenues. Your campaign will be able to take advantage of various media to help in your brand’s promotion.  

An Overview On Creative Asset Management

There’s always a demand for new content, that’s why companies need to adopt the best practices for creative asset management (CAM). Creative assets refer to videos, images, and other digital media files, including documents. They’re essential to marketing because these types of assets are used in advertising campaigns that target certain audiences.  

To utilize them efficiently, they are organized and archived using a piece of software that automates these assets’ various functions to the company. With such software, sharing and searching are also a cinch. Functions such as filter and find make it easier for your staff to get the assets they need for their various projects.  

Creative asset management, which includes digital asset management, is essential to companies that value efficiency. Having storage for your digital assets is fine, but a management system for your assets should be more than that. For example, a report on The State of Digital Asset Management in 2020 shows that more than half (51%) of marketers squander resources either by recreating or creating assets that already exist.  

The reason? They either can’t find them, or they don’t even know these assets exist. That’s one of the inefficiencies that having asset management can prevent. What’s more disheartening, especially for managers, is that about 40% stated that their organization doesn’t have a single source or repository for their assets, which means these assets can be anywhere. This would make locating them a virtually impossible task. Clearly, something has to be done. 

Creative Asset Management Best Practices

A wide assortment of creative assets can bring your marketing strategy to the next level, but if they remain unused, your staff will just be wasting time and effort. Make the most of your assets; follow these suggested best practices for creative asset management and help get your company back on track:

 

• Use Metadata To Organize Assets

 

Using metadata for asset organization can make it simple for local and corporate users not only to systematize but also to search for various creative assets. Metadata makes it easier to deal with all kinds of files and greatly simplifies the complications that can result from different file classifications. For instance, with metadata, a user could simply search by asset or campaign type, instead of searching for specific file names.

Make sure to take advantage of the features that your software has, such as automatic tagging of all media files, including images, in your library. Your digital assets can be tagged with the key components of their contents and appropriate keywords. 

 

• Foster Collaboration 

 

For a company whose brand is distributed in many countries, communication can become complicated among teams from corporate to local. Considering that different languages and different time zones can present formidable barriers, any meaningful collaboration is well-nigh impossible. 

This is where the best practices of creative asset management come into play. Having a CAM solution can facilitate faster communication and improve collaboration among stakeholders.  Graphic artists, for example, can be overwhelmed by last-minute requests for tweaks or additional components. But with a CAM solution, designers in the corporate team can instead provide pre-screened templates, which local designers can tweak for any customization needs. That way, passing files around looking for someone to give the go-ahead for the requested changes is avoided. 

 

• Give Leeway To Local Tastes In Designs

 

More often than not, consumers are more receptive to marketing campaigns that are adapted to local tastes. This means that an effective creative campaign in one locale might not be a hit in another. In other words, a corporate brand’s marketing campaign shouldn’t be designed by a cookie-cutter, or have a one-size-fits-all approach. 

Marketing campaigns should consider the tastes and sensitivities of various localities. The core values of a brand are better communicated when adapted to the preferences of local consumers. With a CAM tool, local marketing teams can introduce some elements to suit the tastes of local consumers, for example, in imagery or implications in messages. 

A template can be created and disseminated, which includes a brand’s crucial and core elements. This way, local marketers could still comply with the brand’s main marketing thrust, while still be able to make a few tweaks to suit local audiences. 

 

• Streamline Workflows By Automating Processes

 

Before a marketing campaign is launched, there could be scores of items that your local marketing teams need to check and verify first. How long this would take and how much disruption this could cause would depend on their level of experience and expertise. These are potentially tedious tasks, and could also interfere with their non-marketing duties and responsibilities. A CAM solution could automate these additional chores. By automating these checklists, manual processes are eliminated, resulting in a streamlined or simplified workflow. 

 

• Regular Evaluation Of Assets

 

Managing a content’s lifecycle should include its regular evaluation. This refers to a content’s development stages—from conception, development, circulation, reuse, and eventual retirement. Granted, existing assets are often updated and given a few modifications and still reach new audiences. However, the risk of your assets becoming stale is a reality. That’s why marketing teams should periodically evaluate their organization’s assets. You might need relevant content.  

This is especially true when there’s a watershed moment like the pandemic. Some of your content might no longer be relevant and might be considered inappropriate for today’s ‘new normal.’ A periodic evaluation will let you discover which assets no longer provides value to your brand and should be retired. You can also find out which assets still give value and support to your marketing initiatives.    

       

Final Thoughts

Today, a tool like creative asset management isn’t just a ‘shiny new toy.’ It’s a necessary solution that helps an organization’s marketing team to keep tabs of creative and digital assets. It can save time and effort, as well as foster collaboration. With tools like these, you can also maximize your assets’ potential.