WHITE PAPER

How Digital Asset Management Is Key to Marketing Operations Management

SAS White Paper

Table of Contents

Effective Marketing Collateral Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Digital Asset Management Software: Why It Matters . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Why Marketers Need a Digital Asset Management Solution . . . . . . . 2

How Digital Asset Management Supports the Marketing Process . . 2

Features of a DAM Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Digital Asset Management:

The Centerpiece of Marketing Operations Management . . . . . . . . . 3

The content provider for this paper was Ioannis Stavridis, Business Expert, SAS Center of

Excellence for Customer Intelligence.

1

How Digital Asset Management Is Key to Marketing Operations Management

Effective Marketing Collateral ManagementThere is much more to managing marketing collateral than meets the eye . From creation to distribution, marketers need to master many process steps to enable colleagues across the enterprise to use and reuse digital assets, such as graphics, advertisements, photos, video and multimedia files . Organizational complexity makes this a much more challenging task .

In large enterprises, marketers collaborate across offices as well as with external partners in a virtual environment to create and publish media content, such as texts, graphics, photos, audio and video . They are also responsible for preserving brand image and enforcing corporate design standards . In particular, they need to ensure that colleagues, departments, branch offices and partners use templates and reuse marketing collateral in their communications with the market .

Most corporate marketing organizations struggle to keep this control while giving users the freedom to populate approved templates with messages and graphics, and create customized material as needed . Moreover, the sheer number of contributors – agencies, creative staff, decision makers, project and campaign managers, etc . – makes content or design errors more likely to occur, since the more people that are involved in a collaborative effort, such as discussing or editing a draft, the more complicated its coordination .

When a marketing organization spans multiple locations or subsidiaries, yet another layer of complexity is added as advertisement layouts, email templates, sales letters and presentations need to be formatted according to local standards and needs, and complemented with dealer addresses, sales promotions and other specific information . Against this backdrop, how can marketers:

• Makecollateralproductionmoretransparent,fasterandfailsafe?

• Grantcontributorsaccesstoup-to-dateinformationatanytime?

• Savevaluablecontentfromorganizationaloblivion,andmaximizeitsreuse?

• Enforcecorporatedesignstandardsthroughouttheenterprise,evenwhencollateralneedstobelocalized?

This is where digital asset management comes into play . As part of an overall marketing operations management strategy, digital asset management helps corporate marketing departmentscentrallymanagecreativeassetsfromproductiontoon-demanddistribution across the enterprise .

Digital Asset Management Software: Why It MattersDigital asset management software helps companies systematize the creation and administration of marketing collateral, such as boilerplates, images, brochures, sales presentations, multimedia or Web content . From draft to distribution, the entire production and approval workflow is coordinated and made transparent in an integrated, collaborative environment . The digital asset management system also serves as an always-available,centralsourceofup-to-dateinformationforauthorizedusers.

2

SAS White Paper

Why Marketers Need a Digital Asset Management SolutionDigital asset management software helps marketing organizations assert their sovereignty over the digital assets they create and own . It provides an unbureaucratic way to administer and use sensitive marketing content across the enterprise . Information scattered over multiple systems, including those of external partners, can be integrated and managed centrally . In addition, by coordinating processing steps such as approval, legal review or the application of branding guidelines, the system eliminates many typical sources of error .

How Digital Asset Management Supports the Marketing ProcessManaging marketing collateral comprises two main stages:

1 . Production

2 . Distribution

Templating

Advertising Creation Process

Provision in Digital Asset Management

Immediate Control of Results

Print-ready Output

Release

Provision

Version

CatalogStore and

Arrange

MetadataAccess

Control

Provision

Features of a DAM Solution

Production

• Avisualconfiguratorhelpsmarketingteamscreateaplethoraoftemplatesquickly,thus facilitating the reuse of digital assets .

• Userscansaveandvisualizetheirdraftsatanytime.Thisgivesthemtheopportunity to review their work immediately, varying textual and graphic input for comparison .

• Attheclickofabutton,thefinalversionissavedasahigh-resolutionPDFfilewithlinked images that are ready for print .

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How Digital Asset Management Is Key to Marketing Operations Management

• Contributionscanberoutedtocorporateheadquartersorotherauthorizedcontactsforapprovaltoensureend-to-enddocumentationaswellascompliancewith corporate design standards .

• Aftercompletionandapproval,digitalassetsarefiledinalogicalhierarchywithrole-basedaccesscontrol.

Distribution

• TheDAMsolutionenablesmarketerstoorganizedigitalassetsinamultilevelfolderhierarchy of their choice after production . To facilitate searching and access, the system automatically generates previews, thumbnails and links .

• Mediafilescanbemarkedwithmultipletags(metadata)tomakeiteasierforusersto retrieve them without exactly knowing the original context .

• Thesystemautomaticallynumbersnewversionsofafile.Previousversionsarearchived and blocked from public access .

• UsingaWebclient,bothinternalandexternalcontributorscansubmitnewcontentfrom anywhere . When administrators drag and drop those files into the designated folders, the system automatically catalogs them and adds the corresponding metadata .

• Accessrightscanbedifferentiatedbyuserrole.Tocomplywithregulatory,industryand corporate standards, administrators can specify sophisticated security policies that govern who may access which content to what extent .

Digital Asset Management: The Centerpiece of Marketing Operations ManagementGartneranalystshaverankedefficientmarketingoperationsmanagementamongthetop three missions for corporate marketing organizations to accomplish over the next few years . And digital asset management software forms the centerpiece of effective marketing operations management .

Throughconversationswithourcustomers,andfromourprojectexperience,SAShas developed a keen understanding of the challenges that chief marketing officers arefacingtoday,andwehaveinfusedthatknowledgeintoourSAS® Marketing Operations Management solution to help our customers master their toughest issues –includingdigitalassetmanagement.ContactSAStodayorvisitusonlineatsas.com/marketingoperations to find out more about the digital asset management capabilities of SASMarketingOperationsManagement.

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Learn more about SAS Marketing Operations Management online at sas.com/marketingoperations.

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