Distribution

All digital asset management activities come to a screeching halt unless a company can handle the distribution of media assets. This is, after all, the ultimate goal of DAM- asset reuse.

However, basic DAM systems view distribution are largely a human endeavor- providing the means for a single person to access finished assets. It doesn’t embrace the creative process, the automated distribution of assets to people, projects or systems, and the future updates of those assets.

When we consider the entire asset lifecycle from creation all the way though to future updates, we most accurately define distribution as the efficient movement of assets across all stages of their lifecycle in the most automated manner possible.

When we take this approach to distribution, we can truly achieve faster time to market at significantly lower costs. We can also entertain more campaigns across more channels in less time- strategies that can dramatically affect marketing effectiveness and a company’s market position.

Campaigns run this way also capture the complete pathway from concept to end-distribution, enabling future changes to be published across all related assets in hours of quick work rather than days of heavy labor.

In summary, in DAM that address the full asset lifecycle, there are two clear classes of distribution:

1. Basic Fulfillment

This allows users to find assets and either download them directly or request access to download the full, usable image. Basic conversion to the needed size and format is provided, giving the end user the exact image they need.

For external users, content managers may create libraries of images and restrict users to those libraries for self-service. This makes a lot of sense for manufacturers providing images to retailers, and for companies managing DAM systems with carefully licensed images.

This type of distribution is largely based on managing finished assets, and doesn’t handle the advanced distribution and fulfillment processes of the entire asset lifecycle- creating multiple versions, refining them, getting feedback, selecting final versions for fulfillment, automating distribution of those assets to external systems, and, finally, notifying stakeholders when that asset is updated in the future. Basic fulfillment, as provide by most mid-market DAM vendors, don’t handle any of this.

2. Advanced Fulfillment and Distribution

This is where the DAM system distributes content to users (creative workflows for the  asset creation process) as well as to other projects or systems. This could be internal notification to regional marketers that new brand-approved content is available or updated; or publication of new or updated content to other content systems such as Web Content Management (WCM), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), sales enablement, or classical Enterprise Content Management (ECM) for records compliance. With an automated publishing and distribution process, updates can be made, reviewed, approved, and pushed to a system such as a WCM for final publication to the website in hours rather than days.

Most DAM systems function as simple “self-service” distribution or fulfillment centers, but break down quickly when trying to manage the end-to-end digital asset lifecycle-- a critical need for companies that want to create truly agile marketing and communication processes with fast time to market and the ability to change messaging quickly in response to market influences.

For more information on how TeleScope can support your advanced distribution needs, talk to one of our experts for request a demo.