Here at Relativity, we’re strong advocates of Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems. They deliver busy marketing teams so many benefits, but often firms haven’t fully explored the functionality and advantages they offer. So what do they do, and why do you need one? Let’s explain.
What is a marketing portal?
For a start, marketing portals have a few names. They are also referred to as Marketing Management Systems (MMS), Brand Management Systems, or Web2Print. Systems enable users to create and download (or print) approved on-brand communications via a cloud-based portal.
Today’s marketers need to keep up with ever-evolving technology. While strategically teams might assess how they can best employ automation and AI, daily run rate activity also demands attention.
Most companies use Variable Data Publishing (VDP) to deliver personalised customer communications. VDP is particularly effective for products with mass personalisation, where multiple records are processed and one large job produced – whether online or offline.
However, this alone doesn’t suit everyone. A digital asset management system enables you to produce customised downloads or on-demand printing. It allows for more complex, data-driven personalisation, giving you more opportunity to segment and tailor offers.
For the best of both worlds, you can choose a system that delivers mass personalisation and on-demand printing.
Do you need Digital Asset Management?
It’s difficult for central marketing teams to deliver one-size-fits-all communications that suit everyone. As the brand grows, teams face multiple requests from multiple users for bespoke templates, emails or corporate images. Managing these requests puts the marketing focus on tactical delivery rather than strategic output.
As a result, local users sometimes produce well-intentioned collateral of their own which doesn’t fit with the brand or message.
Marketing portals are perfect for multi-site businesses, where there is one central marketing team. This may be retailers or charities with nationwide stores, b2b businesses with multiple locations, such as accountants, solicitors or recruitment firms, or any business that needs to provide remote sales teams with collateral and communications.
A DAM system also enables companies to achieve consistent global branding. Templates can be created with multiple language versions. For example, a template could be created in English and translated locally. The software will intuitively reformat the text flow on screen, and adjust accordingly. Via an approval process, central marketing can approve multi-language versions and provide on-brand communications across territories.
A digital asset management solution scales with demand. It enables colleagues to access a bank of on-brand templates for effective local delivery while enabling global reach for the brand.
Improve marketing value and ROI
Implementing a marketing portal benefits businesses in multiple ways:
Benefits for central marketing
- Save time and marketing resources
- Reduce cost of on-demand printing – cutting waste and obsolescence
- Manage ROI with reporting and improved planning
- Full approval process and administrator rights
- Control, versioning and maintenance of on-brand templates
- Fast turnaround to keep up with market trends
Benefits for local colleagues
- Highly flexible versions to suit local market
- Availability of all resources in one place
- Order and download/print on demand
- Automatic budget tracking
- Fast turnaround to optimise sales
It simplifies workflows and cuts the time spent on administration by the marketing team, freeing colleagues to concentrate on bigger picture activity. It also reduces ad-hoc spend by removing the need for designers and agencies for bespoke collateral, as templates are flexible. In addition, there are financial and reputational benefits to protecting your brand.
Outdated campaigns and printed materials are no longer an issue, as items can be printed on demand and easily updated. This also helps local teams to react to market changes and regional variances quickly, giving you the edge over competitors.
Flexible templates for proactive marketing
A DAM system offers users real flexibility as well as quality-assured marketing collateral. Templates may include brochures, direct mail, emails, sales proposals and estimates, among others. Local versions are created giving users the option to change text, images and contact details as required, within the controlled brand conditions of font, layout and colour. This achieves the perfect combination of consistency and customisation.
The software is more than an asset library. It uses data-driven content to create highly flexible documents, empowering local teams and enabling proactive marketing. You can produce the amount required, fully customised, when you need it.
A marketing portal can streamline your marketing, sales and production processes and deliver savings across the board. Leave static, generic collateral behind, and say hello to more dynamic, creative brand communications!
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Contact us to find out how a digital asset management system could work for your business. Call Nicki on 020 7846 0004