Six revenue-boosting benefits of digital asset management software for agencies
| March 7, 2024
Whether you’re a full-service agency or a specialist boutique, creating and managing digital content is a race against time and tight budgets. Managing directors are grappling with the ultimate puzzle: How can agencies increase profits, keep focused on billable work, and take on new clients — all without letting the quality of creative output drop?
By combining everything you need to manage client media files, concepts, brand resources, artwork, and campaign materials in one place, a digital asset management (DAM) platform like Canto streamlines creative operations, freeing up resources to take on more projects.
DAM platforms aren’t just a place to store client media. They’re about optimizing creative operations to maximize return on investment. So how can a DAM platform like Canto unlock revenue and help your agency grow? Let’s dive right into some of the top benefits of digital asset management for agencies.
1. Accelerate creative workflows and produce more creative content
A digital asset management platform ensures that any time your team does anything with digital content, it’s fast, easy, and streamlined. By centralizing client content in a searchable library, your team has the latest approved versions of client brand assets at their fingertips. And by integrating your DAM platform with project management software and creative tools, you can accelerate workflows even more.
With efficiency gains across every stage of creative production, you can deliver artwork and launch campaigns faster — leaving your team free to tackle more concepts and campaigns for prospecting and clients.
2. Streamline reviews and go from concept to approval in no time
Seamlessly engage clients at every stage of the creative lifecycle, from the first spark of an idea to the final sign-off. Digital asset management platforms transform client collaboration by providing a dedicated space for reviews and approvals. With quick buy-in and efficient review cycles, your team can turn projects around faster and move on to the next campaign, concept, or pitch.
3. Outshine the competition with a better client experience
Forget sharing work with clients in SharePoint, WeTransfer links, and ZIP files. Branded client portals provide a better experience. Clients can self-serve, uploading files to share with your team and approving concepts and artwork — all through a user-friendly interface. You spend less time going back and forth with clients, and your clients get a professional, convenient user experience.
Not only does a polished client portal streamline collaboration, it also sets your agency apart in a crowded marketplace.
4. Get a head start on new projects by repurposing existing content
Producing new client concepts from scratch is expensive and time-consuming. Creative teams get a head start when they can find and repurpose unused campaign assets or older, previously unsearchable client artwork.
By leveraging content that might otherwise go unused, you can create concepts faster, deliver more with less, and ensure nothing goes to waste. As great artwork gets rediscovered and repurposed, it creates more value for your agency, increasing margins and maximizing ROI on creative investments.
5. Keep your team focused on billable work
Creative teams can easily get bogged down with tasks clients don’t consider part of billable services: sorting through mountains of files, adding metadata, and managing fast-moving projects. Keep your team focused on billable work by letting digital asset management software tackle those tasks for you with tools like smart tags, AI search, and automatic hex code tagging.
For example, Canto’s DAM platform offers AI-powered search. Creative team members can simply describe the visuals or video footage they need for a campaign, and AI finds client images and clips that fit those criteria. There’s no manual tagging or tedious content management required, so teams can redirect that time and energy to higher-value work.
6. Build trust with clients by avoiding mix-ups
In addition to storing client media files themselves, a DAM platform also manages all the essential information that goes with them. Are these the most up-to-date assets from the client? Are we sure there’s a model release for this image? Can we release this, or is it still under embargo?
Tools like version controls, digital rights management, approval settings, and expiration dates make it easy to ensure your team never uses outdated, unlicensed, or still-embargoed brand assets and campaign materials.
Manage and deliver pitches, artwork, and campaigns faster with Canto
A leader in digital asset management, Canto is the DAM of choice for successful agencies around the world. Canto’s innovative platform offers everything you need to accelerate creative workflows, enhance your team’s productivity, and scale client relations — including industry-leading technology like AI Visual Search.
Want to learn more about how to transform your agency’s creative workflows? Check out our free guide to digital asset management for agencies.