Among the effects of good marketing asset management are increased efficiency, improved brand consistency, and improved relevancy with the localization of marketing collateral. The storage benefits of a cloud-based DAM system are compelling, but there are other reasons for using centralized DAM software to power your multi-channel marketing operations. One is that it streamlines the repurposing of digital assets in ways that far exceed the abilities of disparate media libraries.

The pliable nature of digital assets, combined with modern multi-channel marketing, makes them highly suitable for repurposing. Many people confuse repurposing with reusing. The difference between reusing and repurposing digital assets is that when one reuses something, you often use it for the same reason in the same way multiple times. To repurpose something is to alter it and/or incorporate it into other forms without completely recreating it—like when you add a plow to the front of a pickup truck, or when you straighten out a paperclip to do, well, any of the myriad things a straightened out paperclip can do. In terms of digital assets, repurposing is all about adapting images, videos and other media for use in different channels, promotions and campaigns instead of creating one asset for a brochure and very similar, separate one for a website. This is a practice companies with no central asset library, no collaborative tools and no ability to get assets in the proper format quickly and easily often fall victim to, which equates to lost time and money.