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The ROI of digital asset management: Why investing in the right tools pays off

January 2025

 

With spend and margins under scrutiny like never before, businesses need to prove the value of every pound.

You know that a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system will be an investment that pays for itself over and over – but how do you make the business case to those who hold your purse-strings?

 

How can you prove digital asset management ROI?

Your brand is a huge investment. Failing to manage your brand assets compromises this investment – but a Digital Asset Management (sometimes called a Digital Brand Management) platform can avoid this.

What risks do you face when you don’t manage your brand assets effectively – and how can a DAM remove these issues?

Here, we walk you through the impact a DAM can have, so if you have to make the case for investment to your budget holders, you know how to measure DAM ROI.

 

What is Digital Asset Management?

First – let’s make sure we’re on the same page. What does DAM stand for and how do we define a DAM?

What is a DAM? DAM is shorthand for Digital Asset Management, and describes any system that organises your digital assets. For marketing teams, these ‘digital assets’ are your brand assets: your logo, imagery, approved fonts and colour palettes; your editorial guidelines; standard content like boilerplates and regulated statements.

Digital assets may also include the standard documents that use those items – presentations, pitch documents, thought leadership and other content, including web content and digital marketing assets.

Digital Asset Management is the means by which you store, access and update those assets. Do it well, and you have the world of your brand at your fingertips, securely and easily. But if you don’t get your digital assets under control, you risk wasting time and money, and jeopardising regulatory compliance.

 

What are the costs of chaotic digital asset management?

Fail to manage your brand assets and the cost can be significant:

 

  • Creative agency costs higher than they need to be due to poor version control
  • …and more agency costs if you need to recreate assets you can’t find! Reinventing the wheel is one of the top-rated brand asset challenges
  • The costs of compliance breaches – redesigning, reprinting – as well as the potential for fines
  • Potential data security ramifications if assets are stored and shared via insecure channels
  • New products and services late to market

 

…and that’s before we consider the hidden costs – the opportunity cost of spending money on inefficient brand processes rather than proactive marketing because your Marketing team is sidetracked from revenue-driving activity. The reputational ‘misses’ via inconsistent branding. The costs of your colleagues’ time in searching for, recreating, reviewing and approving your marketing assets.

In our experience, these costs can be hugely underestimated. If you work in professional services or any firm where your people’s time is chargeable, there’s a significant cost tied up in (re)creating marketing and sales content – taking your business developers and fee earners away from their day jobs.

And of course the marketing team’s time is valuable too! Have you ever estimated how much time you spend searching for appropriate images…checking brand approval for designs…looking for that document you just know has 90% of the wording you need for your new content (then giving up, and starting again from scratch – sigh…)

 

Benefits of a DAM – beyond cost savings

On the other hand…when you invest in a DAM, not only will you achieve considerable cost savings, the benefits don’t end there. With a DAM:

 

  • You save time – imagine what you could achieve when you slash the time you spend on searching for approved images and use existing materials as the basis for new content
  • Content creation costs are reduced – whether it’s large reports or social media tiles, organising your assets in a DAM reduces the time it takes to produce content
  • You minimise the potential for compliance breaches and fines
  • Marketing teams can focus on value creation
  • You get better value from existing assets
  • Marketing campaigns deliver more, thanks to metrics enabling content refinement
  • Content gets to market faster. Time is of the essence in marketing – seize the day and get your solutions, products and thought leadership in market quicker than your competitors

 

Investing in the right DAM sounds like a clear winner, then. The direct return on investment is significant, and even if you had a DAM ROI calculator, it wouldn’t capture all the benefits.

 

DAM benefits for heavily regulated sectors

For companies in certain industries, the risks of chaotic content management – and therefore the benefits of a DAM – are amplified. Financial services firms need to ensure their financial promotions – everything from weighty thought leadership pieces to social media posts – complies with strict FCA regulation.

Recent additions to the regulatory canon – like the Consumer Duty, a cornerstone of the FCA’s three-year strategy – are only adding to this burden. Keeping clear records of the content creation, review and approval process is an essential element of your compliance approach.

Similarly, other heavily regulated industries, like healthcare or the food and drink sector, need to abide by clear and stringent rules on content, packaging and other promotional materials.

When compliant marketing is non-negotiable, a DAM will add rigour to your content management processes, and ensure your digital assets are never used in a way that compromises your compliance.

 

How do I choose a DAM?

But there are a lot of Digital Asset Management systems about. How do you know which DAM to choose? What are the factors considered when selecting a DAM?

When reviewing and choosing a DAM, features to look for include:

 

  • Does it offer templates that enable you to tailor content while protecting your branding?
  • Is there real-time monitoring, allowing you to keep track of costs
  • Transparent pricing – to ensure you stay within budget
  • Does the DAM allow you to edit your media assets directly, reducing your reliance on external suppliers?
  • An intuitive, user-friendly document library and search function
  • Integration with your print and direct mail suppliers, for instant orders and cost-effective distribution

 

Maximising the ROI of digital asset management

Investing in the right DAM, then, can deliver more than just financial ROI. It can create smoother, faster processes, make better use of your marketing capabilities and allow your entire business to be more self-sufficient when it comes to collateral creation, print and distribution.

BrandEnable is a one-stop, highly secure platform for creating, approving, storing and accessing marketing materials, brand assets and templates. With clear pricing plans, BrandEnable is a cost-effective, comprehensive DAM that is already delivering clear ROI for its many clients (you can read some of their testimonials here).

 

Find out more about BrandEnable’s features and the sectors that will find it particularly valuable – and contact us to find out more or for a free demo.