From technical CAD files to multi-language marketing collateral, today’s manufacturers are producing more digital content than ever before. But with dispersed teams, varied file formats, and high compliance stakes, managing it all without a central system leads to delays, errors, and inefficiencies. DAM for manufacturing organizations can massively improve content operations.

As a centralized platform for organizing, distributing, and securing digital assets, DAM is transforming how manufacturers work—improving collaboration, accelerating time-to-market, and ensuring brand and regulatory consistency across every channel.

What is Digital Asset Management (DAM) in Manufacturing?

Digital Asset Management (DAM) is a cloud-based system for storing, organizing, sharing, and tracking digital files—everything from images and videos to technical documents and CAD renderings.

For manufacturers, a DAM system becomes the single source of truth for internal teams, global distributors, marketing agencies, and sales partners—ensuring everyone accesses the most up-to-date, approved content, no matter where they are.

Common Manufacturing Content Challenges

Manufacturing organizations generate and distribute massive volumes of digital content across departments, regions, and partner networks. But without a centralized system like a DAM, teams often encounter critical inefficiencies that slow down operations and introduce risk.

1. Disorganized Libraries and Scattered Storage

Manufacturing teams frequently rely on shared drives, email attachments, or legacy servers to store and access digital assets. As a result, content ends up scattered across folders, platforms, and even personal desktops. Searching for a specific image, product sheet, or CAD file becomes time-consuming—especially when you need the latest version fast.

• Repetitive tasks like recreating lost files waste hours of productivity.
• Version confusion leads to outdated specs being shared with customers or distributors.
• Teams working across departments (engineering, sales, marketing) often lack visibility into what content already exists.

2. Outdated or Inconsistent Brand Assets

As brands evolve—updating logos, color palettes, or messaging—manufacturing teams must ensure every distributor and regional office uses the most current brand-approved content. Without controls in place, old assets continue circulating, leading to:

• Off-brand materials in local markets
• Confusing experiences for customers and partners
• Lost time correcting incorrect or unauthorized usage

This inconsistency is especially damaging when launching new products, entering new markets, or managing multi-lingual campaigns.

3. Compliance and Regulatory Risk

Manufacturers in industries like aerospace, medical devices, energy, and industrial tools must comply with strict regulations. If outdated safety documentation or incorrect product specs are shared, the consequences can be serious:

• Fines, delays, or product recalls
• Legal exposure from incorrect usage claims
• Loss of trust with partners and customers

Without audit trails, expiry notifications, or access controls, teams can’t confidently manage which documents are still valid—or who has downloaded what.

4. Bottlenecks in Asset Requests and Approvals

In many organizations, requests for product images, installation manuals, or localized marketing materials are handled manually—via email or Slack. This creates major workflow bottlenecks, especially when:

• The marketing team is small and stretched thin
• Regional offices are in different time zones
• Urgent sales opportunities arise and content isn’t immediately available

Instead of focusing on strategy, teams spend hours fulfilling routine requests—slowing down launches and straining internal resources.

5. Complex File Formats and Access Issues

Manufacturers rely heavily on AutoCAD, SolidWorks, 3D files, and other large technical formats that traditional storage tools struggle to manage. Without a DAM:

• Stakeholders need native software to preview or open these files
• File sharing becomes risky or impossible due to size limits or format restrictions
• Non-technical users (e.g., marketing or sales) can’t engage with assets they need to approve or distribute

This slows down collaboration and can stall product content workflows.

6. Siloed Systems and Disconnected Teams

With so many departments involved in product development, sales enablement, and marketing, teams often operate in disconnected systems—PIMs, CRMs, CMSs, design tools—with no shared visibility into digital assets.

• Assets may exist in multiple formats or platforms with no clear owner
• Collaboration between creative, engineering, and marketing becomes fractured
• Global teams can’t find or trust the assets available to them

This siloed structure stifles innovation, delays go-to-market efforts, and increases content duplication.

Key Benefits of DAM for Manufacturing

1. Centralized, Searchable Asset Access

Manufacturers manage thousands of assets: product imagery, videos, installation guides, CAD files, safety data sheets, and more. DAM centralizes these files with structured metadata and AI-powered search, reducing time spent hunting for the right version.

2. Support for Technical Files, Including AutoCAD and 3D Formats

Unlike traditional storage systems, MediaValet’s DAM supports AutoCAD (.dwg), 3D models, and other large-format technical files, enabling engineering, product, and marketing teams to preview, collaborate on, and share these files without requiring native software access. Stakeholders can view and approve renderings directly in the browser—reducing friction and maintaining version control.

3. Streamlined Workflows Across Departments

DAM connects teams across marketing, engineering, product, and sales with built-in versioning, approvals, and integrations with tools like Adobe Creative Cloud, PIM, and CMS platforms. For manufacturing orgs launching global product lines or updating product specs frequently, this alignment is critical.

4. Secure, Compliant Asset Management

With granular permissions, expiration rules, and audit trails, DAM helps manufacturers meet compliance requirements, avoid content misuse, and protect intellectual property—essential in highly regulated or IP-sensitive industries.

5. Faster Product Launches and Market Expansion

Whether launching in new regions or scaling a product line, DAM accelerates timelines by giving global teams access to localized, approved assets with consistent branding—ready to drop into campaigns, catalogs, or distributor portals.

DAM for Manufacturing Success Stories

Enabling Global Self-Service with DAM

As a world leader in environmental and industrial measurement, Vaisala needed a way to support internal teams and over 700 distributors worldwide with on-brand, up-to-date content.

By implementing MediaValet, they created a self-service content hub for sales teams and partners to easily find, download, and share localized marketing materials, 3D renderings, and product visuals. What was once a high-volume, manual request process became a seamless self-serve experience—saving their small marketing team hours of work each week and ensuring faster regional launches.

“I used to spend 30% of my time just responding to requests for content. Now, people can access exactly what they need, when they need it.”
— Salla Ahola, Marketing Communications Specialist, Vaisala

Read the full Vaisala use case here.

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Powering Global Growth with Scalable DAM

HYTORC, a global manufacturer of industrial bolting systems, needed a scalable way to manage product images, training videos, and manuals in multiple languages. Before DAM, asset requests piled up in email chains, and content was stored in disconnected systems.

With MediaValet, they created a centralized library with structured categories by product, region, and language—allowing international distributors and employees to quickly locate content. They now support rapid expansion into new markets with confidence, thanks to consistent branding and faster approvals.

“The ability to organize by language, product line, and country has made it easier for our global teams to serve customers.”
— Dave Maher, Global Marketing Manager, HYTORC

Read the full HYTORC story here.

Best Practices for Implementing a Manufacturing DAM

Successfully implementing a Digital Asset Management system isn’t just about purchasing the right tool—it’s about aligning teams, processes, and goals to ensure adoption and long-term success. Below are key best practices manufacturing organizations should follow when introducing a DAM platform:

1. Audit Your Current Asset Ecosystem
Before implementing DAM, conduct a comprehensive asset audit to understand what content you already have, where it lives, and how it’s being used. This process helps set a baseline for migration and highlights opportunities to improve structure and governance.

2. Engage Stakeholders Early Across Departments
DAM isn’t just a marketing initiative—it affects engineering, product, legal, IT, sales, and international partners. Include representatives from each key department in planning conversations. In manufacturing especially, cross-functional alignment is critical to success due to the diverse use cases and file types involved.

3. Design a Scalable Folder Structure and Metadata Strategy
Your folder structure and tagging system will determine how easy it is for users to find what they need. This not only improves discoverability but lays the foundation for automation, personalization, and AI-driven asset recommendations.

4. Ensure Compatibility with CAD, 3D, and Technical Files
Manufacturing content isn’t limited to JPEGs and PDFs. Your DAM needs to support complex file types.
This ensures your DAM can serve both technical and non-technical users across the organization.

5. Integrate with Core Tools and Platforms
A DAM that operates in isolation won’t deliver full value. Integrate with the tools your teams already use. Integrations reduce manual effort, speed up collaboration, and ensure content flows where it’s needed.

6. Establish Governance, Permissions, and Workflows
Set clear guidelines to ensure users access the right assets, at the right time, with the right permissions.
Strong governance reduces risk, supports compliance, and protects intellectual property.

7. Train, Launch, and Drive Adoption Strategically
A successful DAM rollout requires planning beyond implementation:

8. Monitor Performance and Optimize Over Time
Once launched, treat your DAM like a living system:

Want to see a MediaValet DAM in action? Take the self-guided tour here!

DAM: A Smarter Way to Manage Manufacturing Content

DAM isn’t just a marketing tool—it’s an operational advantage. For manufacturers, it’s the key to navigating growing content demands, increasing market speed, and protecting brand integrity.

From AutoCAD files to training videos, DAM ensures that the right content is in the right hands—every time.

Video is now the most consumed form of content online, whether it’s used for marketing campaigns, educational materials, internal training, or entertainment. But with this increased reliance on video comes an often-overlooked challenge: how to manage and distribute it effectively across channels, platforms, and teams. DAM for video distribution is the ideal solution.

Many organizations still rely on makeshift solutions—shared drives, manual processes, and disconnected tools—which slows production, creates confusion, and jeopardizes brand consistency. That’s where Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems come in. When equipped with the right DAM, teams can streamline workflows, improve collaboration, and ensure seamless video distribution across all touchpoints. 

In this guide, we’ll explore how to choose the right DAM system to manage your video content from upload to distribution—and everything in between. 

What Is Digital Asset Management Software? 

Digital Asset Management software (DAM) is a centralized repository for storing, organizing, retrieving, and sharing digital files. While DAMs support all types of media—from images and PDFs to 3D models—they are especially valuable for managing large and complex video files. 

DAM platforms go beyond traditional storage. They provide intelligent tagging, role-based access, usage tracking, and direct publishing capabilities, making them indispensable for any team producing or distributing a high volume of video content. 

In the context of video distribution, a DAM acts as the control center. It’s where you upload, organize, review, and then launch your content to various platforms—be it social media, your CMS, or a streaming channel. Without a DAM, organizations risk losing track of content, misusing outdated assets, and overloading creative teams with manual tasks. 

Why DAM Is Crucial for Video Distribution 

Managing video without a dedicated system often leads to a long list of pain points. Files get buried in folders, team members waste time trying to find the right clip, and publishing content across channels becomes a disjointed, manual effort. 

A DAM designed for video distribution solves these problems. It centralizes all your video content in one secure location, complete with metadata, version history, and access controls. This makes it easier to find and reuse assets, collaborate with internal and external teams, and ensure your content is consistently on-brand and up to date. 

Moreover, the right DAM allows you to push content directly to your distribution channels—automating publishing workflows and eliminating the need to download, re-upload, or reformat assets for each platform. 

Check out the free, self-guided tour of MediaValet here!

Key Features to Look for in a DAM for Video Distribution 

Choosing the right DAM system is about more than just storage space. You need a solution built to handle the specific demands of video—from upload and review to delivery and performance tracking. Below are some of the most critical features to look for when evaluating options: 

DAM for Video Distribution Feature #1: Scalability 

Your video library is only going to grow. A scalable DAM can handle increasing file sizes, a growing number of users, and expanding global needs without slowing down. Look for systems built on cloud-native infrastructure, which offer elastic storage and global content delivery networks (CDNs) to ensure fast access from anywhere in the world. 

Scalability isn’t just about space—it’s also about performance. Your team shouldn’t experience lags when previewing high-res videos or downloading large files. If you’re planning long-term growth or global content campaigns, a scalable DAM is essential. 

DAM for Video Distribution Feature #2: Advanced Video Management Capabilities 

A DAM should support more than simple file storage. Look for platforms that allow you to preview video content within the system, without needing to download it. Frame-level commenting and proofing tools are particularly helpful in creative workflows, allowing stakeholders to leave precise feedback on video content. 

Some DAMs also offer in-platform trimming tools, enabling users to trim or extract key moments from longer videos—perfect for repurposing content for social media or ad campaigns. Multi-format support ensures your DAM can handle everything from MP4s and MOVs to ProRes and 4K UHD files without a hitch. 

DAM for Video Distribution Feature #3: Distribution & Publishing Integrations 

One of the biggest advantages of using a DAM for video asset management and distribution is its ability to connect directly to your publishing platforms. Whether you’re pushing content to YouTube, your CMS, social media accounts, or internal portals, seamless integrations save time and reduce human error. 

Look for DAMs with robust APIs and pre-built integrations that support automated publishing workflows. This ensures your team can go from finalized video to live content with just a few clicks—no downloading or reformatting required. 

DAM for Video Distribution Feature #4: User Permissions & Security 

Video content often includes proprietary, sensitive, or embargoed material. Without the right access controls, you risk premature releases or unauthorized use. Choose a DAM that lets you set detailed user roles and permissions, down to the folder or file level. 

Features like password-protected links, view-only permissions, expiration dates on shared content, and detailed audit logs are critical for maintaining control. If you work in a regulated industry, make sure your DAM meets compliance standards like SOC 2, GDPR, or HIPAA. 

DAM for Video Distribution Feature #5: Collaboration & Workflow Automation 

From script to screen, video production involves multiple stakeholders—from creatives and editors to marketers and legal teams. A good DAM simplifies collaboration with built-in creative workflow tools. These might include task assignment, automated review stages, version tracking, and notifications when approvals are needed. 

Even better if your DAM integrates with project management tools like Wrike, Trello, or Monday.com, allowing teams to move seamlessly between planning and execution without hopping between platforms. 

DAM for Video Distribution Feature #6: AI-Powered Tagging and Search 

One of the biggest frustrations with managing video is poor searchability. Manually tagging assets is time-consuming and error-prone. That’s why leading DAM systems use AI and machine learning to auto-tag video content based on visual recognition, object detection, speech-to-text transcription, and facial recognition. 

With these features, users can find relevant content faster by searching for keywords, spoken phrases, or even specific people within a video—making content discovery fast, accurate, and intuitive. 

How to Evaluate a DAM for Your Organization 

Now that you know what features to look for, how do you choose the right system? Start by identifying your specific video distribution needs—consider the types of content you produce, how many people are involved in creating and approving it, and which platforms you publish to. 

From there, create a feature comparison matrix. Evaluate each DAM option based on: 

• Must-have features (like video preview, permissions, and integrations) 

• Ease of use and onboarding time 

• Pricing model (flat rate, per user, or storage-based). Learn more about DAM pricing here.

• Scalability for future growth 

• Security and compliance 

• Customer support and training resources 

Case Studies: How Organizations Use DAM for Video Distribution 

🎬 Fred Rogers Productions: Unlocking Decades of Video Archives with AI 

With over 50 years of content creation and 1,150 full-length TV episodes, Fred Rogers Productions needed a better way to access, manage, and distribute its growing library of video assets. Their legacy on-premise system was slow, unreliable, and nearly impossible for staff to use efficiently. It lacked robust search capabilities, required users to be physically onsite, and couldn’t support modern video workflows. 

That changed when the team implemented MediaValet’s cloud-based DAM. With powerful audio/video intelligence (AVI) features—such as auto-tagging, AI-powered transcription, and facial recognition—they were able to instantly search across decades of footage and find specific scenes, characters, and spoken lines within seconds. 

The impact was transformative. Every department—from social media to licensing—gained the ability to access and distribute assets faster and more effectively. Marketing teams now use branded portals to share HD clips with public television partners. Legal teams use AVI to quickly locate content requested by external stakeholders. And licensing reps use the DAM on the road to showcase curated, on-brand assets and style guides at events. 

As Jack Rowley, Digital Asset Manager, shared: 

“Using our DAM, I was able to quickly search ‘trolley’ plus that character and find all the moments across our entire library of 1,150 episodes where they’re both present.” 

What began as a content management solution evolved into a powerful storytelling tool—one that connects every team to the legacy, values, and creative potential of Fred Rogers’ work. 

🎞️ The Chosen: Delivering a Global Video Experience at Scale 

The Chosen, the first-ever multi-season series about the life of Jesus, has experienced unprecedented global success—amassing over 110 million viewers across 175 countries. But delivering a world-class video experience at that scale came with complex distribution challenges. The production team needed to manage large video files, localize content for global audiences, and collaborate with distributors and translators in real-time. 

By implementing MediaValet, The Chosen’s team gained a single source of truth for all their digital assets, from raw footage to final edits, promotional trailers, and subtitled versions. The DAM supports their end-to-end video production and distribution workflows, making it easier to: 

• Store and organize massive high-resolution video files 

• Quickly locate and share approved content 

• Collaborate across internal teams and external vendors 

• Maintain consistent brand standards across all versions 

The result? A streamlined operation that’s equipped to scale globally—without compromising quality or speed. The Chosen’s marketing and distribution teams now work in sync, ensuring that every scene, trailer, and asset is easily accessible and distributed with precision. 

Read the full story on The Chosen here.

DAM for Video Distribution: Choose Smart, Distribute Smarter 

Video content is more than just a trend—it’s an essential part of how modern organizations communicate, market, and educate. But without the right tools, managing and distributing video at scale can quickly become a burden. 

By choosing a DAM system built for video distribution, your team can streamline workflows, reduce friction in the review and publishing process, and make better use of your content across all channels. Take the time to evaluate your needs, compare options, and invest in a solution that will grow with you. 

As video content continues to dominate marketing, training, and communications, organizations are faced with a growing challenge: how to efficiently store, manage, and distribute their video assets. Without a structured approach, video files become scattered, difficult to find, and hard to manage across teams. Efficient video asset management is critical.

This is where Digital Asset Management (DAM) emerges as the ideal solution for Video Asset Management (VAM). Unlike standalone video cms, a DAM platform provides a comprehensive approach to managing video alongside all other digital content, offering better organization, accessibility, security, and scalability.

In this article, we’ll explore why organizations choose DAM for video distribution and management, its benefits, key features, and how to implement it effectively. 

What is Video Asset Management? 

Video asset management (VAM) refers to the process of organizing, storing, retrieving, and distributing video content efficiently. While standalone VAM systems exist, they often lack the flexibility and integration capabilities of a full-featured DAM solution.

A Digital Asset Management (DAM) system enhances video asset management by allowing organizations to:

• Store videos alongside other assets (images, documents, etc.) in a singular digital asset library
• Use AI-powered metadata tagging for easier search and retrieval
• Ensure secure sharing and access control across different teams and stakeholders
• Integrate with content creation, marketing, and distribution platforms

By implementing a DAM for video asset management, businesses centralize all their digital assets in one place, streamlining video workflows and making collaboration more efficient.

Interested in a self-directed tour of the MediaValet platform? Check it out here!

Benefits of Implementing DAM for Video Asset Management 

1. Centralized Storage for All Digital Assets

A major issue with standalone video cms is that they only manage videos, leaving other creative assets scattered across different platforms. With a DAM system, all assets—videos, images, documents, graphics, and more—are stored in a single, searchable repository.

This eliminates confusion, prevents file duplication, and ensures that everyone on the team has access to the latest approved versions of assets, including video content.

2. Enhanced Searchability with AI and Metadata Tagging

Searching for video files by filename alone is inefficient, especially in large organizations with extensive media libraries. A DAM system enhances video asset management with advanced metadata and AI-powered tagging.

With a DAM, users can search for videos by keywords, tags, facial recognition, object detection, and even speech-to-text transcripts. This significantly reduces the time spent looking for the right video and allows teams to work more efficiently.

3. Secure Access and Permissions Control

Many businesses handle sensitive video content, such as internal training materials, product demos, and confidential corporate footage. A DAM provides advanced security features, including:

• Role-based access controls (limit who can view, edit, or download video files)
• Watermarking and encryption to protect against unauthorized use
• Audit logs to track access history and compliance with company policies

These security measures ensure that only the right people have access to critical video assets, reducing risks of leaks or misuse.

4. Seamless Collaboration and Workflow Automation

Managing video projects involves multiple stakeholders, from content creators and editors to marketing teams and legal reviewers. A DAM enables efficient collaboration by:

• Automating proofing and approval processes to speed up content reviews
• Providing version control to avoid confusion over the latest edits
• Integrating with video editing tools like Adobe Premiere Pro

With built-in workflow automation, teams can move projects forward faster, ensuring deadlines are met without compromising quality.

5. Effortless Distribution and Publishing

Once a video is finalized, it needs to be shared across various platforms. A DAM simplifies video distribution by allowing teams to publish directly to:

• Websites and blogs
• Social media (YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook)
• Learning Management Systems (LMS) for training purposes
• Email campaigns and marketing automation platforms

By managing all video distribution channels from one platform, DAM helps teams maintain brand consistency, optimize video formats, and track engagement metrics, performance analytics, optimize formats for different platforms, and ensure content consistency across multiple channels. 

Key Features to Look for in a DAM System for Video Asset Management

When evaluating a DAM solution for managing video assets, it’s essential to ensure it aligns with your organization’s needs. Here are the most important features to consider: 

Step 1: Assess Your Needs

Identify the challenges your organization faces in managing video assets, such as disorganized storage, slow retrieval times, or compliance issues.

Step 2: Choose the Right DAM Solution

Select a DAM system that offers video-specific features, AI tagging, security measures, and integration capabilities that align with your business needs.

Step 3: Develop Metadata and Tagging Standards

Establish consistent metadata rules for categorizing and tagging videos, ensuring that all assets remain easily searchable over time.

Step 4: Train Your Team

Provide training on best practices for uploading, tagging, retrieving, and distributing video content within the DAM to maximize efficiency.

Step 5: Monitor and Optimize

Regularly analyze system performance, user adoption, and video engagement metrics to improve workflows and ensure your DAM strategy remains effective.

While standalone video content management systems offer some benefits, a DAM platform is the superior solution for managing video content at scale. A DAM provides centralized storage, advanced search capabilities, secure access control, seamless collaboration, and effortless distribution—all in one system.

By implementing a DAM for video asset management, organizations reduce inefficiencies, improve content discoverability, and enhance video workflows. Investing in the right DAM solution ensures your video assets remain organized, secure, and easily accessible for years to come.

Want to see how a DAM can transform your video asset management and workflows? Book a demo today! 

In the current digital era, the ability to manage, access, and share digital assets efficiently has become a cornerstone for successful business operations. With the advent of digital asset management (DAM) solutions, organizations can store, organize, and retrieve media files or other digital content with ease.

But business is no longer just confined to the office; it’s dynamic, agile, and mobile, and your DAM should be too.

Mobile access to DAM can have a transformative impact on how quickly teams can share and access assets and influence online presence.

How DAM on the Go Streamlines Operations

MediaValet’s optimized interface is meticulously designed to cater to the needs of users who are constantly on the move, providing mobile access to their asset library, no matter which device they’re using.

The MediaValet mobile interface is compatible across various mobile devices, ensuring a consistent and efficient user experience no matter where you sign on.

When a user accesses MediaValet through their mobile device, a pop-up will automatically appear prompting them to switch to MediaValet Mobile. By clicking the button, they will be re-directed to the Mobile web-app.

As long as the device is able to access a browser and has an internet connection, users can utilize MediaValet Mobile.

Digital Asset Management on the Go

The concept of digital asset management on the go is centered around the ability to manage digital assets effectively, irrespective of location. MediaValet’s approach ensures that whether you are in a remote location, traveling for business, or working from different sites, your digital asset library is just a few taps away on your mobile device. This mobility fundamentally changes how businesses interact with their digital content, making processes more streamlined and responsive.

Uploading Assets on the Go

One of the key features of MediaValet Mobile is the ability to upload digital assets from anywhere, at any time. Whether it’s capturing live event photos, recording on-site client testimonials, or creating digital content on the fly, users can easily upload these assets to their DAM system directly from their mobile devices. This feature is crucial for teams that require real-time updates and content sharing, ensuring that they can capture, share, and store valuable assets as they happen.

Downloading Assets on the Go

Downloading assets on the go is another significant advantage of MediaValet Mobile. Users can access and download required files from their mobile asset library with ease, ensuring they have the necessary documents, images, or videos for presentations, meetings, or on-site client interactions. This capability not only enhances productivity but also provides a level of agility and responsiveness that is essential in today’s fast-paced business environment.

Practical Applications of MediaValet Mobile

Accelerated Marketing: Higher Education and DAM Mobile

Consider a university during graduation day. The atmosphere is buzzing with excitement and pride. In such moments, capturing and sharing memories instantly becomes crucial.

MediaValet Mobile offers a seamless solution for the university’s social media team. They can swiftly capture high-quality images and upload them to a designated category in the DAM system. These images are then automatically synced to a Branded Portal, this is a tailored digital gallery, accessible to students, families, and even those who could not attend.

The ability to share these moments in real-time exemplifies the power of uploading assets on the go, enhancing the overall experience of the event and streamlining marketing efforts.

Streamlined Workflows: Entertainment Organizations and DAM Mobile

Imagine a high-stakes sports game where capturing and sharing every moment is critical. With MediaValet Mobile, a team’s marketing team can snap photos of key plays, scores, and other moments and instantly upload them to the DAM system.

The design team can access these photos in real-time, add necessary enhancements, and send them back for immediate posting.

This streamlined workflow captures the essence of downloading and uploading assets on the go, enabling the team to engage with fans through timely and relevant content.

Agile Sales Enablement: Sales Teams in the Field and DAM Mobile

Mobility is a key factor in sales teams’ success. MediaValet Mobile empowers these teams with mobile access to their comprehensive digital asset library.

During client visits, conferences, or on-the-fly meetings, a sales representative can quickly access and present relevant product images or marketing materials directly from their smartphone.

This instant access to digital assets not only aids in delivering compelling pitches but also demonstrates the company’s efficiency and preparedness. Furthermore, the ability to share these assets instantly with clients enhances the customer experience and can accelerate the sales process.

With responsive, optimized mobile access to a DAM, businesses can keep pace with the dynamic demands of the modern world. Whether uploading assets on the go, downloading files for immediate use, or accessing and sharing a vast library of digital content from a mobile device, MediaValetMobile stands as a testament to the power of technology in enhancing business efficiency and connectivity.

In hosting some of the most frequent and exhilarating live events known to the entertainment world, content libraries within the sports industry are overflowing with thousands of hours of video footage.

To put it into perspective:

“Each game is going to give you about 25-40 hours worth of records.”
Tab Butler, Major League Baseball

Sports marketing initiatives all begin with the content captured by the video and photography teams during live games and events, and preserving this content is highly valuable in creating memorable fan experiences. The bottleneck in this case is that often only a few individuals have in-depth knowledge of these assets and as a result, they’re constantly relied on to find the stills and videos that are crucial to telling your team’s story. This causes significant time delays and increases the chance for missing opportunities to interact with the team’s fans.

These pains are causing sports teams to turn to a digital asset management system to manage their growing content. By storing rich media files in a DAM, sports teams are able to provide self-serve access to the assets they need, resulting in strengthened workflow throughout the organization.

“Building a DAM for a sports league is a categorical imperative. You have to do it. No one really has the number of live events that we do over the course of a year, and you have to be able to find what you’re looking for.”
Grant Nodine, National Hockey League

Sports organizations see huge improvements to their results after implementing a DAM system, but these are two benefits we hear again and again:

Increase Revenue Generating Opportunities

As a digital marketer in the sports industry, there are many opportunities to drive revenue through your content and media library, but there are also opportunities lost due to the lack of organization and structure in your current file-storing and sharing systems. Think of your corporate partners for instance – if they can’t find the assets they need to streamline a sponsorship campaign, they miss the chance to increase revenue and build the sponsorship pipeline.

Your team can be spending days looking for a single asset across your different storage systems, which is where a central media library, like a DAM, comes into play. By making the library of team content accessible to support sponsorships, partners, and retail divisions, you’ll be increasing the productivity of these revenue generating departments.

Here’s how a DAM will help drive revenue across your organization:

1. Consumer and Product Marketing: allow easy access to all approved assets to expand content-driven campaigns to influence ticket sales.

2. Video Production, Digital Media and Publications: eliminate hours of administrative responses to image and media requests and maximize content and media usage.

3. Corporate Partnership Services: enable sponsorship teams to quickly search and browse through assets that can be used to create new, engaging content experiences.

4. Retail Operations: leverage discoverable content via functions like advanced search, browsing, and asset ratings in order to streamline new merchandise development.

5. Team Photography: increase productivity by reducing the amount of time spent by the team searching for and formatting content for other departments.

Whether it be game, interview, culture, fan, arena experience, or b-roll content, a DAM will allow you to enable your teams by providing immediate access to approved media and content. With these functionalities in mind, the ability to create new revenue generating opportunities throughout your organization will become increasingly practical.

Expand Fan Engagement

The rabid enthusiasm of sports fans is first established through their love of the game and the athletes involved. By having videos and stills of the sporting event available to be used for content driven-campaigns, fans are able to maintain this level of enthusiasm from pre to post game. Videos and photos are what respective sports fans typically engage with the most. Whether it’s an Instagram post or a TV ad, your assets are extremely valuable in creating conversation between your team and the fans. In order to truly maximize an omni-channel fan experience, the ability to search for and easily access your rich media files is crucial.

In the sports industry, your digital assets act as emotional connectors for the fans. Think of special moments at a game – like when a fan catches a ball from the stands and has that look of pure excitement on their face. You can probably also recount various situations in which footage of a player’s outstanding goal went viral. An essential step in increasing fan engagement is being be able to provide more of this memorable content, more often, through multiple digital channels and marketing materials.

Let’s look at how your team can utilize a DAM to strengthen fan experiences:

1. Consumer and Product Marketing: use advanced search capabilities and integrations (e.g., Hootsuite) to increase the consistency of fan experiences across all channels.

2. Video Production, Digital Media and Publications: enable self-serve access to the entire content library in order to quickly find and share game, interview, culture, fan, and many more assets that resonate with fans.

3. Corporate Partnership Services: provide a well-curated reference library to easily navigate through and drive engagement with new sponsorship campaigns.

4. Retail Operations: access merchandise designs, approved logos, and brand guidelines to ensure brand consistency and create new merchandise for fans to purchase.

5. Team Photography: enable quick uploading of finalized assets (post-game) to speed up the photo and video sharing process on your team’s digital channels.

It’s one thing to have a good media and PR strategy, but in order to amplify and productively execute these projects, you need to be able to easily access all approved game, corporate and community content. By leveraging a DAM system to access and share the whole breadth of your game and archive media, you will be sure to see an increase in fan engagement.

These are just a couple of the ways in which digital asset management can be the most valuable player in your next sports marketing initiative, but the list goes on!

A strong brand is one of the largest assets for a franchising business. The company’s brand is, essentially, its promise to a customer about what experience to expect and consistency across all locations is of paramount importance. That also means that there is a large risk for the entire franchising business associated with non-compliance. If even one franchisee doesn’t meet the brand experience guidelines, the entire company’s reputation could be at risk.

To build a successful franchise, it’s important to have systems in place to support and enable your franchisees, without risking your brand. While a franchisor can see the business at a high level and understands that the integrity of the brand is what drives long-term performance, many franchisees are challenged to balance driving profits and maintaining brand standards at the same time. As a result, more and more franchise organizations are introducing technology platforms like digital asset management to create a process that builds brand integrity and enables franchisees to succeed.

Here are 3 key ways that a digital asset management (DAM) system can help mitigate the risk of non-compliance, by empowering your franchisees with the brand materials and training they need to be successful.

Up-to-Date Branding Material

As mentioned, one of the biggest risks that a company takes on when becoming a franchise is the potential for a franchisee to disrupt the brand’s reputation. This risk makes it extra important for franchisors to take every step possible to get the correct brand materials in the hands of those who need them. Without direct access to the assets they need, franchisees will often resort to non-compliant forms of branding, communicating and promoting, creating an inconsistent and disruptive experience for customers.

At the heart of it, a DAM acts as a central library to improve collaboration across multiple departments, offices and locations worldwide, by providing users with secure access to brand logos, photos, videos and documents. By giving your franchisees a single library to find brand guidelines, up-to-date logos, and marketing materials, you’re giving your franchisees the ability to access the assets they need, reducing the need for them to revert to external sources for collateral (such as old logos and inaccurate company details).

Example: A franchisee is reaching the end of the month, and notices that their revenue is particularly low, and they want to offer a promotion to entice more customers to buy before the end of the month. Without a DAM system, it’s common for franchisees to create their own promotions, which may or may not be in line with the brand (both in design and offer). With a DAM in place, however, franchisees can quickly find pre-approved promotions and/or templates that allow them to attract additional customers, while still remaining compliant with the overall brand.

Adapt to Local Markets

When thinking about franchise locations, franchisors have to understand that not all markets are built the same. Consumers in different countries, regions, or even neighborhoods have differing preferences that need to be taken into consideration when deciding what services & products to offer, what marketing tactics to select, and what branding to use throughout each store.

With multi-level permissions and categories within a DAM, franchisors can share marketing materials specific to each local market, to ensure that franchisees’ needs are met, while the brand itself remains intact. This helps boost profits in local regions, while keeping the head office satisfied with consistent branding.

Example: A food franchise located in a hotter market has a higher demand for ice cream than the same franchise in cooler locations. As a result, the franchisor chooses to expand their ice cream product line in the hotter market, requiring new menu prints, promotional posters, coupons, and more, as well as new recipes. While the franchisor wants some locations to have access to this collateral, it would be detrimental if these signs and menus showed up in a store that didn’t carry the new products. With a DAM in place the franchisor can mitigate this risk by only making these assets available to a select group of franchisees (using permissions).

Consistent Training and Guides

In addition to a consistent visual brand, it’s equally important for customers to have a consistent brand experience, regardless of the location. To achieve this, all franchisee managers need to be exposed to the same training, so they follow the same rules and guidelines. By extension, all new and existing employees should be educated using the same guides, videos and worksheets.

With a DAM, you can give your franchisees instant access to all training materials, ensuring everyone is receiving the same information. And with online previewing for documents and videos, franchisees can simply open the training category in the DAM and view it all within the system (no downloading necessary). This means training materials can be updated as necessary without the need to re-send documents in various notification emails. It’s also an added bonus when the DAM has a mobile app, so training documents can be viewed on the fly, without the need for a desktop. Having a consistent training program is one of the first steps in making sure that every employee follows the same safety, cleanliness, and customer service standards.

Example: A customer comes into a restaurant to order a meal and states that they’re allergic to peanuts. Without a consistent training procedure in place, employees can be unsure of how to handle allergy requests, potentially resulting in a trip to the emergency room and a costly law-suit. With a DAM, managers can quickly access the most up-to-date training documents, ensuring that all employees know the right procedures for any situation.

Learn More About Digital Asset Management

These three examples only brush the surface of what a DAM has to offer for franchises – to learn more about digital asset management and how it can improve your business, take a look at our recent blog post, What is Digital Asset Management.

In this day and age, companies have to include visual elements as part of almost every communication, be it their marketing campaigns, sales presentations or recruitment efforts. For many businesses, teams across multiple departments require quick and efficient access to images, photos, videos and other types of brand and corporate materials that can be incorporated into emails, presentations, blogs and more. However, many organizations have been using the same process and/or technological solution to manage their photo, video and other digital media in their collection for a decade or more. We’d like to share with you 4 common marketing failures and explain how they can be avoided with a digital asset management system (DAM).

1. Inability to find assets

The ability to find the right image at exactly the right time can mean a difference between winning or losing a customer, meeting or blowing up a campaign deadline and issuing a release on time versus running into legal compliance issues. Inability to find the needed assets can result from many things: not having a centralized system to manage digital assets, having an outdated or legacy system with unreliable search or unintuitive structure, overall poor tagging and assigning metadata practices or even access issues where users can’t use the resources they need. Whichever the root cause is, the results can be disastrous for the business and the marketing team gets the blame.

A Real-World Solution

ATOMIC is a great example or relying on their DAM system to win the business with just-in-time search. ATOMIC is a Pennsylvania-based company that builds sets and stage design for a wide variety of live events from music concerts to academic panels. The marketing and sales teams use high-quality images and videos to show prospective clients the value they can provide and discuss aspects of their past work to create a vision for future clients. With a shift in their client base that came from their expansion into non-musical markets, their legacy system was holding teams back from showing off their best work to new clients. ATOMIC needed a solution that never failed to produce the images they needed when they needed them.

One team member said, “The biggest thing we wanted was a cloud-based digital asset management system that had impeccable search capabilities.”

Being able to locate very specific assets at the drop of a hat became a dire need that their old system could not fulfill, but with an updated DAM all employees are benefiting from easy and quick searching. The employees are happy with the seamless workflow around the digital assets, and potential clients benefit because the employees are able to present the best-fit examples of past work.

Taking It Up a Level

Providing a centrally managed repository for corporate digital assets is a great first step. The next step is integrating these assets seamlessly into the company-used applications, removing the steps and placing marketing assets at employee’s fingertips. We expand on this idea in our latest eBook – Maximizing Value of Digital Assets.

2. Failure to share images and media effectively

For many organizations action happens in the field, where their customers are, especially if they have global operations with offices located across the world. Marketing’s role is to support every team, regardless of their location with materials that represent their brand, help win new customers or support existing ones.

On the other hand, it’s employees across the organization that are able to provide the marketing department with the visual resources that fuel social strategies, event follow-up and impactful customer stories. Where previously many teams were able to rely on email, as the image and video size increase, volumes of images have increased ten-fold.

The real problems occur when the images get lost or can’t be sent over with the existing technology solutions. Photos from events need to be sent and uploaded while the event is going on and the attendees are still engaged in sharing event photos. Customer video testimonial must be approved and edited in time for the release. Additionally, the latest updated booth design needs to be shared in its highest resolution. Failure to share any of these assets can drastically affect marketing team performance and jeopardize thousands of dollars invested in the success of the initiative.

A Real-World Solution

Canadian Blood Services is responsible for collecting and managing blood donations and supply across the nation. Before adopting a cloud-based DAM, Canadian Blood Services experienced a work process break down because staff, employees and volunteers had no way to get photos and videos and use them in their campaigns. For them, the issue had been getting photos into the hands of staff and volunteers who were working tirelessly in the field. The non-profit noticed impact of social sharing of emotional images immediately and realized that they had a huge positive effect on their initiatives. But their 13-year-old system required that someone in the central office search for, download, and then attach every single image or video in an email. These emails ended up with piles of attachments, sometimes files were too large, and staff wasted time rendering new file sizes as well as creating multiple emails for each and every person who needed an image. They solved all of this by deploying a cloud-based DAM that would provide instant access to all field-based employees and drive social reach with powerful event images.

Taking It Up a Level

Using a DAM helps seamlessly and effectively share media and marketing assets of any size between teams and ensure that no files or assets are lost in transition and there are no delays. Integrating the company’s media library and DAM solution right into the tools, such as Hootsuite Enterprise, enables even more employees to share the brand story with approved images at their fingertips. Take a look at the discussion on the power of visual images and social sharing in Maximizing the Value of Digital Assets Enterprise-Wide.

3. Misused Assets

Sometimes the issue isn’t just a lack of access, but a failure to make it clear to employees which images are the most up-to-date. A major nightmare for marketing teams is for promotional materials to get sent out live with unapproved images or outdated logos. This happens more than you’d think it would, and when it does, the corporate brand suffers.

A Real-World Solution

The Pancreatic Cancer Action Network is a non-profit that aims to significantly increase funding and eventually find a cure for pancreatic cancer. Their primary pain was similar to Canadian Blood Services, but the manifestation was a little different. While they had never formally adopted a digital asset management system, they had been creating an ad hoc solution on their own system since they came together as a formal organization in 1999. The Pancreatic Cancer Action Network stored all of its visual materials on a diverse set of corporate servers and personal hard drives located across multiple locations. The problem arose because their community outreach and fundraising events across the country had grown significantly since the late 90s, yet their system for accessing and using visual materials had not changed. No one had a clear understanding of what images and videos the organization actually had, and even if they did know, they had no way to access them without a request and search process. Multiple times, outdated materials were sent out live because there was no central collection of images and no process to manage that lack of centralization. Once they adopted a DAM, volunteers and staff had access to all the organization’s assets when they needed them, no matter their location. Essentially, this tool has allowed them to streamline their photo, video and other digital asset sharing process both internally and externally.

4. Unknown Assets

Speaking of unknown assets, this is something that happens more than you’d think. Often the problem is that long-standing employees who previously handled the management and distribution of digital assets leave the company and take valuable knowledge of current digital media files and folders as well as their locations with them. Without the knowledge of what media materials currently exist, teams don’t have enough information to make cost-effective decisions on what photos and videos to shoot in the future. Marketing teams are likely to back-track and re-create items that already exist, as well as draw from an incomplete library when creating new marketing and promotional products.

A Real-World Solution

When the Portland Japanese Garden embarked on their $33.5M garden expansion project, they had no idea what they would unearth. The expansion was a major transformation of the garden itself, but the marketing team also used the project as an opportunity to re-evaluate some of their internal process. One of the biggest pains experienced was around photos and videos of the garden. Employees that were no longer with the organization had created a file-naming system in which individual files and folders were given arbitrary names that contained no reference to the content of the actual image or video. Without the person that originally set up the file names and folders, searching for a photo was nearly impossible for the new additions to the marketing team. The team knew they had to completely overhaul the organization structure of all their photos and videos. They chose a DAM as their solution, and once the Japanese Garden began uploading their assets to the DAM, they uncovered hundreds of photos no one even knew existed because they were hidden by unsearchable file and folder names. The process of onboarding their assets to the DAM recovered hundreds of valuable photos, and now they have all of their files located in one central media library.

How to Move Forward and Reach a Successful Solution in Your Organization

All of these organizations chose to adopt a DAM because it was one of the only solutions to completely solve these aches and pains. If you are experiencing similar issues or other kinds of failure to manage your digital assets, consider downloading this ebook, Maximizing the Value of Your Digital Assets.