DEAR DR. DAM: My name is Betty and I'm the MarComm manager of a kitchen & bath fixture manufacturer. We have a section on our website for dealers to get lo-res images and marketing materials. It seems to be working ok--anything's better than what we had before. But, I want to know what else is out there that would let me to get sales collateral and hi-res images into the hands of our dealers and press contacts. And, it would be nice to see who's actually using our materials.

DEAR BETTER SYSTEM BETTY: You bring up a very good topic. Posting images and materials on your website can be very limiting in terms of types and number of files, delivery, updates, and tracking. It can be very frustrating when you must manage multiple file formats of the same file, especially when your webmaster or IT department does not update the website with the changes. You lack the ability to generate usage reports or set restrictions on access privileges. While posting images on your website is a great first step, I recommend looking into Widen's Digital Asset Management solution for your corporate image library. The single largest reason to consider a change is that your system is incapable of adapting and growing with the ever-changing demands of the marketplace.

DEAR DR. DAM: My name is Ted and I'm the marketing manager of a company with a small marketing department. Our sales network is very spread out. We rely on remote salespeople, and nationwide distributors and dealers to sell product. They rely on our marketing materials to help them do it. Sometimes, I almost feel like we're working in the dark...I need a better handle on what materials are used, where and when they're used, and who's using them. Do you know of a solution? Basically, I want to know who's got my stuff?

DEAR TRACKING TED: I recommend you check out Widen's digital asset solutions. Not only will it help you store and distribute your marketing materials more efficiently, it serves as a powerful marketing resource management tool. Widen's system comes with a complete set of standard and customizable reporting tools. This functionality allows you to track users, assets, and asset orders so you can have full knowledge of who's using your stuff, what's popular, and which markets are being served. Moreover, Widen's Trend Graphs automatically display trending data so you can analyze the valuable marketing information without doing any work.

DEAR DR. DAM: My name is Floyd and I work in marketing for a company that carries several different brands. There's dozens and dozens of distributors and dealers nationwide that sell our products, and we've put a lot of effort into developing our marketing channel mix. With a recent revamp of our brand collateral, I realize how difficult it is to get our updated materials out to the masses. We've updated our corporate and dealers only sites, in addition to all-new branded promotions. I've urged our distributors and dealers to follow suit in collecting and using all of the new stuff. It's obvious from our current market presence that it's no easy task. Outdated information is flooding the marketplace! Please help!

DEAR FLOODING FLOYD: I understand what you're going through. It really is up to you to make it easy for your sales channels to promote your products. Redundant and outdated information can confuse your customers and make you, as the marketing lead, look bad. This is where you can be a champion in your organization, with the help of Widen. Widen's digital asset management and sales enablement tools can help you keep your materials and messages current while making it easy for your distributors and dealers to access and use the latest and greatest assets. Not only can you keep materials current, you can ensure the right file formats are used for the right purpose, helping to control brand consistency and integrity in your mix while extending brand recognition.

DEAR DR. DAM: My name is Sam and I'm a marketing manager for a mid-size manufacturer. We have over 400 SKUs of products and thousands of salespeople all over the country. I'm responsible for making sure that our salespeople have the marketing and promotional materials they need in the field. I work with the creative department in developing brochures, sell sheets, and catalogs in addition to supplying presentation templates, images and logos. I send this stuff via email, websites, CDs and hard copies.

Salespeople know that the support materials are the lifeblood of their efforts. But, why don't they use my stuff! Salespeople scavenge for images and content on the web, and from old printed materials. They sometimes call in to re-request stuff I've already sent. Then, they use the materials as they see fit, oftentimes compromising our brand. Everything must be customized for the sale, you know?

DEAR SALES SUPPORT SAM: You're in quite a pickle when it comes to upholding the integrity of your brand and making it easy for your salespeople to get what they need. Salespeople don't want to spend a lot of time on administrative tasks and preparation, but they do need to put their best foot forward in front of clients. Presentations must be personalized for their clients and promotions must be localized for their market.

In addition, they need the final form fast, and at all hours of the day! I recommend you check out Widen's solutions for digital asset management and sales enablement. Widen's software as a service solutions help your salespeople get the latest and greatest materials and customize them for their clients, while you as a marketing administrator retain central control and maintain brand consistency.

DEAR DR. DAM: My name is Wendy and I'm a marketing manager at a large manufacturer of wireless communications products. As you can imagine, with the boom of the industry over the past 5-10 years, we've had an increase in the number of products and marketing materials that go along with them.

Most of our product photos, logos and promotional graphics are with our agency. When our dealers, both national and international, need access to these digital files for their advertising and promotions, they contact our agency. The agency must burn the files to CD and ship them out, while billing us back for materials and shipping. Because we have hundreds of products and thousands of dealers worldwide who need images to sell our product, we're paying shipping costs out the Wahzoo! How can I get my digital files to my dealers without spending so much on shipping?

DEAR PAYING SHIPPING COSTS OUT THE WAHZOO WENDY: I feel your concern with the high costs of shipping CDs to your expansive sales network. It's as if you're faced with a double-edged sword! You need to get your images to the channels who sell your product, while at the same time figure out ways to cut costs. You can drastically reduce this unnecessary cost with a digital asset management system.

I recommend working with Widen because they have designed a system geared to accommodate organizations and their sales channels. All you need to do is keep materials current and your users get what they need online. Other Widen clients have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars using this technology.

DEAR DR. DAM: My name is Brad and I'm into marketing at a large manufacturer. We have loads of products and thousands of images and materials that our sales network needs to sell our products. We have our own regional sales reps in addition to distributors and dealers who request materials several times a week for use in sales presentations and promotions. I'm feeling tremendously bogged down with the time it takes to search for the digital files, burn them to a disc and ship them overnight.

My problem is I feel like I'm not getting any of my real projects done because I'm too busy getting materials out to sales. I don't know how much longer this can last before I go crazy from feeling too far behind. How can I focus on the real projects that I was hired to do, while fulfilling the needs of my sales network?

DEAR BUSY BURNING BRAD: I fully understand your situation. Growing libraries of marketing materials and expansive sales networks make it extremely time-consuming to fulfill requests for digital media. It is not worth your time to spend hours a week carrying out monotonous tasks when there are more efficient ways to distribute materials to your sales network. You can eliminate the stress of feeling behind in your work by implementing a digital asset management system.

I recommend working with Widen because they have developed a DAM system allowing you to grant your sales reps and external users self-service access to your digital media. Widen created their DAM system over several years of feedback from clients with expansive sales networks. Leveraging common web principles in designing a powerful, easy-to-use system, Widen requires very little training for users to get the materials they need. More importantly, because you (or your staff) no longer have to fulfill tedious requests, you have more time to focus on your core competencies and have peace of mind.

How does Digital Asset Management from Widen help simplify brand management and marketing?

Speeds time to market with new product introductions, ad campaigns and sales promotions by automating the distribution of marketing materials in the proper formats to print and web channels.

How do you do that?  First, automatic file conversions allow you to store only one file type as the master and access other derivative formats on-demand.  Need an image for a website, presentation and brochure – you can get a 72 dpi JPEG and a 300 dpi TIFF from the master hi-res EPS file stored on Widen’s servers.  We do the same for Audio and Video assets as well.  Secondly, where do the files need to go?  If you need the files now and can download them from the web… no big deal.  What about when you’re unable to download a 2GB image or a 60-minute video?  That’s ok too because Widen will burn / author the files to a CD / DVD and ship them overnight on your behalf.

How does Digital Asset Management (DAM) from Widen help simplify brand management and marketing?

• Reduces the chaos in managing the latest product images, logos, presentations, audio/video and other marketing materials with one master library under Widen’s DAM SaaS platform.

How do you do that?  Manage all your digital media from your very own branded web portal, while your master assets reside at Widen’s secure hosting facility.  Administrators control who can access what assets via roles and permissions.  Additionally, administrators can control when assets are to be released to general users or expired / archived and made unavailable for general access. 

• Enables real-time marketing for geographically dispersed employees, external agencies and creative partners to manage, create, collaborate, share, upload and download your digital media 24 / 7.

How do you do that?  Internal and external teams all dial into the same set of master assets via web based DAM system to ensure the latest version is accessed when re-working or re-purposing digital media.  When new versions are created, approved users can upload the new versions and attach them as the new current version or create new assets with the simple click of a button.  Haven’t quite reached the final version?  Widen Project Collaboration allows you to route new digital media files (in their pre-asset state) to other internal users to gather and track all comments and approvals.  When the final version is reached, the project (PDF document, image, audio/video file or presentation) can be released as an asset available to all general users with permission to view the file.

• Speeds time to market with new product introductions, ad campaigns and sales promotions by automating the distribution of marketing materials in the proper formats to print and web channels.

How do you do that?  First, automatic file conversions allow you to store only one file type as the master and access other derivative formats on-demand.  Need an image for a website, presentation and brochure – you can get a 72 dpi JPEG and a 300 dpi TIFF from the master hi-res EPS file stored on Widen’s servers.  We do the same for Audio and Video assets as well.  Secondly, where do the files need to go?  If you need the files now and can download them from the web… no big deal.  What about when you’re unable to download a 2GB image or a 60-minute video?  That’s ok too because Widen will burn / author the files to a CD / DVD and ship them overnight on your behalf. 

• Empowers sales channels to create personalized on-demand marketing resources according to brand compliance guidelines and marketing-approved messaging.

How do you do that?  Using brand approved templates and marketing-supplied content, dealers, distributors, franchisees, branches, sales people or anybody else who doesn’t have the know-how or access to Quark or InDesign (but still rep your brand) can build professional quality marketing collateral.  Users point-and-click to build ads, brochures, POS and direct mail customized, localized or co-branded for any selling situation – ad campaigns, special events, or in-store displays. 

• Gauges effectiveness of marketing campaigns and brand assets with automated tracking and reporting tools.

How do you do that?  Using real-time reporting tools, administrators can view and evaluate user access and asset usage.  Standard reporting tools can be used to show reports matching a variety of statistics including trending graphs that allow you to monitor trends over time without having to do the calculations and build the graphs yourself.  You also have the ability to run custom reports that can be mixed, matched and exported to Excel.  Want to know what was the most popular product image representing X-model widget in China last month?  That’s easy with just a few clicks.  Widen Digital Asset Management is not only a tool for marketing organization and execution in dealing with rich media management; it’s also a key part of marketing planning and strategy.

DEAR DR. DAM:  I’m a Director of Marketing for a sporting goods company.  We have three different divisions and each of them have their own separate archives of marketing materials and brand assets.  As the head of the marketing activities for the enterprise, I’m challenged with needing to minimize costs by centralizing all of our marketing content.  Our distributors and dealers have been begging for more online capabilities to access and assemble materials for POP displays, signage and advertisements.  I’m in search of an easy to use application that would allow all of our divisions to centralize their creative content including POP displays, ads, images, graphics and other collateral and share it with our sales network.  It must be scalable for all but separate for each division because of different workflows and brand recognition.  Can you help?

DEAR SKATING FOR SAVINGS SAM:  I have a system in mind and it rhymes with “hidin’.”  They can set you up with a hosted digital asset management system that can provide you with one central location for everyone to access, one database for all assets, but have separate site skins to represent each individual brand.  In fact, with the robust roles and permissions structure, you can keep users and assets separate in addition to different features and workflows specific to each division.  You’ll find cost savings from a reduction in capital investments for I.T. with web based DAM, in addition to a tremendous amount of soft dollar savings by automating redundant administrative tasks and creating more efficient workflows internally and externally.  You’ll be more effective with all marketing activities using a DAM system as users reuse and repurpose your rich media.  For divisions that need to provide sales channels with access to not only find materials for POP, signage and ads, the Widen Media Builder will allow dealers to build customized materials specific to location, special events and other promotions within brand compliance guidelines.  I know you’ll find cost savings and satisfaction from you users.

Your message of “we are currently reducing our marketing budget at the same time the amount of marketing projects is increasing” is heard, but what are you going to do about it? 

If a marketing professional wants to make their presence known to the organization, the time is now.  Instead of cowering in the corner waiting for your job to be cut, rise up and take charge.  Establish yourself as a marketer that can work in all types of situations, even the darkest of economic hours.  Prove to the organization that marketing will not be steered off course in the effort to reach the marketplace with a consistent brand voice.

Your resources are being eliminated and your budget cut in half but what are you going to do about it?  The time to step up and advance your career is now; but how?  Let the spotlight shine in the corner of software-as-a-service.  You could not paint a better picture for the justification of software-as-a-service technologies:

• Marketing resources being eliminated – CHECK
• I.T. resources being eliminated – CHECK
• Marketing budgets being cut – CHECK
• Marketing project load increasing – CHECK

You have heard the message from every software-as-a-service provider but maybe this time that message will resonate.  When the provider says you can do more with less, they are talking about the situation you are currently in.  Trying to market in a downturn is an extremely difficult task but doing so successfully requires the right strategy, the right resources, and the right attitude. The attitude is all in your court but strategy and resources is where you can reach out and ask for help. 

Isolate the creation, management, and distribution of your digital media.  You cannot just stop creating the digital media that helps drive revenue.  In fact you are creating exponentially more of it because the impact is greater and it is the most cost effective way to reach the market with your message.

As you create more of it, you create larger problems with managing and distributing it.  Managing and distributing large and large amounts of marketing and creative files is a responsibility you can delegate to your sales and marketing channels.  Establish the process by which everyone in need of your digital media is granted self-service access.  Establish one central source of digital media that can be repurposed and distributed worldwide while maintaining the integrity of your brand.  Establish the foundation for reducing costs.  Establish a digital asset management system using a software-as-a-service provider.

As a fellow marketer, I have used software-as-a-service technologies to manage and distribute digital media and I can guarantee that software-as-a-service providers enable you to do more with less.  Whether it is customer relationship management with Salesforce.com, digital asset management with Widen, or web content management with Clickability, a software-as-a-service provider is the answer to the ultimate question; what are you going to do about it?

Our theme at Henry Stewart New York last month was “A New Twist on DAM” featuring the twist ice cream cone… what does ice cream have to do with software, you ask?  As a pure play Software as a Service (SaaS) provider of digital asset management, Widen has blended hosted and installed solutions by putting hardware/software on the client site – the Widen Appliance.  How is that different than installed software?  Widen manages the installation, replication, monitoring, maintenance and upgrades in tandem with the Widen Collective hosted platform … staying true to the model of providing software as a service.

I presented our concept of “DAM as SaaS 2.0” – managed services on the client site – in one of the technology tracks and featured case studies from Sub-Zero/Wolf and The Sports Licensed Division of the Adidas Group.  At the beginning of the presentation, I polled the audience to get an idea of what roles of people I was actually talking to – creative, marketing, or I.T. – because the meat of my presentation talked about how each of those roles benefit from the Widen Appliance.

Creative 

• High-speed workflow
• No application switching
• Eliminate redundant work
• Eliminate distribution of outdated materials

Marketing

• Feeds the global demand
• Consistent use of materials
• Self-service access for sales channels
• Immediate use / no training necessary

I.T.

• Disaster recovery policies
• Share data with other applications
• Higher security standards
• Widen handles the customer support
• External access uses Widen security and bandwidth

In the case of Sub-Zero/Wolf, their master assets reside in Widen’s data center to feed the external demand from their distributors and dealers, while replicated assets are available on the Appliance for local search and consumption by Sub-Zero corporate marketing teams. 

In the case of the Adidas Sports Licensed Division, they have six different locations of fully replicated data at each site.  Their creative groups work with files at LAN speeds and have employee mobility to access the same data from site-to-site.

One of the questions/concerns at the end of the presentation asked about the speed of the replication between appliance sites and Widen’s master data center (a.k.a. “the mothership”).  Widen Director of R&D, Ed Chwae, was available to answer and there were multiple responses… Speed of the replication is dependent on the bandwidth available at the client site.  We can use private networks or public networks, VPN tunnel over public networks (dependent on bandwidth) determined by amount of files to be replicated daily.  We can throttle the bandwidth… post-pone it for after-hours activity – all of which is dependent on user needs. 

Basically, the ability to the give our clients exactly what they need is simple because we are the experts - we develop the software, manage the hardware and have the service and support teams to make it happen…

View the full presentation and other resources at www.widen.com/twist. 

As the sun shines and summertime nears it makes me want to get outside and play yard games – bocce ball, bean bags (where I come from) and that game with the golf balls on a string.  Would you agree?   However, I have a game you can play right there in the office… it’s a classic called “Where’s my assets?” 

Unfortunately, I doubt the one you’re looking for has a hat, sweater and glasses. 

Al, Ryan, Kristina and I enjoy it because it gives a chance to really give each other lots of grief.  I’ve been with the marketing team the longest, so naturally I’ve structured a majority of the internal shared drive for our sales and marketing materials.  It’s great because I know where some of the stuff is so I get to laugh at them when they’re basically stuck in the mud (another childhood favorite).  

When our sales team asks us to create something that I swear we did at the end of the year last year, it’s like a game of duck, duck, goose or rock paper scissors to see who gets to handle the request.  Hmmm… I’m not sure if this ever happens to you, but after about 20 minutes of hide and seek we’re forced to ask our designer, Danielle, if she can quickly whip up a new document.  I can’t even begin to tell you how many lunches we owe her for the number of times she’s had to recreate a new version of something that’s been done a half-dozen times. 

What’s even more fun is when Matthew calls on us for the most current slide that he needs for a presentation tomorrow – it’s kind of like a game of marco polo the way our speaker phones echo across the corridor – more office fun!

For a marketing department of 7 at a company of 110, we really don’t have any excuses because we have this DAM marketing software at our fingertips to help us manage our content and brand assets.  But, I’m sure bigger companies don’t really have these problems because they’ve got it all figured out.   If you feel like joining in on the fun, just ask Dr. DAM. 

1.  Recycle your digital assets in something new.

Recycling your assets in new projects and media channels prevents the loss of potentially useful content, reducing the energy required to re-create misplaced materials.

2.  Reduce administration, re-work and time to market with new materials.

Reducing the amount of time and resources (human or technology) required to recreate, locate, re-process and use promotional materials increases the overall productivity and effectiveness of the people responsible for creating them.

3.  Reuse your digital assets again and again.

Reusing digital assets across new promotional materials, channels and more people increases their impact and value, in addition to driving a consistent message.

4.  Retrieve your digital assets anywhere, anytime.

Retrieving promotional materials using a powerful, easy-to-use system makes it possible to re-apply the efforts invested in the creation of those assets.  

5.  Repurpose your digital assets across multiple media and selling channels.

Repurposing promotional materials in a variety of mediums using workflow automation increases the effectiveness of the asset and the person using the asset and increases consistency of your brand message across multiple channels.

6.  Respond to changing market conditions, consumer demands and selling situations.

Responding quickly to changing market conditions, consumer demands and selling situations with resources and promotional materials adequately satisfying the need helps increase marketing agility and brand equity. 

7.  Realize a Return on Marketing Investments.

ROI, as in justifying expectations of performance and cost savings (hard & soft), is a fundamental factor for marketing decisions dealing with new technologies, resources, and projects.

Digital Asset Management helps you realize a quick ROI from implementation to ongoing maintenance and support, in addition to helping you increase ROI for the creation, use and effectiveness of digital media.  

In a DM Review Special Report on February 5, "The Marriage of Customer Relationship Management and Content Management," Dan Carmel discusses the inefficiencies plaguing sales and marketing organizations and the benefits of integrating CRM systems with SaaS-based content management systems. 

According to Dan Carmel, the top 5 benefits of combining CRM and content management are:

1. Improved win rates with more effective and timely responses to opportunities
2. More effective marketing with greater collaboration, faster turnaround and greater ability to leverage the latest material across distributed sales networks
3. Sales & marketing alignment by eliminating the gap between different processes and workflows
4. Faster time-to-revenue by speeding up sales cycles
5. Broader impact by integrating other best-in-class technologies serving their own distinct purpose to share information via web services

As the form of content management dealing with rich media, Widen has integrated our digital asset management software as a service platform with the Salesforce.com customer relationship management system.  Widen’s Digital Media Organizer brings the content marketing creates – images, videos and marketing materials – closer to the salesperson and end users. 

Widen’s Marketing Template Creation gives salespeople the ability to easily customize or localize printable materials such as ads, brochures, direct mail and point-of-sale signage using marketing-controlled templates and content. 

Marketing users within Salesforce.com have the ability to direct campaigns and manage all media used for email marketing, websites and print campaigns.  Our web analytics indicate that interest levels in Widen’s video asset management capabilities within Salesforce are of the greatest interest as video grows in popularity for marketers and consumers alike. 

As Carmel explains, five benefits of SaaS-based content management include:

• Faster time to deploy because there is no hardware or software to install
• Low initial cost for subscription-based pricing models
• Rapid innovation with automatic upgrades every few months
• Easy to use and configure specific to the requirements of each client
• Globally available with no burden on IT because applications are delivered via web browser and maintained by the hosted provider

These five benefits overlap with the same benefits Widen DAM customers enjoy.  SaaS-based business applications are not just for small to medium-sized businesses as larger companies continue to adopt best-in-class software as a service solutions.  Jim Egan, Director of Communications Programs at Kerry America, a leader in global food ingredients markets, stated, "By integrating [the Widen] tools within our Salesforce application, we now have a 'one-stop-shop' for all marketing and collateral material; making them easily accessible for our sales teams and channel members. These tools will help us strengthen our overall brand messages and enable our sales and application experts to deliver innovative, business-building solutions for our customers."

View Dan Carmel’s full article at: http://www.dmreview.com/specialreports/2008_60/10000666-1.html

Learn more about Widen’s digital asset management integration with Salesforce.com – Digital Media Organizer – and the brochure creation application – Marketing Template Creation.

It’s the new year and many of us have made new year’s resolutions.  If you’re like me, you haven’t exactly made a resolution, but you’re committed to changing at least one thing in your life.  What’s the difference, right?  Last night, after I got home from playing basketball, at the club I was checking email and something triggered me to google “Top New Years Resolutions.”   The top spot (http://pittsburgh.about.com/od/holidays/tp/resolutions.htm) listed these as the Top Ten New Year’s Resolutions:

1. Spend More Time with Family & Friends
2. Fit in Fitness
3. Tame the Bulge
4. Quit Smoking
5. Enjoy Life More
6. Quit Drinking
7. Get Out of Debt
8. Learn Something New
9. Help Others
10. Get Organized

Naturally, a marketing guy can always find a way to relate new year’s resolutions back to our digital asset management service offering.  This opportunity is just too perfect not to mention in my blog. 

I could go down the list and explain how Widen’s marketing technologies and digital asset management services help those in the marketing, creative and sales work more efficiently so they can spend more time away from work, be with family & friends, leave work by 5:00 to get in the gym and have a better outlook on life.  I could tell you how Widen could help you be a champion in your company to get out of debt, help others also get ahead, and help yourself / others at work (and personal life) get organized.  I’m not going to tell you Widen can help you quit smoking or quit drinking (our HR Director might if you worked here), but if Widen can help you accomplish the other eight goals, I’m guessing you may have a better outlook for some of those other lifestyle changes with more time to re-focus your priorities.  No, I’m not really a Doctor, so I’m not going to feed you all of that info.

I don’t need to tell you in this venue about how Widen can change you life.  I’d much rather coordinate a one-on-one review of your creative / production workflow, marketing execution strategies or sales enablement processes. 

If any of these goals are on your “to-do” list, then you’ve come to the right place:

• Organize digital assets
• Improve creative / marketing efficiency
• Help sales channels sell your products
• Focus on global brand consistency

What I really want to do is quickly mention our new year’s resolutions. 

Before the end of last year, members of our R&D, Communications and Marketing teams met to decide on the development themes for the Widen Collective Digital Asset Management offering for the three 2008 releases.  Here’s a quick snapshot of what they came up with:

• Continuing expansion with video asset management and video handling technologies.
• Advancing the recent beta release of the Backdrop photography routing and approval system to be one of the most feature-rich, flexible and user-friendly photography workflow solutions on the market.
• Incorporating more web 2.0 concepts into our technologies to improve the user experience while helping organization retain brand control.
• New innovations continuing to support marketing, creative and sales functions, while staying true to the Software as a Service model.

Good luck with your new year’s resolutions!