CXO Bytes

What makes DAM crucial for your omnichannel marketing strategy?

As historian Stephen Davies notes in Going Viral: The History and Economics of Pandemics, the pandemic has not introduced anything new – it has merely accelerated ongoing trends. And one such trend that began before the pandemic and was fast-tracked by the crisis is the shift towards omnichannel buying. Customers are more selective and the shopper journey is more complex than ever before. Retailers are doubling down on digital and pumping innovation into omnichannel marketing to reimagine store operations and score high on customer safety and convenience. New omnichannel fulfillment models like buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS) are becoming increasingly popular, with 56% of consumers intending to continue using BOPIS even after the pandemic is over.

As in-person interactions make way for virtual engagements, managing digital assets – images, videos, graphics, music, animations, podcasts, and other rich media content – becomes all the more important for marketers competing to catch the attention of their customers. With shrinking attention spans and non-linear shopper journeys, the ability to produce the most relevant and accurate content assets at the right time is a key differentiator. This is the reason why retailers invest in digital asset management (DAM) solutions that enable them to efficiently store, sort, manage, retrieve, and distribute updated digital assets to wherever customers are.

With the proliferation of digital channels and social media, the global DAM market is growing rapidly and is estimated to reach $13.94 billion by 2028. Today, it is critical for brands to present consistent messaging and imagery to build brand authority and boost growth. DAM drives an enterprise’s omnichannel strategy so that precision and reliability related to brand communication are never compromised. Moreover, for an evolving omnichannel approach dominated by mobile commerce and smart devices, a robust backend is needed where scalability, efficiency, and uncomplicated workflows become the bedrock of performance. And DAM scores high in the aspect by providing a single source of truth that forms the foundation of a successful omnichannel strategy.

Here are a few elements that make DAM the fulcrum of your omnichannel success:

  • Flexibility

Flexibility is critical for omnichannel marketing success as almost half of the consumers across the world (49%) prefer shopping anywhere at any time. To keep up with the ever-changing customer behavioral patterns and shopping preferences, retailers must be able to identify opportunities of continuous innovation by assessing their existing omnichannel offerings. They must  keep up with the emerging needs of their customers and ensure consistent customer experiences. This demands utmost flexibility to deliver the right content to the right people, across channels and devices, mostly in real time. With flexible metadata schemas, DAM enables intuitive search and improves accessibility and repurposing relevant brand assets to match specific sales and marketing needs.

  • Accuracy

Accurate information is the least that customers expect today, and this accuracy forms the basis for personalized experiences in real time. 76% of marketers agree that the demand for personalized content drives the need for accurate and updated digital assets that enable precise targeting in an omnichannel environment characterized by complex purchase paths. DAM plays an important role in eliminating inaccuracies and inconsistencies to deliver consistent and seamless brand experiences and tailored communications across all touchpoints. It preserves the integrity of digital assets by providing required access rights and permissions to very levels. Being the custodian of all business assets such as logos, text, images, graphics, videos, music, etc., DAM helps in managing regulatory compliance and prevents costly mistakes that erode brand value.

  • Speed

Studies have shown that 85% of marketers are under constant pressure to create on-brand assets and deliver campaigns quickly. Centralizing digital assets within a Digital Asset Management platform speeds up production cycles by improving file transfer speed. Digital Asset Management can be integrated with existing content management systems (CMS), product information management (PIM) solutions, social plug-ins, and video tools to quickly create and deploy digital assets. You can find, share, and reuse assets whenever and wherever you need, reducing production costs and eliminating duplicate workstreams. Digital Asset Management helps in designing workflows that eliminate handoffs, reduce time wastage and decrease downtimes. Breaking down data silos and improving transparency and collaboration among various stakeholders, DAM optimizes operations, enhances business process efficiency, and ensures faster go-to-market (GTM).

  • Scalability

Omnichannel business needs infrastructure that can scale with growth and handle the surge in demands. Be it peak seasons or mergers and acquisitions, DAM solutions allow brand marketers to incorporate additional assets and provide suitable levels of visibility and access rights to new users. A DAM solution is capable of scaling in capacity and functionality to accommodate present and future needs. Its scalability allows adding multiple users and expanding integrations without slowing down or affecting user experience. It also enables brands to cater to the exponential increase in high-resolution content due to the growing adoption of disruptive technologies such as augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), the Internet of Things, etc.

  • Consistency

Retailers must deliver consistent and coherent customer experience irrespective of the channels – physical and digital – their customers interact with. As a single source of truth with version control functionality, Digital Asset Management (DAM)maintains consistent and updated versions of all digital assets for internal and external use. With the rapid proliferation of social commerce and other digital channels, the visibility of brand assets has dramatically increased. Today, customers browse through at least six channels and use two devices before making a purchase. Hence, brands must ensure that customers see the most recent versions of branded content, including imagery and messaging, across touchpoints at all times. Using correct assets consistently reinforces the brand’s voice, builds brand value, and fuels growth.

Conclusion

The success of any omnichannel marketing strategy lies in the marketer’s ability to synchronize different channels of interaction into one harmonized brand experience. Although several brands push messages through multiple channels, they often lack the ability to connect these isolated moments of communication into a single, cohesive, and unified brand story. Digital Asset Management helps brands solve this challenge by syncing their online or digital channels (email, web, mobile, social, AR/VR, IoT apps and other emerging channels) with the traditional offline channels like direct mail, in-store, call center, and more. This results in coherent brand stories and consistent, contextual experiences, increasing brand loyalty and customer retention.

As the next normal takes shape, customer expectations continuously shift and evolve. The new ground rules demand that brands respond with agility when it comes to driving innovation in their omnichannel experience. Investing in Digital Asset Management will help brands improve customer engagement, drive more meaningful conversations, and nurture stronger customer relationships to survive and thrive in the new world.

(The author Rajneesh Kumar, Director, Marketing at Pimcore Global Services (A Happiest Minds Company) and the views expressed in this article are his own)

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