Tired of wasting time looking for files you’re pretty sure were saved to someone’s hard drive, at some point, somewhere?
Does it annoy you when Sales can’t find images for a presentation and Marketing has to spend an afternoon looking for the only photo ever taken in the field that showcases your product in a specific application?
Think about the last time you polled coworkers to see who had the latest version of the company logo in a format you could actually insert into PowerPoint?
Right now, as you read this, hundreds or even thousands of company documents, photos, drawings, videos, music files, and other media may be sitting, isolated, on one employee’s hard drive. If only one person can access and utilize the files, they’re just not very useful.
Imagine if, instead of searching for documents and distributing them via email or file transfer, you could simply provide a chosen recipient with a username, a password, and secure, self-serve access to the files.
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Wouldn’t that save time? And time is money, right?
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These days, forward-thinking companies are investing in secure, highly organized cloud storage systems that enable the upload, cataloging, archiving, download, and distribution of a broad range of corporate files.
Giving designated user status to team members, partners, retailers, dealers, distributors, media contacts, and other allies allows people to access exactly what they need, when they need it, so they can keep moving forward without tying up additional staff or resources.
If your organization is like many we’ve seen, there’s an incredible amount of data spread out among your employees but no clear organizational mandate or written policy that addresses exactly how that information should be labeled, organized, saved, backed up, and – of increasing importance – repurposed. Whether you’re using internal staffers to generate content or outsourcing to third parties, the sheer scope of your digital resources will keep expanding.
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This is where Longbotham comes in.
First, we’ll work with you to define exactly how your various audiences will use the data, so we can select the correct infrastructure for the job. Although there are a variety of what would appear to be “ready-made” Digital Asset Management Systems (DAM) on the market right now, these two points are worth your consideration:
1. It’s vitally important to select the DAM platform that best suits your company’s individual needs.
Otherwise, you end up paying for a suite of services you don’t need and may never use, or becoming frustrated with a system that’s too limited.
2. The bulk of the work isn’t in choosing the platform. That’s fairly straightforward. As they say, the devil is in the details…the handling, sorting, assessing, proofing, editing, identifying, uploading, and managing of the assets.
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Longbotham Strategic Marketing offers 3 Convenient Solutions:
1. The Turnkey Solution:
We build your Digital Asset Management Library and provide Monthly Management Services.
In a nutshell, after we do all the upfront work, we adhere to a formal process that helps us consistently format, upload, catalog, and manage your files over time. This comprehensive service frees in-house Marketers to continue focusing on accomplishing existing tasks and meeting normal deadlines, all while sharing resources more effectively and increasing departmental efficiency.
2. The Partnership Solution:
After we build your Digital Asset Management Library, we train your team to maintain it according to a written User Policy.
In this scenario, we build out the library and, with your input, draft a User Policy team members can reference as needed. This helps you continue to comply with the original upload, identification, and process management guidelines as new content is added over time. While we always advocate cross-training, having written instructions on hand can be a real lifesaver when you’re faced with employee turnover, temporary help, departmental restructuring, or even a brief bout of forgetfulness (and we all have those, right?).
3. The A La Carte Solution:
After we build your Digital Asset Management Library, you take it from there.
Yep, it’s as straightforward as it sounds.
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Once the project kicks off, we’ll leverage our well-honed organizational skills and meticulous attention to build your company a Cloud-Based Digital Asset Library that can meet your current requirements, and expand over time as your needs evolve.
Our professional services include a variety of options, including, but not limited to:
• Assessment of original file relevancy and quality
• Creation and implementation of a consistent file naming strategy to enable quick searches that yield desired results
• Clear and logical organization of folder and file drill-down protocols
• Review of your brand assets to verify accuracy of fonts, colors, and more prior to upload
• Proofreading and/or editing of documents prior to upload
• Setting up designated users and defining permissions
• Cropping and/or retouching of images
• Creation of multiple file formats or file sizes
• Writing of captions and detailed media descriptions
• Defining tags
• Writing metadata