Guide to Managing Digital Assets and Product Information

If you're new to DAM platforms, the process of organizing the overwhelming amount of digital assets your company uses can seem daunting. Don't worry, though. Organizing your digital assets into a coherent structure really is a manageable task, and the right DAM platform will make it even easier.

Metadata describes your assets within the system, making it easier and faster to find what you're looking for. For this reason, pay close attention to how you use metadata when organizing digital assets. One spelling mistake can cause a file to become difficult to find. A helpful tip is to create rules for your team to follow when creating metadata. These rules could include how to specify formats, certain words to use, or anything else that will keep your metadata consistent and easy to use.

DAM platforms are designed to be used across multiple departments and by outside collaborators. To use your DAM platform with the highest efficiency, ensure that everyone knows their role and has the permissions enabled to do it effectively. However, this doesn't mean you should give everyone access to everything. Mistakes like deleted or mislabeled assets are far more likely to occur when everyone has the same level of access.

DAM platforms are created with collaboration in mind, so take advantage of these capabilities when managing your files. By keeping all comments, drafts, and other collaborative steps within the platform, you can streamline the process, increase product consistency, and reduce the number of mistakes made.

1. Define Your Goals: You should know what you want to accomplish with your DAM before organizing your assets. Whether you're looking to streamline the process, improve collaboration, or increase your reach across multiple channels, understanding your goals will help you develop the best strategy to effectively use the platform.
   
   
2. Perform an Asset Audit: Another important step toward organizing digital assets is understanding what you have. An audit will help you better understand the types of assets you have and how they're used. It will also help you catch duplicate assets to be deleted or merged.
   
   
3. Separate Assets into Categories: The categories you use may differ based on the industry you're in or the way your team operates, but some common categories can include brand assets, products, or specific departments within the company.
   
   
4. Create a Clear Folder Structure: Folder structure is crucial when determining how to organize digital assets most efficiently. Fortunately, separating assets into categories beforehand makes this step much simpler. Think of your established categories and subcategories as a map for building your folder structure. File and folder names should be descriptive but simple to ensure that they're easy to find and remember. And the layout of your folder system should be intuitive so that your assets can be found quickly. Make sure to double-check for spelling errors or overly complicated structuring to avoid any problems locating a file or folder in the future.
   
   
5.  Label Assets with Metadata: With your folder system in place, you'll next need to go through and apply the appropriate metadata to all assets. This will make it significantly easier for your team and collaborators to search for the specific assets they need.
   
   
6. Back Up and Update Your Digital Assets: As more digital assets are created for your company, make sure to add these to your DAM platform and update existing assets as needed. It's also a good idea to keep a backup of all of your assets just in case something goes wrong.

Without DAM software, managing your digital assets is going to be significantly more difficult and time-consuming. That's because DAM software includes purposefully built tools to help you accomplish the tasks involved with managing your assets.

With DAM organizer software, you'll be able to:
•    Customize how your assets are organized
•    Keep all assets in one location so they're easy to find
•    Make it easier to access and share assets with whoever needs them
•    Maintain consistent branding
•    Collaborate with other teams on projects
•    Avoid asset duplicates

PIM platforms function similarly to DAM platforms. They're both used to store, organize, access, and share important files. However, even though these platforms share several similarities, they have distinct differences. The key differentiating factor is the types of files being stored and the information contained in them. Whereas DAM is used for digital assets, a PIM platform is primarily focused on keeping all of your product information organized and readily available.
Because PIM platforms deal with different types of data, the best practices and steps involved with organizing product information differ from those used for DAM.

Multiple people will use your PIM platform to create or update product information. Instead of having people use their own approaches, use a set of rules that determines how you manage product information. This includes creating standard formats for product categories and attributes. These rules can help prevent costly mistakes from occurring.

Strive to make every aspect of your product information the best it can be. The higher-quality your product information is, the more likely it is that you will see an increase in sales. This means writing detailed product descriptions, using high-resolution images, and optimizing all areas of your product information you can.

One of the primary benefits of using a PIM platform is having all of your product information stored in one location. Despite this, many companies still choose to use multiple platforms to manage their marketing data. Doing so spreads out your product information and makes it harder to access. This leads to confusion, wasted time, and costly mistakes.

The specifics of how your data is organized within your PIM platform will differ from company to company. This is because each business has its own products, processes, and goals, which can all affect how you structure your information.

1.    Gather Product Information: Before you start organizing all of your product information, you first have to collect it. If you don't already have a PIM platform in place, this data could be spread across various departments or systems within your company. It's often a good idea to get management involved at this stage to help expedite the process.

2.    Check the Data: After you've gathered all of your product information, make sure to review and validate it. Keep an eye out for duplicate information, misspellings, incomplete descriptions, and any other issues that could lead to problems using the PIM platform in the future.

3.    Create a Product Taxonomy: A product taxonomy is a hierarchical structure you'll use to group your products by category and attributes. Creating this ahead of time will help you group your products more efficiently.

4.    Group SKUs by Product Attributes: Review your products and any commonalities they may have. This can include things like product names, specifications, descriptions, color, size, and more. A helpful tip is to start with specific details of a product and work backward into broader categories.

5.    Consider Localization: Certain aspects of your product information will have to change depending on where it's being sold. For instance, your product description may need to be translated into a different language based on region. Take this into account when organizing your product information.

6.    Test: Testing is an important last step of PIM implementation. Make sure that your systems are working as intended and that all of the product information has been imported and organized into the correct categories.

PIM organizer software can drastically improve your ability to manage product information. These systems are designed with the tools and functionality needed to market your business quickly and efficiently. With the features of PIM, you'll be able to:

•    Save time and money by streamlining the data management process
•    Improve customer experiences with fast access to reliable information
•    Experience a faster time to market for new products by making it easier to distribute product information and materials
•    Ensure brand consistency by creating one accurate source of product information

While DAM and PIM platforms are useful on their own, they're even more effective when they're combined. Using a platform that unites product information and digital assets together can help streamline your processes and improve overall productivity. That's why Image Relay created Marketing Delivery.
Marketing Delivery is an all-in-one platform that combines DAM and PIM. When you use Marketing Delivery, your teams will only need to learn one platform and will have everything they need in one place, saving time and eliminating confusion.
Marketing Delivery includes a vast assortment of tools, features, and services, such as:
•    Asset Library: A home to store, organize, and share your digital assets
•    Products Hub: A tool purposefully built to make product information management simple and intuitive
•    Collections: Use the Collections feature to curate product catalogs.
•    Integrations: Seamlessly connect Marketing Delivery to tools like Adobe InDesign and Canva.
•    Marketing Templates: Create posters, pamphlets, posts, and more using our wide selection of templates.
•    Dedicated Librarian: Our on-staff librarian can assist you with taxonomy and metadata management.

Start organizing digital assets and product information in a way that helps you get your work done more accurately and efficiently. Book a demo now to see for yourself how Marketing Delivery can help your team.