How to Overhaul Your Creative Asset Management Workflow In 2023

Introduction

Content is the lifeblood of every business that promotes itself online, be it an e-commerce brand or a digital marketing agency.

Maintaining your online presence means you need to consistently create relevant content for your marketing campaigns and share it across multiple channels like social media, emails and websites. So, it’s safe to say that you deal with a ton of content daily. You might even have a team of photographers, designers, animators and marketers who work together to create top-notch content for you.

Creative assets, such as images, videos, podcasts and landing pages are the key to promoting products, attracting customers and driving sales. But here’s the thing — if you still use age-old creative asset management (CAM) practices, you’re setting your team up for operational inefficiencies. They’ll have a hard time collaborating, sharing feedback and getting approvals from external stakeholders.

The solution is to overhaul your creative asset management workflow with the right tools. But using standalone tools to store, edit and share assets isn’t enough.

Common Creative Asset Management Challenges

To understand the common challenges creative teams face, let’s take the example of creating an e-commerce website. You’ll have the following professionals working on the project. Here are just a few of the use cases:

• Web developers to build your website’s user interface and user experience

• Photographers to capture awesomelooking product images

• Graphic designers to create various web elements, including logos and banners

In the absence of a CAM platform, each team member will store their assets on their computers and share them with others via email or a platform like WeTransfer. Or they might use a cloud storage solution like Dropbox or Google Drive.

Every time an asset needs to be edited, its author/owner will receive an email with the list of the required changes. Once the next version is ready, they’ll email it to the other team members or the project manager for approval.

That’s a ton of back-and-forth in the same email chain. Things become even more complicated when you have to get approvals from external stakeholders, such as clients. Even incorporating a third-party project management tool doesn’t help much.

Let’s explore these traditional workflow challenges in more detail.

Lack of Version Control

Each team member might have access to different versions of the same asset. It can be difficult and time-consuming to assess each version, compare them and identify the final one. This can lead team members to use the wrong version or override another team member’s work.

Besides slowing down the process, this can also increase production costs. Worse still, it becomes difficult to maintain consistent branding in every version of the asset.

Collaboration Roadblocks

Communicating feedback and approving assets via email can result in a slow and inefficient workflow. Also, pinpointing specific details that need to be changed in an image, video, or audio file becomes difficult. That, in turn, can disrupt workflow due to communication gaps. These issues can be even more pronounced when your team works remotely.

Compromised Safety

Tools like Dropbox or WeTransfer don’t give you enough control to prevent unauthorized access to your assets. Once you share the link to an asset with someone, you have little control over how they use or misuse it. They can easily share it with others or even use it as their own asset.

Incompatible Creative Tech Stack

Using standalone tools to design, share and store assets increases friction in your creative workflow. Each tool will have specific file size, format, and resolution requirements. Team members will have to check and meet these specifications, slowing down the workflow even further.

How do you overcome these creative workflow challenges? A simple yet effective solution is to use a creative asset management solution, a subset of digital asset management (DAM) software.

Modern CAM platforms are designed to let creative teams collaborate, regardless of location, operating systems and devices. They also offer various features to streamline creative workflows, speed up time-to-market and cut production costs.

Tips for Successful CAM Integration

Feature-rich CAM software, such as globaledit, offers a plethora of advantages to creative teams. But you can only harness these benefits when the platform seamlessly integrates into your current workflow.

In other words, it must offer the features your team members need to overcome operational roadblocks and work more efficiently.

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With the global DAM market projected to reach $8 billion

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by 2027, you’ll find myriad choices for CAM solutions. Selecting the right CAM software from the available options can be a daunting task.

Whether you’re shortlisting a few options or making the final selection, there are a few must-have CAM features to keep in mind

Cloud-Based Platformity

CAM solutions come in one of these three forms:

• On-premise

• Cloud-based

• Hybrid

Given the soaring popularity of hybrid work, chances are your creative team will be dispersed across multiple locations and time zones. They may not meet in person throughout the duration of a project. That makes cloud-based CAM software the right choice for you.

With a cloud-based CAM platform like globaledit, team members can access existing files and upload new ones from anywhere, at any time. Better still, they can work on an asset even while they’re on the move. All they need is a high-speed internet connection.

That said, it’s important to ensure that the CAM platform you select is compatible

with leading cloud service providers — Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud Platform. This will ensure you can seamlessly use other tools, such as Microsoft 365 or Google Drive, alongside the CAM platform. If your team also uses on-premise video editing or image processing tools, it’s wiser to look for a hybrid CAM solution.

Easy File Transfer and Distribution

Whether you choose cloud-based or hybrid CAM software, it’s important to evaluate how easily you can import and share assets from the platform. Ask the following questions:

• Does the platform support specific formats of images, videos and audio files?

• What’s the process of importing your existing assets to the tool?

• How easy is it to distribute assets once they’re ready?

The answers to these questions will help you determine whether a CAM platform fits your needs.

For instance, with globaledit Sync, you can upload files as they’re created. This ensures that other team members can review assets and share their feedback in real time instead of waiting until the asset is ready .

Let’s say you’re shooting an ad. The cinematographer’s assistant can upload raw files to the workspace during the shoot. Editors and sound engineers can check these files and determine whether any particular shot needs to be retaken, eliminating the cost and time associated with patch shoots.

globaledit also supports integration with cloud storage solutions like Dropbox and Google Drive. That makes importing files and creating a centralized repository of all your assets easier.

Similarly, globaledit lets you use public links to distribute assets directly to clients and other departments, such as marketing and sales. That, in turn, eliminates the need to upload files to a third-party platform like Google Drive or WeTransfer for sharing.

Versioning and Customization

The right CAM platform should provide you with a comprehensive view of an asset’s versions. Check the following while evaluating any CAM solution:

• Does it retain previous versions of an asset?

• How easy is it to distinguish between different versions?

With globaledit’s Versioning feature, users can mark the final version and retain a record of all previous versions in a single thumbnail. This eliminates the need to scroll endlessly through multiple folders to track the history of changes made to an asset.

You can even compare different versions by placing them side by side, in a slider or overlaid. This minimizes the risk of overriding another team member’s work and losing usable versions.

Searchability

If you want to improve your creative workflow’s efficiency, you must ensure that it’s easy to find the right assets at the right time. A CAM platform should serve as more than a dashboard that assimilates all your assets.

Instead, it should simplify and speed up the process of finding those assets. Check whether you can use metadata, such as location, creation date and author, to find different assets. And find out whether metadata added to assets on the CAM software is searchable on third-party tools.

globaledit makes it easier and faster to find the right assets with the following features:

• Expandable search terms

• Intelligent asset recommendations

• Tool-friendly metadata format

That means you no longer have to open multiple folders on different computers and cloud storage apps to find one file. Instead, you can type in specific keywords related to an asset and locate it. You’ll even get auto-generated suggestions to expand your search query. Plus, you can use tags to logically group assets into collections, further improving searchability.

Collaboration Tools

One of the key reasons why creative teams should use CAM software is to ensure hassle-free collaboration. But not all CAM solutions support the same level of collaboration. While most cloud-based platforms offer easy access to assets, you need additional features to build a seamless workflow.

Ask the following questions when comparing different CAM solutions:

• Does it let users directly annotate assets?

• What’s the process of communicating feedback and requesting changes?

• How easy is it to approve or reject assets once they’re ready?

globaledit offers a vast array of tools to facilitate uninterrupted collaboration. Think of it as a virtual workspace where team members can brainstorm ideas, give feedback and execute a project.

The Markup Editor lets users annotate assets, marking specific areas on visuals that need to be changed. You can add comments and tag relevant team members to explain the required changes.

The best part? All these details are updated in real time and visible to everyone involved. That means team members can track feedback and quickly get started with edits. No need to send emails to the entire team every time you need minor tweaks to an asset.

It’s just as straightforward to get assets approved — both internally and externally. Whenever an asset is ready, users can add it to Approval Galleries. Any stakeholder, be it a project manager or client, can review each asset and select “Approve” or “Kill” and add comments to explain why. The asset status and comments update in real time, giving your team complete visibility.

Automation Capabilities

From content management systems and customer relationship management platforms to image editing software, you will likely use various tools in your creative workflow. If the selected CAM doesn’t support integration with these tools, you’ll have to transfer assets manually between them.

Worse still, you might have to change an asset’s format or size before transferring it. This can bog down your process and workflow.

The good thing is that the best CAM solutions are compatible with prominent tools that you might have in your creative tech stack. And that helps automate your workflow.

For instance, globaledit integrates with commonly used tools, including Adobe Photoshop, WordPress, HubSpot, and Mailchimp. Whether you’re implementing an email marketing campaign or designing a landing page, these integrations come in handy.

The Photoshop integration lets you edit images directly on your globaledit dashboard. The markups on an image are available as individual layers, making it even easier to retouch. Similarly, with the Mailchimp integration, you can embed images and videos directly into your emails.

globaledit even integrates with project management tools like Airtable, making it easier to track and update project status automatically. You can even automate the process of assigning tasks as a project is created and updated.

Integration with Dropbox and Google Drive ensures that assets are automatically available in cloud storage whenever they’re added to the CAM dashboard. Assets update automatically every time you make any changes.

Finally, globaledit offers access to API keys for custom integrations, making it possible to integrate the platform with proprietary tools.

Security

Make sure the CAM platform you select deploys robust security measures to protect your assets.

Start by carefully reading the software provider’s privacy policy to find out whether it’s compliant with privacy laws, such as COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act), GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), and HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act).

Next, check whether it uses standard practices, such as data encryption and SSL (secure socket layer), to safeguard your assets from cyberattacks.

globaledit takes things up a notch by letting you control access to individual assets. You can create different roles for team members and set specific assignments for each role. And you can grant and revoke access to assets or folders based on a user’s role.

Even while sharing assets using public links, you can set expiration dates and passwords to prevent unauthorized access. It’s also easy to add watermarks to assets and control their opacity, position, and size. You can even set specific permissions to hide or show watermarks to users in particular roles. This flexibility can be instrumental in preventing copyright infringement.

Leveraging Your New CAM-Enabled Workflow

By now, you have a clear idea of what to look for in a CAM solution. But before you start using a new platform, you must develop a few best practices to make the most of it.

If you’ve made the right choice, your new CAM software will help you:

• Modify your workflow

• Track performance

• Determine whether you’re headed in the right direction

Below are a few key benefits you should leverage.

Faster Time to Market

The right CAM software eliminates roadblocks at every stage of your workflow, from ideation and production to final approval. Version control capabilities combined with real-time feedback sharing help speed up execution.

Also, the ability to organize assets, group them into collections and easily locate them minimizes clutter. And given that your team can edit assets and share feedback from any device or location in real time, it’s possible to weed out collaboration challenges.

CAM platforms even automate various

aspects of project management. You no longer have to rely on emails or third-party messaging apps to check an asset’s status or follow up on requested changes. These details are automatically updated on your workspace, which helps streamline your workflow.

The end result is that each team member can focus on their core responsibilities instead of being overwhelmed with administrative tasks. This ensures speedy execution every time.

Team Monitoring

With a modern CAM platform, you have extensive control over each team member’s role and responsibilities in a project. You can track how they’re using and sharing different assets. This helps you determine whether certain assets are being underutilized.

The integration with project management tools makes it easier to understand what tasks they’ve completed and what they’re working on at any given time. You can even check their progress on those tasks without sending follow-up emails.

Such granular insights can help you make informed decisions about project priorities and resource allocation. You’ll also be better prepared to tackle potential delays and roadblocks.

Longer Asset Lifecycle

When you have all your assets consolidated in a central, easily searchable dashboard, it’s easier to repurpose them and maximize their longevity.

Let’s say you’re building a landing page to promote an upcoming webinar similar to another webinar you hosted a few months ago. With a CAM platform, you can search for banners and sliders that were used in the landing page for the previous webinar. If you have pictures from that event, you can even compile them into a montage and add them to the new landing page. Instead of scrolling through all pictures in your database, you can filter your search using the date of the previous webinar. The ease of searching means you won’t have to regularly create new assets when you already have similar ones in place.

In the absence of CAM software, a graphic designer would have to check a ton of folders on different computers and cloud storage apps. Instead of going through that frustrating process, they might decide to design new banners and sliders altogether.

Consistent Branding

A cloud-based CAM platform serves as a single source of truth for the entire team. It ensures that all stakeholders, both internal and external, have access to the same final version of an asset. Project managers also get a complete overview of each asset’s modifications.

This gives you more control over different aspects of branding, such as font styles, color palettes and logo placement. Ultimately, you’ll maintain a consistent brand identity across different assets.

Optimized Production Costs

A CAM platform helps cut content production costs in various ways. First, it lets all stakeholders review an asset as it’s being created. They can share feedback and request edits in real time. This eliminates the need to re-do the entire thing after it’s ready, maximizing efficiency and resource utilization.

It also automates routine tasks, such as sharing updates and following up for edits and approvals. It eliminates unnecessary delays and improves overall productivity, giving team members additional time to brainstorm ways to streamline the workflow.

Then there’s the added advantage of easy content repurposing, which helps you get projects live faster and with minimal resources.

Ultimately, all these benefits translate into increased cost savings and maximize your return on investment (ROI).

Overhaul Your Workflow With the Right CAM Solution

In 2023, the use of creative asset management software is no longer restricted to content creators or media houses. Whether you’re running a digital marketing agency or e-commerce business, the right CAM software can help optimize your creative workflow.

It provides creative teams with a virtual workspace where they can collaborate. They can upload new assets, repurpose existing ones and send them for approval once they’re ready. It’s just as easy to give feedback and approve assets without disrupting workflow.

The best part? Your assets are always protected from cyberattacks and plagiarism. You can share them with third parties, including clients and other representatives, without worrying about misuse.

With a cloud-based CAM solution like globaledit, you get a plethora of benefits, including version control, metadata management and one-click sharing. You can even use globaledit’s integrations to automate your workflow, making it faster and more cost-effective.

Book a demo to see globaledit in action and find out how it can improve your creative workflow.

Sources

1. https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/digital-asset-management-market-96538567.html

2. https://www.globaledit.com/integrations/

3. https://www.globaledit.com/workflows/

4. https://www.globaledit.com/custom-integrations/