The Best DAM List of Digital Asset Management Apps for Marketers
Are you looking for a solid app that will allow you to manage, share, and distribute digital assets within your marketing team? If so, we’ve compiled a list of digital asset management (DAM) apps. We recommend identifying your team’s top digital asset challenges and make a list of your most desired DAM features. Then check out our list below to see which app will best meet the needs of your marketing team.
Google Drive
Many businesses are already using Google Apps for some aspect of project management, so it makes sense to consider this as your go-to app for digital asset management. Google Drive allows for cloud storage of video (up to 10 gigabytes in size), images, and documents. All of these files can be viewed, shared, and worked on by team members by accessing a document link, a much better option than email attachments. Still, Google Drive does have some limitations. It supports roughly thirty file formats and lacks the ability of metadata customization.
WebDAM
WebDAM is a cloud-based app that allows your team secure access to all of your team’s digital assets from any device 24/7. The features of WebDAM make it easy to upload digital assets (including batch uploads), search assets (via filters and keywords), share digital assets without the need for email attachments, and publish digital assets across a board of over 120 social media outlets, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. An additional feature of WebDAM is Brand Connect, which gives you control of brand guidelines (such as logo requirements, color scheme, and typography) that will create a consistent brand image across your organization.
Widen
Widen assists your marketing team through the complete lifecycle of a digital asset. From the very beginning creative stages of idea generation, and throughout planning and development, and finally into distribution and preservation, Widen can help you manage, share, and collaborate on digital assets in all stages. Analytics helps you to track the success of past content in and offer useful guidance for future campaigns.
Bynder
Bynder is known for being user-friendly and for offering superior security for digital asset sharing. Some of Bynder’s greatest features include drag and drop uploading, access to photo editing as images are being uploaded, the ability to search by metadata, and intricate permissions management. Bynder is likely to meet the needs of any marketing team because it supports all file formats and easily integrates with any existing systems being used by your marketing team.
Xinet
Xinet integrates with applications that you may already have in place, such as Adobe and Creative Suite. Xinet is ideal for teams whose members are working in multiple drives and in multiple time zones. Some features of Xinet that stand out are an asset timer that will warn of asset expiration and prevent the use of outdated material, the ability to track all files that share a particular asset (a logo, for example), and custom image order, which enables you to edit, crop, or resize images while leaving the original intact.
Flight
Flight is a product of Canto, one of the leading DAM vendors. Flight is a SaaS digital asset management solution, which allows marketing teams to share, store, and organize digital assets without the need for hardware or IT support. Flight will automatically sort content by file type, but also allows you to assign items to multiple albums without creating copies. Files can later be searched by type, keywords, tags, or by when or who uploaded it. The single interface of Flight and the ability to share content with non-Flight users (via a Dropbox account or social media) make this an ideal solution for small to mid-sized companies.
Cumulus
Cumulus is another Canto product; one suited for larger companies and marketing teams. With Cumulus, you can create, organize, share, and publish digital content. This app can truly meet the needs of any marketing team as it works on any system, works from any device (both desktop and mobile) and is available as a hosted, cloud, or hybrid cloud approach. Cumulus also offers some of the most advanced metadata technology. Cumulus will automatically extract specific metadata (color mode, resolutions, and font names, just to name a few) and any metadata will be written into the file so that it stays with the content no matter where it is delivered. Cumulus’ advanced features, combined with a lack of file limitations make it a popular choice among marketing teams.
Third Light IMS
Third Light IMS allows you to create a web-based media library in which to store and share digital content. This app uses a thumbnail layout to make viewing and browsing images easy. One of its most noted features is its graphics conversion tools. With Third Light IMS, your marketing team will be able to change image resolution, change color space, resize and crop, and convert a file from one format to another. The Third Light software is available in three levels of packaging so it can accommodate the needs of your team no matter its size or needs.
Razuna
This tool stores, shares, secures and indexes digital files and then makes them available in a search tool. Perhaps best of all, the tool is flexible. With Razuna, you can store files on your internal server (for example, information is sensitive, and you can’t store it externally) or on Razuna’s cloud-based servers. The option is yours – with many DAM platforms, it’s cloud-based or nothing. Finally, Razuna is open-sourced, meaning it’s constantly in a state of evolution and improvement.
Adobe Experience Manager
More a content management system (or CMS) than a DAM, Adobe Experience Manager is nonetheless an incredible tool. It enables companies and teams to create, manage, optimize, and deliver personalized customer experiences across a number of channels including the web, mobile apps, social communities, and even in-store. Asset management, understandably, is a built-in component of this wide-ranging platform. It may not be for every company, but for those that can benefit, Adobe Experience Manager is one to look out for.
Intelligence Bank
IntelligenceBank offers four different asset management apps based on your business size and specific needs, providing features such as file storage and risk and compliance. It makes it easy to store, manage, and share digital assets, both internally and with clients. Attractive benefits include version control, supported file sizes up to 2GB, bulk uploads, previewing, and built-in comment and review functionality.
Brandfolder
Built by creatives for creatives, Brandfolder is the most visually elegant way to organize, manage, and share important brand assets from a single location. Save time and reduce redundancy with Brandfolder features like image conversion, analytics, and asset tagging. The cloud-based platform makes it easy for users to securely share public and private assets, like logos, fonts, images and documents, across any device. Recommended by 100% of G2Crowd reviewers, Brandfolder is digital asset management, simplified.
Knowing a little about the unique features of each DAM app is a good step in choosing a software that is right for you, but don’t feel rushed to jump into a decision. Most of these products offer free demos or even free trials so that you can test out the capabilities of each product and find the one that best meets the needs of your marketing team.
Which one is your favorite digital asset management system? Did we overlook any on our list?