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A good Digital Asset Management (DAM) system makes all files available and searchable.

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2 February 2022

DAM versus PIM

Natasja Van der Jonckheyd
Digital Marketeer bij Catena Company

Digital Asset Management

Digital Assets are all the pieces of content (copy, photos, videos, graphic designs, audio files etc.) that an organization has. A DAM system helps you preserve, manage and share them from one central location. In the DAM system, the digital assets are organized based on the specific needs of an organization. All stakeholders (employees, customers, partners etc.) have controlled, secure access and can find what they need quickly and easily.

Digital Asset Management

Differences and similarities between DAM and PIM

Nice! So DAM manages our digital assets and PIM our product information. Two different worlds. Right?

No, they are not! For example, anyone who has to set up a marketing campaign likes to have attractive, creative content and the right product specifications.

Each company, each organization has its own specific needs. These determine whether your organization will benefit from a DAM or a PIM system, or both. Let’s put them side by side for a moment.

 

 

DAM

PIM

Central management of

Digital assets

Product information

Mainly used by

Marketing

Development, production

 

Specific advantages

  • Consistent communication, brand and customer experience alike
  • Structured overview of available digital assets and better utilization thereof
  • Integration with other martech tools possible
  • Always correct, up-to-date data available
  • Categorization of products
  • Speeds up processes in product development and production
  • Indispensable in e-commerce

Shared benefits

  • Improved operational efficiency
  • Streamlining the customer journey
  • Access control and security
  • Promotes collaboration (internal and external)
  • Adaptable to specific needs
  • Highly automatable

 

The overview above clearly shows that DAM and PIM have different purposes, they work with different data and are essentially used by different departments within an organization. But bottom line they do the same thing: managing data and making sure it is easily accessible and used optimally with the right permissions.

A manufacturing company that works white label and doesn’t market any of its own products might benefit much more from a PIM than a DAM system. A retail organization that distributes a new folder every week with different products on sale each time, cannot do without DAM (and will benefit greatly from integration with a PIM). So the needs depend on the nature of the business.

Integrating DAM and PIM

The major problem in many organizations is the use of different stand-alone systems, from which data must be transferred from one to the other. Often the right data is hard to find and people have to work in systems they are not familiar with. If they do find the desired data, it is sometimes stored locally on a computer. Data gets scattered and control and management (and the value of the management systems) is lost.

An integration of DAM and PIM prevents this. It also offers additional benefits and makes 1+1 more than 2! By connecting DAM and PIM, organizations integrate all their product information with all their digital assets. This can be automated to a large extent according to the needs of the users. It goes without saying that the marketing person finds peace of mind when they no longer have to worry whether the information they are broadcasting is correct.

Because DAM optimizes the storage and searchability of the asset library, it also helps categorize products in the PIM system. In this way, both systems become fully searchable in the same way and different users can be given the correct access rights. A good taxonomy and metadata are the key to success.

With an integration of DAM and PIM, collaboration improves, efficiency increases and your brands become stronger in the market. Both your employees and your customers will benefit!

Source: bynder.com

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