6 ways to empower your frontline employees for maximum content creation
Papirfly
8minutes read
Content creation is the lifeblood of modern marketing.
From a consistent cycle of blog posts, emails and social media posts, to powerful one-off videos, landing pages and billboards – great content campaigns are the key to connecting with your audiences worldwide.
With 97% of professionals saying they experience at least some level of success with content marketing, brands must keep up with growing consumer demands. But this is much easier said than done.
Maintaining a constant flow of content across multiple channels is a prevailing problem for marketing teams. Despite innovations in AI software and automation tools, the struggle persists, placing a lot of demand on creatives, designers and your head office to maintain pace with an ever-growing number of platforms – all in the face of ever-shrinking budgets.
If you’re reading this and you can relate to this familiar strain, your frontline staff – the people who interact with your customers, manage your outlets and take care of your day-to-day obligations – may be the key to scaling your output to new heights.
Here we’ll explain how, with the right tools, strategies and incentives, you can empower your frontline employees to become the beating heart of your content marketing efforts.
What do we mean by frontline employees?
First, we should clarify what we mean by “frontline employees”. As noted above, your frontline workers are the people who directly engage with your audiences and keep your operations running smoothly.
They’re the baristas serving customers in your cafe. The shop assistants stacking shelves in your supermarket or department stores. The customer service representatives answering people’s questions and concerns. Simply put, they’re the backbone of your organization.
The challenges impacting today’s content marketers
Now, what are the prevailing challenges today’s content marketers face, and which of these could be resolved by a helping hand from your frontline workforce?
Lack of trained personnel
First, there’s the simple problem of demand for content outstripping available resources. With 51% of companies saying they use over 8 channels, many marketing teams need additional personnel to produce and maintain a continuous flow of content on each of their active platforms – especially if they have visions of scaling up in future.
Personalisation and localisation
Beyond the number of channels, global companies also have to consider the pressing need to tailor content for specific audiences and regions. With personalized content now a growing expectation among consumers, this adds another layer of complexity for already burdened content marketers.
Maintaining brand consistency
Attempting to churn out content at pace can allow inconsistencies to creep in – mistakes which can subsequently damage your image in the eyes of your customers. Brand consistency is critical to a strong reputation and sustainable brand equity – when this falters, it can take a long time to fully recover.
Managing content and campaigns
With multiple marketing campaigns in motion across several locations, maintaining control and oversight of every asset is a time-consuming, painstaking burden. The more time your marketing team devotes to coordinating assets, the less time they can dedicate to evolving your content strategy.
Dependence on designers and agencies
To relieve the burden on the central marketing team, many organizations delegate content creation to freelance designers and specialist agencies. This can reduce the stress involved, but it comes at a cost – and not just a financial one.
Using professionals outside your organization places your content production schedule in their hands, adding complexity to the pipeline and concerns over their capacity to fulfill your needs.
How does empowering your frontline employees address these issues?
A lot of the fundamental issues affecting content marketers could be resolved if there were simply more people who could contribute to your content creation process. People who understand your business, your brand and your customers. So, what better than boosting your frontline employees into this role?
Now if it were as simple as that, every company in the world would already be doing it. If you’re keen to mobilize your frontline workers, there are several hurdles you have to clear first:
Tough obstacles that, with the right combination of tools and some top-line direction from your marketing leaders, can be overcome to make frontline content creation a very real possibility in your organization.
6 steps to enhance your employees’ involvement in your marketing
1. Utilize intelligent design templates
The biggest barriers between your employees and your content are a lack of design expertise and available time. Using on-brand design templates addresses both of these concerns and can instantly inspire your employees to share quality content.
Content creation solutions with this capability provide an intuitive framework for users, fixing all necessary brand elements in place so there is zero risk of inconsistency. From there, your employees then have the freedom to create and adapt materials to their requirements, without compromising your company’s identity.
This can have several practical benefits, such as:
Enabling anyone to produce high-performing assets, no matter their skill level
Cutting down asset creation times to a matter of minutes
Allowing users to tailor languages, imagery and wording to their audience or region
Permitting the production of content for multiple different channels in one location
By also incorporating safety measures, such as approval workflows and a library of professionally designed content templates, you lay the foundation for an employee-generated content revolution – one that can scale up your in-house marketing and reduce your reliance on freelancers and agencies.
2. Centralise brand guidelines and directives
Your content production tools shouldn’t stop at design templates. While these tools help lock down consistency while reducing production times and costs, it’s just as important that your frontline employees understand your brand inside and out before you allow them to start generating assets.
Your brand guidelines are the crux of this requirement, so it’s essential that they’re accessible to your entire workforce. You might think that this is a given, but while 85% of companies say they have documented guidelines, only 30% enforce them consistently.
Establishing a central, online destination for your brand guidelines and similar resources helps ensure that your frontline staff, wherever they’re based, can engage with and educate themselves on your identity. A brand portal can be a valuable tool in this process, storing this key information in one online place that your teams can access whenever required.
3. Provide education and training
Alongside these capacity-expanding tools, it’s beneficial to introduce designated training sessions with frontline workers who are interested in content creation. Hosted by members of your central marketing team or other executives, regular sessions with your team can help them understand what’s expected and feel more confident engaging in this process.
While on the surface it may seem like trading one time-consuming task for another, it’s all a matter of perspective. What is more time-costly: a monthly training session with your internal teams, or the hours you devote to creating, proofing, amending and distributing content to your outlets worldwide?
Plus, opportunities for learning and development are massive motivators for the latest generation of frontline workers. So not only can this scale up your content development – it may also enhance your overall employee experiences and job satisfaction.
4. Incorporate content creation into your onboarding process
The employee onboarding stage sets the expectations for your new recruits, so they can fully understand your processes and their responsibilities. By introducing your content creation tools and brand management solutions at this early phase, you can help ensure that this is understood and embraced by your newest employees.
This means that by the time they have fully settled into their new role, your content creation process can already be second nature to them. Over time, this can create a culture of content production throughout your frontline workforce, rather than the sole responsibility of your central marketing teams.
5. Create a single source of truth for your content
If your entire frontline staff are engaged in content generation, assets can quickly become muddled, misplaced or lost altogether, adding to your workload instead of streamlining it. Preventing this requires a single, centralized repository for assets developed across your organization – a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system.
Investing in a DAM solution allows you to consolidate all your branded content, assets, imagery, videos and beyond into one combined library – accessible to your teams across the globe. With the ability to tag assets, set permissions and distribute these to your outlets worldwide in real time, a DAM can put you in total control over the consistency and frequency of your content.
6. Establish an employee recognition and rewards programme
Finally, encouraging your employees to play a more conscious role in your marketing operations through tangible incentives can help ensure that this is not an on-again, off-again occurrence, but a fixed, reliable approach.
While each employee will have their own unique motivations to get involved in such a scheme, some examples to help inspire your staff include:
Reap the rewards of empowering your frontline workers
Empowering your frontline employees to be at the core of your content creation efforts is not straightforward. But by following the techniques above and investing in the tools and training required to execute this, you open the doors to a whole host of benefits:
Scaled-up content output: With more hands available, your teams can create more content than ever, with increased productivity and better cost-efficiency.
Greater consistency: As work is created in-house by professionals who know your brand, consistency can be locked down on every channel and location.
Extended reach: Scaling up your content generation means you can build a bigger presence on new and existing channels, and tailor content to specific regions and audiences.
Faster times to market: Turnaround times for content can be cut significantly, and employees are enabled to capitalize on fleeting opportunities to capture sales.
More engaged employees: By getting involved in your content generation, your employees can forge stronger, more meaningful bonds with your brand.
Capacity for strategic thinking: With the pressure of content generation eased, your marketing team will have more room to plan, reflect and evolve your brand.
Empowering your frontline employees to create collateral takes time to perfect, but with every piece of content your teams produce, the closer you come to a state of marketing self-sufficiency.
We hope this has given you the motivation to see where you can scale up your content creation in the long term, and harness your professionals at every level of your organization to make a positive impact on the future of your brand.
No matter how many features and how big a capacity a DAM system has, the only really relevant question is: How good is it at making effective use of the assets?
Procuring a DAM system usually begins with drawing up a list of requirements. Sometimes this is laid out in the form of a number of use cases about what is expected in different situations. A “Request for information” is then sent out to a number of possible suppliers for an initial selection.
The obvious goal of a central DAM solution is that it should constitute a “single source of truth”. But that requirement is only a declaration of intent that can be solved with technical functionality. It says nothing about ease of use, complexity in the configuration of the technology, etc.
From my own experience with over 20 years as a consultant and supplier of DAM solutions, the majority of the requested information has focused on functions and technology that are mainly aimed at the work to be performed by those, often rather few, who shall manage and maintain the system, the DAM editors or librarians. This is work done in what most call ”our DAM”. I say that this is just one part of the DAM, the backend.
Pretty much all leading systems today have a good “backend” in the form of an interface for uploading and maintaining assets. The variations between different systems are mostly about details and some special functionality.
But a DAM’s most important function is to make the content available to anyone who shall see and consume the material.
A DAM project should therefore have the overall goal of finding the system that is easiest to use and most efficient in supporting the needs of mainly the end users.
The DAM editors must of course have a strong tool for their work, but regardless of which solution is chosen, they will learn their new tool. For the backend you naturally must ensure that all important basic requirements are met in order to manage assets throughout their entire life cycle.
But for the end users, the requirements are completely different. Most are infrequent users. They have different wishes at different times. They want to get hold of the right material from different units and in different contexts.
Therefore, it must be possible to make the navigation simple, obvious and inviting. A goal for the DAM project can e.g. be defined as the possibility to…
“Serving assets on a silver platter”
By that I mean that it should be super clear and obvious to find the relevant assets. And it should be possible to communicate and present how the assets can and should be used for best results. Also there shall be ways to present assets in different views, with logical filtered groupings, very visual and clear navigation, tailor made to suit each organization’s needs.
A similar requirement could be to find a system that enables a relevant selection of assets to never be further than two or three clicks away.
“Assets always within reach, 2-3 clicks away”
I’ve seen great examples made by clients where instead of having the user do searches and try to find the right stuff, the DAM editors have presented all materials belonging to e.g. a specific campaign, on one long page.
To communicate the campaign, a link is sent, one click and the end user has all needed information and ready to use assets on the screen.
And it should be just a few clicks away for the editors to achieve this, without needing to hard code anything.
DAM center portal
A very difficult question to handle is where to find what you need. All companies have lots of different system solutions. A new DAM system is another one to keep track of and could be lost in the wind.
Therefore, the DAM project should aim to establish a place for all the DAM assets of the business, that is easy to remember. The most important way to achieve this is by making the portal really useful and inspiring to navigate. But also, just by naming the portal smartly, could have a huge impact on remembering where to go.
All leading DAM systems have some form of end user portal aimed at regular users. For this you have to set high demands and test:
What are the possibilities to create a solution exactly the way you want it?
Is it easy to modify and maintain?
Is it consultant-intensive?
Can it facilitate communication around assets?
Can it facilitate searching, sharing and downloading?
Can you add on functionality afterwards?
DAM access from applications
If you are to fulfill “Assets always within reach, 2-3 clicks away”, you also need to give end users direct access from the applications they use.
Connect the DAM to Powerpoint, Word, Google Docs, etc. This is where the absolute largest number of users will get a better everyday life by having direct DAM access. Just by installing a connector.
For a smaller group, the Adobe connection is important. Make sure it supports Indesign image links. Explore the possibility of creating a creative process with agencies.
Other users who also benefit from simple DAM access are web creators who work with Figma and web editors should have direct DAM access from the CMS.
DAM access via API
For PIM systems and web shops, a connection to DAM is a big advantage. Investigate if it can be solved with connector or direct DAM linking via API.
Conclusion
By focusing on the delivery of assets to end users in the most comfortable way possible, you will ensure that a new DAM solution will not be just another system but an essential tool for, especially, all in marketing and sales. But it will reach further into other parts of the organization as well.
In almost all parts of an organization there are assets waiting for a better home.
So to get the most out of the huge investment and effort put into creating brand and marketing assets, they really should be… served on a silver platter.
Learn more at DAM NY
At Papirfly, we are dedicated to revolutionizing digital asset management with innovative solutions that streamline content creation and management. We’re thrilled to be participating in the DAM NY event, where we’ll dive into the latest trends and advancements in the DAM landscape.
Visit our booth to discover how Papirfly’s solutions can enhance your asset management and support your content creation needs. We look forward to engaging with you at the event and exploring the future of DAM together.
For more information about how Papirfly is driving the evolution of digital asset management, clickhere.
Localized employer branding: Your key to engaging with regional talent
Papirfly
7minutes read
In today’s highly competitive job market, your employer brand is vital. It’s the key to attracting top talent, retaining your existing employees, and distinguishing yourself against a backdrop of ever-increasing competition.
And, while a compelling Employee Value Proposition (EVP) and an authentic, attractive culture are both important parts of a world-class employer brand – for global companies, few things are more crucial to connect with candidates than personalized, localized messaging.
This means more than just writing job descriptions in relevant languages or using local imagery in your onboarding materials. For the best localized employer brand messaging, it’s important to tailor your marketing assets to the cultural sensitivities of local markets.
Imagine you were recruiting candidates in Japan. Because Japanese work culture tends to value collectivism, where a company is often viewed like a family, you would want to create content that centers around your team members and company culture.
However, this ‘team-focused’ recruitment strategy likely wouldn’t spark the same interest with American job seekers. In this instance, you might speak to this region’s individualism by highlighting employee perks, learning and development opportunities, or flexible working options on your adverts.
Respecting a culture’s unique nuances is essential for attracting and retaining top talent. It shows them that your company values their specific requirements, rather than pushing ahead with a generic, one-size-fits-all message for your global workforce.
But what more does localized employer branding do for your company? And how do you actually implement this in your marketing? In this article, we’ll dive deeper into the topic of employer brand localization and show you how to get started.
Why is region-specific employer branding so important?
According to recent figures, as many as 75% of global firms have found it hard to get the right talent through the door. If you’re one of the thousands of employers in this difficult position, you’ll know that long-term vacancies can cost your business dearly in time, money and productivity.
To give yourself an edge in local talent attraction, regional employer branding allows your roles to better resonate with job seekers right out the gate. By wrapping your collateral in imagery or elements that speak to their culture or surroundings, you already demonstrate that your brand aligns with them directly.
This can help you fill your positions up to 50% faster, and boost your chances of securing a quality hire by as much as three times.
Plus, by engaging your existing employees with job materials that reflect their culture and location, you can improve retention internally by as much as 28%. Aside from easing the pressure on your recruitment and hiring processes, engaged workplaces can be 17% more productive and 21% more profitable.
On top of this, localized employer brand content lays the foundation for a more positive global reputation. Even if your internal employees and job seekers aren’t the target audience for your corporate branding, giving these groups a positive experience sends a strong signal to customers, stakeholders and other audiences in these territories.
How do you translate a global employer brand to local markets?
A localized employer brand strategy is a proven way of improving the speed and quality of your talent acquisition efforts. It can also empower your existing staff, enhance productivity and contribute to a trusted reputation.
But how do you unlock the full potential of this strategy? Like any employer branding initiative, the right approach is essential.
Understand your ideal candidates and existing staff
Before committing any time or resources to localized content creation, it’s important to understand exactly who your regional audiences are and what they stand for.
Do you want to appeal to candidates in a brand-new market? Are you trying to counteract high churn in a particular regional office?
Your objectives will dictate the look, feel and direction of your employer brand campaigns, so it’s important you have a clear picture of the employee personas you’re targeting from the very beginning. Without this, it can be impossible to know how to tailor job postings and employee engagement strategies to best resonate with the right people.
Plus, when you consider that every country has their own idea of work, culture, benefits and more, ensuring your adverts, onboarding materials and internal branding pieces are as impactful as possible relies on the insight you gain through these personas.
So, how do you create these crucial documents? At their core, your employee personas should ask:
What region is my audience located in?
What goals and motivations do they have?
What are their key demographics?
What personality traits do they demonstrate?
What challenges do they face?
What do they want/expect from a workplace?
Stay organized with robust Digital Asset Management software
Once you have a solid idea of exactly who you need to target, the next step involved in translating your employer brand worldwide is to prioritize organization.
The last thing you want is for an off-brand job advert to find its way into the hands of a potential candidate, or a new recruit to receive an outdated version of your onboarding package. Why? Because inconsistencies like this can shatter people’s trust, set false expectations, and undermine the good will your employer brand has worked so hard to build.
But, with potentially thousands of assets to organize across dozens of countries, keeping on top of everything can quickly become a full-time responsibility.
Here, a dedicated Digital Asset Management (DAM) system can be really helpful. Acting as a central, digital repository where every asset can be tagged, organized and easily accessed, getting the right materials in front of the right candidates becomes a simple, straightforward task.
Coupled with regional brand portals that house your local style guidelines, EVPs and exemplary assets, your provincial teams can get immediate access to the content relevant to their audience. This makes it faster and easier for your global departments to run effective recruitment campaigns, all while streamlining internal communications.
Invest in on-brand content creation tools
While giving your teams access to the right assets is an important part of delivering a locally-tuned employer brand, if you operate in multiple territories, chances are you’ll have a long list of different audiences to create collateral for – and the time, resources or capabilities to deliver only a fraction of it.
Coupled with the inconsistency that can arise when your decentralized teams begin adapting your core assets (or create their own materials altogether), it’s clear to see how content production is one of the greatest challenges for delivering a locally-relevant, globally spanning employer brand.
And with signs suggesting that the demand for collateral is only going up, how do you and your teams deliver employer branding at scale in the long term?
In our view, the right on-brand content creation tools are invaluable. By giving your central and frontline personnel the ability to swap out things like imagery, copy, colors and more in a matter of clicks, as the core facets of your brand guidelines remain fixed, smart templating technology can streamline production in a big way.
In practice, this means your central marketing departments can prepare core materials on budget for every region, all while your locally-based teams have the tools to create or tailor assets to their target markets without undermining the consistency of your brand.
Plus, with ease of use central to most content creation tools, anyone across your business can produce the materials they need, freeing up your marketers and creatives to focus on fleshing out your employer brand strategy.
Put simply, the right solution can revolutionize the way you deliver collateral to candidates and colleagues around the world.
Inspire your existing employees to become advocates
Another great way to translate your global employer brand to local communities is to use employee ambassadors.
It doesn’t matter if you’re conducting localized hiring drives or spreading awareness of your presence in a new market. The bottom line is, people trust employees significantly more than companies themselves.
So, who better to offer first-hand insight into your workplace than your regional team members? Their unique access and authenticity can demonstrate specifically how your workplace reflects the cultural nuances of the area.
This can give talent a clear picture of life at your organization, form genuine connections with people in the area, and ultimately attract candidates to your career site.
Furthermore, by getting your staff to play a more active role in your employer brand and rewarding their efforts, you can encourage your teams to stick with you for the long term.
Ready to realize the full potential of your employer brand?
As the competition for talent intensifies – and job seekers become increasingly discerning – successfully recruiting and retaining talent demands a local approach to employer branding.
However, with each country having their own cultural traditions and expectations to honor, crafting and coordinating content that resonates with each of these audiences is no easy feat.
By putting the insights we’ve covered in this article into practice, we hope you’ll have everything you need to reshape your employer brand into one that connects with candidates and colleagues from one region to the next.
Storytelling and scalability: Finding the perfect balance in your content creation strategy
Papirfly
9minutes read
Content production is the beating heart of modern marketing campaigns. The more you can create content that engages audiences, communicates your offering, and features on your most relevant channels, the more success your brand will experience in the long term.
And while there are many moving parts to the content creation process, the foundation for success can often boil down to two main factors:
The most effective content creation strategies understand how crucial both these components are to reaching and capturing the imagination of potential customers. Prioritising one over the other – or failing to fulfil either – limits your marketing strategy, making life more difficult for you and your colleagues.
So, how do you properly balance story and scale in content distribution? In this article, you’ll discover the importance of both pillars and uncover strategies to help you make the best of both worlds.
What is storytelling in marketing?
The world’s most successful brands have a story to tell:
For Apple, it’s a story of challenging the status quo through innovation and creativity
For Dove, it’s the idea that beauty is diverse and should be celebrated in all forms
For Patagonia, it’s making the world a better place through eco-friendly initiatives
These companies, and many more like them, invest a substantial amount of time and resources into crafting marketing narratives that go beyond facts, figures and features. Why? Because what truly captures the hearts and minds of consumers is a compelling story that explains who you are, what you do, and how you can help them.
In a world where you’re competing with dozens, if not hundreds, of companies for people’s attention and custom, your brand story must set you apart from the crowd. When done well, you foster more meaningful, emotional relationships than data can do on its own, speaking to audiences in a way that’s digestible, universal and inspiring.
Take TOMS as an example. Their “One for One” model is built around their founder Blake Mycoskie’s experience seeing children struggling without shoes in Argentina. They consistently publish content that emphasises this altruistic message, helping people understand the vision behind their business.
Why is brand storytelling so important for content creation?
Brand storytelling inspires and motivates people to act
Tapping into people’s emotions through a relatable, empathetic or compelling story helps people get behind your brand. If people understand the narrative behind your products, services and actions, they are more likely to buy into you as a business.
Brand storytelling simplifies complex messages and concepts
A huge part of modern audience engagement is keeping things simple. A well-crafted story makes it easier for people to understand who you are and what you can do for them, and also makes your offering more memorable in the long term.
Brand storytelling enhances people’s trust in your brand
Brands that use storytelling to strengthen their content strategies are instantly considered more credible and authoritative. A story helps to humanise your brand, which in turn creates more trust with customers than speaking to a faceless business.
Brand storytelling stops you from sounding salesy
Fundamentally, storytelling allows you to communicate authentically and empathetically with your audiences. Rather than simply tell them why they should use you, a story presents your offering in a fresh, compelling way that speaks to them on a deeper level.
What is content scalability?
If storytelling is the message at the core of your content, scalability is how you get this message to the masses.
As you might expect, content scalability (or content scaling) refers to how you distribute your content across the numerous channels and formats available to modern marketers.
But as the range of content marketing channels grows, as well as customers’ expectations to receive content at multiple touchpoints, scalability is something that cannot be ignored.
Effective content scaling means identifying ways to produce content faster, simpler and more cost-effectively, without seeing any dip in the quality or relevance of your assets.
Why is scalable content marketing so important?
Scalable content marketing builds your brand awareness
Maintaining a constant flow of physical and digital content goes a long way to raising people’s awareness of your brand, your story and your offerings. The more you can appear on your audiences’ preferred channels, the more their understanding of your company grows.
Scalable content marketing improves your authority
Similarly, having a consistent and frequent presence on various marketing channels makes your brand appear more authoritative and a “leader” in your space. If you post infrequently or have a smaller presence, that can be a red flag.
Scalable content marketing drives more conversions
Simply put, the wider the spread of your content marketing campaigns, the more avenues there are for customers to engage with your brand. This can significantly boost your website traffic, direct purchases and other conversions you track.
The need to balance story and scale in content creation
As you can tell, storytelling and scalability are both fundamental pillars of success in today’s marketing landscape. However, simply being aware of their importance isn’t enough to achieve the best results – you must balance both in your content creation strategy to unleash your marketing’s full potential.
To demonstrate why, let’s look at what problems can occur when you prioritise one over the other:
Too much story, not enough scale
The art of storytelling requires a great deal of attention and creativity to nail down. However, if you prioritise this over the scale of your content production, it can mean:
You limit the reach of your marketing campaigns, curbing your potential for growth
You miss opportunities to connect with potential customers on certain channels
You fail to convert customers due to a lack of engagement across touchpoints
Too much scale, not enough story
On the flip side, if you prioritise producing content for all channels at the expense of story and visuals:
You risk diluting the impact of your narrative and its emotional impact on audiences
You fragment your storytelling, creating a disconnect that alienates your customers
You produce content that lacks creativity and uniqueness, turning your marketing bland
In a nutshell, both story and scalability must be equally prioritised to make your content creation as effective as it can be. To make this ambition a reality, you need the right strategies behind your marketing efforts.
6 content creation strategies to balance storytelling and scalability
If you are keen to ensure your content marketing tells stories that capture people’s imagination, and that this can be produced efficiently and consistently to the largest possible audience, here are 6 good ideas to help you find the perfect balance.
1. Let your creatives craft the narrative for your campaign storytelling
While story and scale have equal weight in the content marketing spectrum, story must come before scale. As we highlighted earlier, there’s no benefit in creating a tonne of assets if the story behind them doesn’t connect as intended.
So, designate a creative team to nail down the story behind your brand, and the core visuals, copy and imagery that will best communicate that message. How you construct this team is up to you:
Partnering with a marketing agency can be a beneficial first step. Their ability to look at your company from an objective, outside perspective can help prevent any subjective bias from compromising the power of your brand storytelling.
By giving your most creative minds the freedom to create and mould your story, you lay the foundation for content to flow with the right intent.
2. Make your brand story accessible and understandable for all content creators
After you cement the story behind your campaign and establish the templates for conveying it in your content, you must share this with your teams around the world – not just your marketers.
A crucial key to content marketing at scale is giving more people the power to produce assets that reflect your overall brand story (we’ll discuss this further in tip #3). However, if you don’t make this story and its supporting visuals easily accessible, your creators may veer off course, affecting the consistency and strength of your message.
A printed brand guidelines booklet doesn’t cut it in today’s digital-first, globalised world. Instead, an online brand portal and Digital Asset Management (DAM) system can help your people understand the story behind your brand, and reflect it as intended for their own audiences.
A brand portal allows you to present the digital assets behind your campaign in the context of your brand story. This helps your teams engage with and understand your vision, so they can execute content with this direction in mind.
Meanwhile, a well-structured DAM system does more than manage your content and distribute it across your teams. It gives your people a complete overview of your campaign assets and messages, so they can learn from and apply them in future.
Plus, if your DAM solution allows you to categorise assets according to their campaign, location and other parameters, your teams can find and reference these exact examples for their ongoing content creation efforts.
Essentially, the combination of a brand portal and DAM system has the power to educate your entire workforce on your story, which then gives them the power to create content that evokes this message themselves.
3. Harness technology to publish great content at an even greater scale
Of course, not everyone is a skilled designer or evocative copywriter. But the right content creation tools can help anyone produce on-brand, studio-quality assets – and do so at an unprecedented scale.
Investing in template software that provides a safe framework for your users, with the wriggle room to get creative within these parameters, allows you to significantly speed up content production and open this avenue to frontline employees who lack the requisite design skills.
These smart templates do more than make the content creation process smoother and simpler:
Individual teams can personalise and localise content so it tells your story in a way that resonates with their specific audience
Multiple templates enable your marketers to adapt content to different formats seamlessly – video, digital banners, social media posts, posters, etc.
Content stays consistent on all channels through centralised brand governance
Explore the content creation software available and bestow your people with the ability to scale up production to another level, all without compromising the strength of your storytelling or the quality of your output.
4. Coordinate a content calendar that lets your story flow
No matter how strong the story behind your campaign is, or how many people have the tools to produce content at scale – a disorganised campaign is doomed to fail.
Plotting out a structured content or editorial calendar helps you publish content at the right time, on the right channels, to best deliver your campaign’s narrative. More than this, it also gives you an outline of how much content you’ll need for your campaign to guide your creators.
This stops over-scaling from diluting your messages. By spending time on a calendar or schedule for each campaign, you can coordinate your content requirements to deliver the maximum impact for your audiences worldwide.
5. Repurpose content for multiple marketing channels and formats
A smart first step to scaling up your content is through repurposing. This is when you take a central asset and adapt this to other formats and for other audiences.
For example, you may have a 10-page brochure that breaks down your organisation’s mission, vision and purpose. That one brochure could then spin off into:
A series of animated videos for YouTube or TikTok
A collection of carousels for your social media channels
Several blog posts on your website
A group of banner ads with key messages from the booklet
By repurposing, you do more than extend the life of a more comprehensive piece of content. You ensure that everything that spawns from this central point shares the same story, visuals and values on your wider channels, so your brand consistency is never in jeopardy.
6. Prioritise brand consistency at every touchpoint of your marketing
Whatever story you want to tell, on however many channels you want to utilise – brand consistency is key.
Being authentic and constant in how you portray your content’s story is the foundation for building trust with your audience. If any stage in your customer journey breaks, it can make your story feel disingenuous, reducing its emotional pull.
Using content creation tools, such as intelligent design templates, helps ensure that you develop content fitting your brand guidelines and convey your unique creative vision, no matter how much you produce.
Marketing content in balance: Making both story and scale your priority
There is no questioning the value of brand storytelling in making your content as captivating and engaging as possible for your audiences. It’s just as true that without a scalable approach to content marketing, you won’t be able to get that message out at the speed and frequency it needs to succeed.
We hope this article has helped you consider the importance of storytelling and scalability in your content production, and whether you have found the right balance in your organisation.
By taking stock of our tips and strategies, you can take a significant step towards marketing that captures attention, sustains audience engagement, and delivers impact at every touchpoint.
Table of contents:
What is storytelling in marketing?
What is content scalability?
The need to balance story and scale in content creation
6 content creation strategies to balance storytelling and scalability
Marketing content in balance: Making both story and scale your priority
Technology
The future of MarTech: Embracing hyper-personalization and AI-driven content creation
Papirfly
4minutes read
Papirfly was proud to sponsor ANFO’s MarTech Awards in Norway this November, where we celebrated industry innovation and took the stage to present the coveted Innovation of the Year Award. We were also thrilled to win gold in the B2B Category Award for our 12-year long strategic partnership with our client REMA 1000.
Frank Tommy and Eva-Lill presented a talk on the Future of MarTech, exploring three transformative trends reshaping how brands connect with their consumers. These trends—hyper-personalization, AI-driven content creation, and responsible marketing practices—are not just shaping the future of MarTech; they’re key to thriving in today’s competitive landscape.
Hyper-personalization through advanced data integration
Consumers today demand more than generic messages—they want experiences that feel tailor-made. This growing expectation is driving brands to adopt advanced data integration strategies, enabling deeper insights into customer preferences and behaviors.
Imagine crafting a message that resonates with someone on a personal level—whether it’s a highly relevant email, a perfectly targeted ad, or a unique landing page experience. This isn’t just about adding a name to a subject line; it’s about understanding a customer’s journey, addressing their pain points, and creating content that feels genuinely meaningful.
At Papirfly, we believe that effective Digital Asset Management (DAM) is crucial for achieving this level of personalization. A robust DAM system enables teams to efficiently manage vast volumes of customer data and creative assets, making it possible to create, distribute, and optimize personalized, on-brand content across channels.
Picture this: your campaigns are powered by real-time data, allowing you to adapt strategies on the fly. That’s the game-changing potential of hyper-personalization—a future where marketing connects deeply with individuals and fosters lasting loyalty.
The rise of AI-driven content creation and optimization
The second trend, AI-driven content creation, is no longer a concept of the future—it’s a present-day reality, transforming how brands approach content marketing. AI tools can analyze performance metrics, consumer interactions, and emerging market trends, generating insights that shape content strategies.
Think of the time we spend creating, editing, and optimizing content. AI can automate much of this work, freeing marketers to focus on storytelling and strategic decision-making. With AI, brands can achieve consistent messaging, adapt swiftly to changing market demands, and maximize the impact of their campaigns.At Papirfly, we’re excited by the possibilities AI brings to on-brand content creation. Its ability to process data at scale ensures your messaging remains relevant and impactful, helping brands stay ahead in a fast-moving digital world.
Personalization vs. privacy: Finding the balance
As exciting as hyper-personalization and AI-driven content creation are, they come with a clear responsibility: respecting customer privacy. Brands must tread carefully to balance the benefits of tailored experiences with the need to maintain trust and transparency.
At the awards, we tied these trends to the classic Norwegian folk tale Tre Bukkene Bruse (The Three Billy Goats Gruff) offering a fitting analogy. Each goat represents an aspect of MarTech innovation:
The youngest goat, eager and bold, embodies hyper-personalization, pushing the boundaries of how we connect with consumers.
The middle goat, resourceful and clever, reflects AI-driven content creation, which needs careful guidance to stay on the right path.
The wise eldest goat reminds us of our ultimate goal—building trust and integrity in all customer interactions.
But no bridge is without its challenges, and the troll lurking underneath symbolizes GDPR and other privacy regulations. While these rules might feel like an obstacle, they exist to ensure that data is handled ethically and responsibly. By respecting these safeguards, brands can cross the bridge to customer trust safely, avoiding the pitfalls of shortcuts and data misuse.
The lesson is clear: hyper-personalization and AI can help brands create incredible customer experiences, but only if these tools are used in ways that prioritize transparency, consent, and ethical practices.
Building a sustainable future in MarTech
The future of MarTech is as promising as the bridge in Tre Bukkene Bruse—a path to deeper connections, stronger loyalty, and more impactful marketing strategies. However, crossing that bridge requires brands to navigate the challenges responsibly, ensuring their methods align with consumer expectations and privacy regulations.
Hyper-personalization and AI-driven content creation are no longer optional—they’re critical for brands looking to thrive in an increasingly competitive landscape. But these innovations must be paired with a commitment to ethical practices. Transparency, consent, and respect for personal data aren’t just compliance measures; they’re cornerstones of trust.
Just as the three goats succeed by balancing boldness with wisdom, brands can navigate the evolving MarTech landscape by embracing innovation while respecting their customers. When done right, the rewards are clear: personalized experiences, loyal audiences, and a sustainable, forward-looking strategy for growth.
With these principles in mind, the bridge to the future of MarTech isn’t just achievable—it’s an opportunity to create meaningful, lasting connections.
Table of contents:
Hyper-personalization through advanced data integration
The rise of AI-driven content creation and optimization
Personalization vs. privacy: Finding the balance
Building a sustainable future in MarTech
Retail Marketing
eTail Malmö 2024 wrap-up
Papirfly
4minutes read
The recent eTail Nordicevent in Malmo brought together leading brands and marketing professionals to explore the latest trends driving retail and e-commerce in the Nordics. For brands looking to stay competitive in the evolving retail landscape, here are the key trends that stood out for us as a sponsor.
1. The evolving role of customer experience (CX)
In today’s competitive landscape, personalization and seamless omnichannel experiences have become essential. Nordic consumers expect brands to recognize their unique preferences across both digital and physical touchpoints, fostering loyalty through relevant, personalized experiences. As retailers scale their personalized marketing, however, maintaining brand consistency across all channels can become complex. The focus for brands now lies in refining how they present themselves, by showcasing relevant, on-brand content that connects with their audience instantly and effectively.
2. Sustainability as a core value
Sustainability is more than just a trend in the Nordics; it’s an expectation. Consumers are particularly invested in ethical sourcing and circular business models, rewarding brands that align with these values. As brands weave sustainability into their core strategy—not just their products—they are challenged to convey these values authentically. Effectively communicating sustainability efforts across markets, in a way that aligns with local values, is a critical step in building trust with consumers. Brands that manage to do this with clarity and consistency across channels have a distinct advantage in connecting with the eco-conscious Nordic consumer.
3. AI and automation: Efficiency meets creativity
AI is transforming retail by driving efficiency in operations while supporting creativity in customer engagement. From inventory management to automated marketing, AI enables brands to streamline processes while still delivering personalized, engaging content at scale. For many brands, the challenge lies in balancing automation with a genuine, creative touch that resonates with consumers. AI’s role should be about removing repetitive, manual tasks, allowing marketing teams to focus on what really matters: crafting unique, value-driven experiences for their customers that set them apart in a crowded market.
4. Data privacy and trust
With data privacy being a significant concern across the Nordics, brands must maintain transparency and comply with stringent privacy regulations. GDPR compliance isn’t optional; it’s a fundamental requirement for earning and retaining consumer trust. For brands leveraging data for personalization, this means developing processes that respect privacy while providing value to the customer. Those who prioritize clear, ethical data practices build credibility and loyalty, standing out as leaders in responsible data use—a vital differentiator in today’s privacy-conscious market.
5. The growth of social commerce and influencer marketing
Social commerce is booming, and influencer marketing remains an impactful strategy in the Nordics, where consumers are highly engaged on social media. This trend presents a unique opportunity for brands to integrate social commerce into their e-commerce strategy, creating a seamless customer journey from social platform to purchase. Brands that stay agile in adapting to these changes, whether by leveraging influencers or capitalizing on user-generated content, are better positioned to resonate with the highly connected Nordic consumer. The ability to maintain consistent messaging across these platforms, without sacrificing agility, is crucial.
6. Hybrid retail models
The blending of physical and digital retail experiences continues to reshape consumer expectations. Today’s shoppers want the freedom to interact with brands across in-store and online channels, expecting a seamless, unified journey. As hybrid retail gains traction, brands need to focus on delivering a cohesive experience that meets customers wherever they are, whether that’s through digital signage in-store or a streamlined e-commerce interface. Brands that excel in providing this flexibility create a smoother path to purchase, building stronger relationships with consumers by catering to their preferred shopping styles.
7. Accelerated time to market as a competitive edge
In an environment where trends evolve rapidly, speed matters. The ability to go from concept to execution quickly allows brands to stay relevant and respond to market shifts before competitors. Brands that leverage efficient workflows and adaptable structures are better equipped to bring campaigns and promotions to market swiftly and consistently. This agility not only enhances brand responsiveness but also fosters a deeper connection with consumers, who increasingly expect brands to be relevant, timely, and attuned to current trends.
Future-proofing Nordic retail
The future of retail in the Nordics is an exciting mix of technology, consumer expectations, and deeply rooted cultural values. Brands that can align with these evolving dynamics—particularly around sustainability, customer experience, and data privacy—are best positioned for success. By adopting a proactive approach to these trends and prioritizing authenticity and transparency, brands can navigate the future of retail with confidence. The landscape is dynamic, but with thoughtfulness and a focus on core values, Nordic brands can seize tomorrow’s opportunities and continue to lead in a constantly shifting market.
9 adverts from the 90s that will leave you feeling nostalgic
Papirfly
6minutes read
90s nostalgia seems to be in vogue right now. From the Friends Reunion special and Disney’s remakes of classic 90s animated movies like The Lion King and Aladdin, to the extraordinary revival and cost of Pokémon cards, many look back on the final years of the 20th century with nothing but fond memories.
With the 90s a decade in demand, we wanted to hop aboard the nostalgia train and look back at some of the most iconic adverts from this period, and what lessons we can take from them for future campaigns.
So drop your Gameboy, put on some Backstreet Boys or Spice Girls in the background, and let’s see what marketing in the 90s had to offer.
1. Nike: Just Do It
Although the campaign technically launched in 1988, Nike’s now synonymous slogan “Just Do It” rose to prominence in the 90s, capturing the imagination of consumers for its empowering, universal message, whether people were interested in sports or not.
What began life as a throwaway suggestion based on the final words of a convicted murderer (no seriously) became the glue that connected all Nike’s then-disparate television spots. The message landed better than they could have hoped, and now it’s virtually impossible to distinguish the brand from the tag line.
What’s the lesson?
Think clearly about the solution that your product or service provides to your audience, and contain that into one simple yet powerful message. Also, don’t be afraid to toss out ideas in brainstorming sessions – you might unexpectedly land on a winner.
2. The Energizer Bunny
Again treading the boundary of the late 80s/early 90s, the Energizer Bunny ads were incredibly popular, parodying the established Duracell Bunny and highlighting its superior performance over its competitors. Since then, this pink rabbit has gone on to become just as recognisable as their competition.
What’s the lesson?
This lesson is more of a warning. Despite the popularity of the Energizer ads, sales actually declined, with speculation being that people thought the ads were promoting Duracell, not Energizer.
So, if you intend to make a direct parody of your competitors to promote the performance of your own product, make sure your own brand stands out from what’s already out there.
3. The Andrex Puppy
The mischievous little Andrex Puppy was all over UK television in the 1990s, with his antics not only designed to tug at people’s heartstrings, but to clearly demonstrate the strength of Andrex’s toilet paper and the length of each roll. Today, this loveable pup has made Andrex the biggest brand in its sector by quite a margin.
What’s the lesson?
Consider the benefits of introducing animals into your advertising to elicit a strong emotional response from audiences – of course ensuring to only use them in a way that ties directly to your brand, products or services.
4. The Tango Orangeman
Now onto a mascot that was just as memorable in the 1990s, but a lot more controversial than the beloved Andrex Puppy. The Tango Orange Man was a reaction against the norm television advertising where products improved the lives of those in the advert.
Instead, as the video shows above, after a man drinks Tango he is slapped in the face by a man completely covered in orange, followed by their famous tagline “You know when you’ve been Tango’d”.
The popularity of the ad caused controversy when children started mimicking the slaps in playgrounds, so it was later remade with a kiss instead. But, the campaign was an unquestionable success, boosting Tango sales by around a third.
What’s the lesson?
Don’t be afraid to challenge the status quo if the opportunity emerges. This Tango advert and campaign is considered a pioneer of future viral marketing and guerrilla marketing attempts, and that is due to it going against conventional approaches to advertising at the time.
5. Got Milk?
The campaign that launched thousands of memes and copycats. The first “Got Milk?” advert from the California Milk Processor Board aired in 1993, depicting a hapless historian unable to answer a $10,000 phone-in question because his mouth was stuck by the peanut butter sandwich he was eating.
The “Got Milk?” campaign is now considered one of the most memorable of all time, attracting the involvement of numerous A-List celebrities and producing many hilarious ads – although seemingly not making much of a difference to declines in milk consumption…
What’s the lesson?
Often it’s important to target your existing customers with adverts reminding them what’s so great about the product or service you offer, rather than place all your focus on attracting new customers.
6. Wonderbra: Hello Boys
The Hello Boys advert from 1994 featuring supermodel Eva Herzigová turned the tide for Wonderbra in the battle of the bras against the Gossard Ultrabra. Previously considered the old-fashioned choice, this billboard reversed the fortunes of the brand, and has been voted the most iconic poster of all time.
It is so celebrated that Wonderbra revived the concept in 2018, but instead shifted the focus to promoting female empowerment, switching the phrase “Hello Boys” to “Hello Me”.
What’s the lesson?
Today, the lesson we can take from “Hello Boys” is that some adverts are products of their time, and would likely not prove as effective in a different era. In these instances, it is important to assess your landscape and speak to what your audience cares about, as demonstrated by Wonderbra’s transition to empowering messaging.
7. Coca-Cola: Holidays Are Coming
Coca-Cola has long been synonymous with Christmas time, and this advert from 1995 played a big part in cementing that reputation.
With the classic jingle, shots of people marvelling at the vibrant red truck driving past, and images of Santa Claus sipping a cold bottle, this ad has become a staple of Coca-Cola’s holiday marketing, to the point where many go out of their way to see these real-life trucks parade the streets throughout December.
What’s the lesson?
Building an association between your brand and a celebrated holiday can help forge a strong connection with customers when these holidays approach on the calendar. Even if you don’t reach Coca-Cola’s level of association, holiday-themed campaigns can be a great way to capture people’s attention year-round.
8. Guinness: Surfer
Considered one of the greatest television adverts of all time, this Guinness spot depicts a group of surfers waiting for the perfect moment to catch a wave powered by giant horses.
This is more akin to a short film than traditional TV ad, promoting the idea that good things come to those who wait, a reference to the fact that Guinness takes a long time to pour. Costing £6 million to produce, it is regularly mentioned as one of the most artistic and unique ads to have ever been broadcast.
What’s the lesson?
Sometimes putting belief and passion into a project will reap rewards against all expectations. When the ad was initially pushed out for public research, the response was negative. But, by trusting their instincts, they launched one of the most recognisable ads of the 90s.
9. Budweiser: Whassup?!
Finally, 1999 brought us a TV ad that not only captured a great deal of attention, but changed the way people communicated for a long time.
Budweiser’s series of commercials depicting a group of friends on the phone watching a football game and drinking beer launched the famous catchphrase “Whassup?!”, a word that quickly became a go-to introduction for conversations across America.
What’s the lesson?
Don’t be afraid to celebrate the absurdities, quirks and behaviours of your audience in your ads. The more that people can see themselves in your campaigns, the more likely it will resonate with them and create stronger, more sustainable bonds.
From the past to the present and future…
We hope this trip back in time celebrating 90s advertising hit you right in your nostalgia sweet spot. As you can see, even several decades later, there’s a lot that brands can learn from these campaigns to inspire ideas that will have people in the 2050s looking back on old adverts with the same fondness.
And, with innovations like BAM by Papirfly™, it is now quicker and easier than ever for marketing teams to create captivating, perfectly-branded assets for global campaigns.
With the capacity to produce marketing collateral in-house much faster and more cost-effectively, you can have more time to brainstorm creative, compelling advertising for your worldwide audiences, with complete confidence that anything generated by your team is on-brand and studio-quality.
You can have the best display ad media strategy in the world but if the creative around it is underwhelming, you’re not going to see the results you hoped for. The best ideas stand out from the barrage of other ads individuals see each day. They use humour, emotional appeal, and functional messaging to leave a lasting impression on those who see them while browsing online.
How to make your display ad stand out from the crowd
One part of brand building is to separate your brand from your competitors. To do that you need to know who you are up against. Who are your competitors, what are their u
Creating ads that generate results requires a combination of powerful copy and visuals. Eye-catching ads are essential for keeping up and being noticed in a sea of online ads. In this article, we’ll explore how to make your promotions stand out.
Before you start creating copy, you must have a clear goal in mind for your display ad campaign. You might use your display ads to meet a variety of goals:
Generate more leads
Increase subscriptions
Highlight special offers for your products or services
Build brand awareness
Share updates and new offerings
Consider the action you wish readers to take, and use this to help select the words and visuals of your ads to connect with the relevant audience demographics.
It’s also important to consider the platform your ads will appear on. Since you can create display ads on several platforms, place them where they have the highest potential of engaging your target audience to get the highest return on your investment.
For example, in social media advertising you will find that younger customers are often found on platforms like TikTok and Instagram, while more mature audiences can be found on Twitter and Facebook.
5 useful creative tips to boost your ad performance and ROI
1. Use compelling visuals
Each display ad example in this article uses interesting visuals. The images are simple and tell the story with minimal complexity, making it easy for the viewer to understand what’s going on instantly, which is important when they might be scrolling through feeds or pages in a hurry.
Colour is a critical factor to convey mood and personality, so choose carefully. Warm colours like red, orange, and yellow generally convey a sense of energy and enthusiasm. Blues and purples more often connote poise, wisdom, and stability. Green, of course, makes people think of action and growth. Select your colours based on the immediate impression you want to give a potential customer.
2. Write copy engaging copy
Before you start shaping your brand’s identity, investigate market trends that will
Once you’ve chosen your display ad campaign’s goals and visuals, you’ll need to consider the copy itself. When you create ad copy, it’s crucial that you understand your audience. How they speak is especially important – tone and style matter – the copy must resonate with your audience.
People won’t read lengthy ad texts online. Long paragraphs will turn them off. Keep it short and punchy so viewers can take in everything straight away. You might find it helpful to write a few versions and A/B test them to see which works best.
3. Use humour where appropriate
People love laughing, and humour is one of the best ways to connect with your target audience. Don’t be afraid to go a little left-field with your visuals and copy. The payoff can be huge if you get it right. Just ensure that it feels authentic to your brand, respectful, and acknowledges a common experience they’ll recognise.
4. Solve the audience’s problem
Most consumers have learned to zone out ads that don’t help them solve a problem. If your ad provides something of value and tells the reader useful information, they are more likely to actually see it.
The key to a great ad is to remember that everyone has problems – your message has to instantly address and solve it. A creative brief should always have a clear problem that the consumer has, and a clear solution that the product/service provides. You have a problem. We have thea solution.
5. Include a clear call-to-action
Be direct in telling your audience what you want them to do next, and do it in such a way that grabs their attention. Whether it’s “Buy Now” or “Claim Your Offer,” using a strong action verb directs your audience to the next step.
A good way to make this desired action distinct is to use a contrasting colour that grabs your audience’s attention and stands out from the rest of the ad visually. As long as it still aligns with your overall visual identity, this can be useful in securing clicks, shares or other types of engagement.
3 examples of great display ads
The North Face
The North Face doesn’t just produce everyday winter coats, and this piece of collateral has done an excellent job of conveying this fact by creating an effective brand awareness campaign using a visually captivating story coupled with strong ad copy.
Why it’s effective:
Strong colours and relevant images.
The pictures and text tell a captivating story that’s hard to ignore.
This ad sends a memorable message about The North Face brand.
Microsoft
Microsoft’s Azure platform competes in one of the most competitive IT markets – enterprise cloud app development. This ad takes the typical “free trial” offer to a new level by giving their readers full control over the length of the trial period. The call-to-action delivers real value and solves a problem, instantly making this ad more click-worthy.
Why it’s effective:
Bright blue and contrasting white colours demand attention.
A unique and compelling free trial offer that stands out.
The clear and simple call-to-action button tells you exactly what you get.
Semrush
Semrush’s attractive promise to solve your biggest business problem in seconds is hard to resist. Even if their audience scrolls by, that enticing offer will echo in their heads and help further collateral stand out when they encounter another piece of Semrush collateral down the road.
Why it’s effective:
Bright contrasting colours and rich media helps this ad stand out on the page.
The ad promises very specific and attractive results.
“Competitors’ top products and offers” is a captivating result for business owners.
Create dynamic display ads efficiently with smart templates
Whatever your marketing message, you need to get it out in the world quickly in order to retain relevance and context. The ability to change graphics, layouts, frames, text, transitions and more, all without compromising on style or quality, can be a huge asset for brand consistency in the fast-paced world of marketing.
What’s more, building, previewing and publishing visuals from one central place can also help accelerate the efficiency and speed of content creation.
BAM by Papirfly™ allows all of this and more, enabling marketing teams to produce digital ads faster so you can take advantage of opportunities when they emerge, rather than lose precious hours, days and weeks on designs, proofs and revisions.
Give your teams worldwide the ability to maintain consistency across your digital display assets, customising offers and incentives whenever demand arises. Produce marketing materials in a simpler, more cost-effective way, and increase the volume and frequency of collateral to gain a competitive edge in the increasingly crowded landscape of digital advertising.
Everything your team needs in a single online portal. BAM provides the freedom to create consistent print and digital display ads without agency support – and a lot more:
A single brand portal for all the latest documents, information, fonts and guides.
Adjust permission levels to restrict who can use which assets.
Keep your brand consistent and accessible for everyone – wherever they are in the world.
Build on your asset collection as new creations are made.
Discover the power of our smart templates and the wider possibilities of BAM by booking your free personalised demo.
Why empowering employees makes great business sense
Papirfly
4minutes read
Feeling empowered and being empowered gives us a great deal of confidence, and a sense of purpose and value in our careers. What can be difficult though, is transferring empowerment into something tangible.
Because empowerment might mean different things for different employees, or take a range of steps to initiate, it can also be hard for senior management to justify the time and expense this may take to action. However, the benefits of empowering employees often far outweigh that of the investment.
Particularly in today’s climate, employees are feeling uncertain in their roles. Having absolute empowerment starts with some basic steps and can progress with further nurturing, all of which we will explore in this article.
Knowing the role, understanding expectations
If you asked your team to write down an exhaustive list of their responsibilities and duties, could they do it? Often when we progress in a role we end up taking on more and more until the lines become blurred.
Having a definitive job description, including who to report to for what, from day one will help your team know exactly what they should be doing, avoid confusion and give your employees the confidence to deliver. If a role evolves, ensure your employees get updated digital job descriptions to ensure absolute clarity.
Allowing for growth through mistakes
Though mistakes in the workplace can cause a lot of additional pressure, stress and tension, it’s the way in which they’re dealt with that determines whether they can help or hinder an organisation. If training and CPD have been lax, you will have to expect mistakes to happen at one point or another.
What’s important is that, once identified, a de-brief takes place. From this debrief you can create a plan of action, or introduce a new process to prevent this from occurring again. In doing so, you tighten processes, and your team members learn a valuable lesson. Your team also gets used to the debriefing sessions, and could use this method to problem solve with their own workload.
Providing the opportunity to upskill
When an employee’s knowledge becomes stale or outdated, it can leave your company exposed to a substandard pool of information, and greatly misrepresent what your brand signifies. There are a few ways you can ensure people stay developed:
Provide a training allowance for online courses, books and other materials
Introduce regular CPD sessions, either individually or for whole teams
Encourage self-development hours once or twice a month, they can use this time freely to explore subjects they feel will help them with their career and put together a short slide deck or document in order to share with others
Investing in an employee’s development is good for business whichever way you look at it. For example, the employee feels they are valued and progressing their career, and your organisation benefits from a new skill. The only negative in the financial commitment is if somebody leaves, they take this skill with them. Ensure that any person bringing these new skills into the business are documenting any new processes or knowledge so this can be used for training further down the line.
Likewise, if you’re going to make a considerable financial investment (such as for a degree), ensure there are terms surrounding this – for example the employee would have to pay back the cost of the qualification if they leave within a certain amount of years.
Investing in tools and processes that streamline
Work smarter, not harder. An employee shouldn’t need to be constantly running around stressed to showcase how hard they work. Aside from stress having a negative impact on workplace culture and general happiness, things that can make life easier for employees will make them more productive and free up time from monotonous tasks for more strategic or creative thinking.
What you get…
Giving people the ability to make decisions means they are accountable
With responsibility comes accountability. When an employee is empowered to make decisions for themselves, they understand that the pressure falls on their shoulders, and will usually do all they can to avoid any failures.
Quicker problem solving
When the right individuals have their positions elevated, they feel more confident to make contributions to higher-level conversations.
Better job satisfaction
When people feel they are trusted and their opinions are valued, they generally have a better experience in the workplace and a more positive perception. Those that are happy may evangelise to others, either through word of mouth or through advocacy on social media. This helps strengthen your employer brand and recruiting prospects.
More stringent processes, less room for error
Giving someone a new responsibility or training is usually coupled with new processes, systems or tools. This means looking at an area of a business that may have been previously unexplored, and provides an opportunity to tighten the workflows within an organisation.
Employees are more aligned with the organisation’s goals
Being empowered in the workplace makes people feel more emotionally invested in a company. When they feel part of the conversation and valued as a colleague, they are buying into the brand, the business and the ethos the company holds.
Empowering employees doesn’t mean giving inflated responsibility for the sake of it. It’s much more about identifying opportunities to enhance the working lives of promising team members.
By doing this, in turn you create a much more rewarding place to work and a more efficient, streamlined workforce.
Global brands across the world are empowering employees by giving them the freedom to create through BAM by Papirfly™. The all-in-one brand activation management tool gives teams the ability to:
Create an infinite amount of assets to support your marketing and with easy-to-use design software. Give employees complete autonomy to create professional brochures, videos, emails, social media assets and more without any design skills needed.
Adapt campaign materials, text and imagery for use in markets across the globe in just minutes.
Organise, filter and store every campaign asset in your collection. Logos, fonts, imagery, videos and more can be found, downloaded, shared and modified by teams across the world.
Share and distribute guidelines, training videos company-wide to keep everyone on the same page.
Find out more about BAM today or get in touch for a demo with one of our expert team.
Employer brand
Your simple introduction to the basics of recruitment
Luis Cupertino
5minutes read
Whether you’re new to employer branding or a pro that’s been around the block a few times, it’s still sometimes difficult to describe exactly what an employer brand is to those outside the industry.
There’s no single roadmap or strategy to follow. For each company, an employer brand will embody something entirely different, even while working towards many of the same goals, or when looking to attract similar talent.
So what if we try to humanise an employer brand, and take a step back to really put ourselves in the shoes of the prospective candidate?
Let’s not think of it as a roadmap or strategy and take it right back to basics. As a candidate, what are the key things you would want to see, hear, think and feel about a company?
In this article, we’re going to explore the key candidate ‘senses’ that brands should look to engage, and all the ways it can be done…
What candidates want to see…
Employee satisfaction
There’s no greater cheerleader for your brand than those who already work for you. If your candidates can have access to real-world testimonials and trust factors from employees, they are more likely to form a positive opinion about your company.
While it’s not the be all and end all, more often than not GlassDoor is one of the first destinations for candidates. If you’re putting some great stuff about culture out to the world, but your reviews on GlassDoor are overwhelmingly negative, you’ll need some damage control.
Active social media
When a company isn’t very active on social media it can imply three things:
There’s nobody there to take care of it
The team is too overworked to manage it
The company is very traditional and will be reluctant to change
Keeping your channels fresh, engaging and populated will help candidates take your brand seriously. And what better way to tell your brand story?
Likewise, it’s not uncommon to have a friendly stalk of a prospective company’s employees’ LinkedIn profiles, so it’s important to encourage employees to be as active as they can. If not on their personal channels, showcasing them on your brand’s main channels can still work wonders.
Team spirit and culture
Now this is an important one, but one of the trickiest to do. Company culture has been catapulted to the top of many employers’ priority lists, but when the pandemic struck it became difficult to maintain. Now we’re seeing a slow ascend back to some kind of normality, employer brand teams can really start embracing company culture once more.
A big part of this is retaining the option to work flexibly or in some kind of hybrid capacity.
Benefits in action
Think bigger than stocked fridges and massage Wednesdays. What are the perks that are going to really pay off for your employees and keep them happy longer term?
Perhaps a paid sabbatical after a certain amount of years’ service. Or a free gym membership to keep their health in check. Small recurring gestures such as free fruit are a really nice touch, but there needs to be some bigger acts that can actually help your employees reach their goals – both inside and outside of work.
Detailed job descriptions
Vague job roles are a red flag for anyone, but they’re guaranteed to make your candidate feel uneasy about applying. A job is a huge life commitment. You wouldn’t enquire about a house if there was a lack of detail – it would be suspicious and off-putting.
Provide as much detail as possible, and if the role is set to evolve, make that clear from the outset. Plus, be careful not to omit the salary as that’s a big red flag for most candidates.
What candidates want to hear…
Support and encouragement
When high-level jobs are advertised, the language used can sometimes be complex and intimidating.
While it’s important to attract the candidate that matches your desired profile, remember to keep an element of friendliness and warmth or you may deter strong candidates from applying. This is a particular danger when allowing external recruiters to write job ads on your behalf, you should ensure you always get the final sight of any job advert or description that goes out.
Additionally, giving candidates the option to interview via video call or in-person will help to widen your talent pool, particularly if a candidate is interviewing for the role and considering relocation.
It’s advised to weigh up whether a virtual interview will help or hinder the process, and assess what’s available on a case-by-case basis.
Inspirational messaging
While the practical and matter-of-fact information takes primary importance in any campaigns you put out, remember you could be against any number of competitors offering a similar role. Whether it’s a Spotify ad, a radio recruitment drive or virtual careers fair, don’t miss any opportunity to inspire and let the world know just how incredible it is to work for your company.
Voices from inside the business as well as the brand
If you’ve got plenty of branded content going out, that’s great news, but it will only take you so far. Candidates want to see real faces and hear the voices of your employees, whether that’s a general insight into working for the company or department-specific information.
What candidates need to think about your company…
“This is a company I want to work for”
How this is achieved…
Having a strong employer brand
Creating engaging and exciting recruitment campaigns
Boasting positive reviews from existing employees
Offering competitive salary and additional benefits
“They treat their employees so well”
How this is achieved…
Putting existing employees at the heart of your recruitment assets
Encouraging individuals to post about their experience on professional social media networks
Filming and promoting lots of high-quality video content about working life and culture
“I can’t wait to get started”
How this is achieved…
Keeping open, honest communication throughout the process, from application to hire
Providing new starters with an agenda of their first week/month
Putting together a welcome pack to make them feel welcome
Incorporating virtual or in-person ‘meet the team’ session prior to start date
“I can see a future here”
How this is achieved…
Promoting stories about employees who have been around a long time
Speaking about positive retention rates in collateral
Informing employees of incentivised loyalty benefits such as paid sabbaticals, increasing holiday or other rewards after ‘X’ years of service
How your employer brand should make your candidates feel…
Confident that what they’re seeing is genuine
Everything needs to add up. If the story you’re telling through your campaigns and social media isn’t supported by positive employee reviews or contradictory information online, candidates could disengage before they’ve applied.
Excited about their prospects and the potential of the company
If the company has ambitious plans for the future, ensure this narrative is woven through the recruitment and hiring process. Candidates need to be aware of when they’re starting at a business that’s going in the right direction. The greater the potential success of the brand, the more career growth opportunities they could be presented with.
At ease asking questions and with the recruitment team
The interview process can be daunting at the best of times. But when your hiring managers are confident, engaging and welcoming, candidates will feel more at home being themselves and more likely to delve into the questions they really want to ask.
Get every aspect of your employer brand on track with BAM by Papirfly™
By now we hope we’ve helped you understand the candidate’s experience from their perspective. Everything we have covered also needs foundations in a powerful employer brand.
With BAM (Brand Activation Management), you can create, access, manage and share every aspect of your campaigns and brand in one place.
Create infinite digital, print, social, email and video assets without professional support – all delivered on time and on-brand
Store, share and edit pre-existing assets and files – all perfectly organised with no need to waste time on searching or duplication of effort
Manage campaign timelines, the sign off process and more effortlessly in our centralised portal
Educate teams with a dedicated selection of assets that help them understand your brand and how to showcase your employer brand
Digital Asset Management in 2024 – the only guide you need
Papirfly
20minutes read
If you’re drowning in digital assets – if you’re losing productivity as well as files – you need a Digital Asset Management platform.
This in-depth guide to DAM is for savvy brands that want to get their products, services, and marketing messages out there – fast, at scale, and on brand.
Take a deep dive into DAM to
Understand what DAM actually does
Decide if investing in DAM is right for you
Discover how DAM creates bankable business benefits
Confidently make the business case in your organisation
If you’re looking at competitors and wondering how they do it all, they’ve probably got a DAM system. Let’s see if you need one too…
Introduction to Digital Asset Management
What is Digital Asset Management?
Digital Asset Management is simply the practice of properly managing your digital assets. If you’re not familiar with Digital Asset Management, you’ll certainly be familiar with the problems it solves – like chaotic content creation, lost digital assets, manual workflows, and imperfect processes.
‘Digital assets’ is a way to describe digital files. But not just any file. A digital asset is a file you’ve invested money in creating and can use to create value for your business.
Files like images, video, audio, and artwork are digital assets. Anything you can use and combine to deliver strategic goals for your business. For example, by creating marketing collateral, employer branding materials, or ecommerce listings.
Why is Digital Asset Management important?
Digital Asset Management is important because these intellectual properties cost – and make – you money. You need to manage them like you would any other business asset – to protect your investment, get ROI, and reduce any risk associated with them.
It’s also essential for efficiency in our digital world – where content is exploding, digital platforms are brand battlegrounds, and digital transformation can make or break a business.
More on this at the end of the section.
What is Digital Asset Management software?
Digital Asset Management software – also known as a DAM system or DAMS – is a platform specifically designed for managing your digital assets. Organisations typically use it to replace unfit-for-purpose filing systems – like Google Drive, Dropbox, or departmental folders – that simply can’t cope with digital assets at scale.
A DAM platform provides a single, central space to store, secure, search, and access valuable digital files. The key elements of DAM that make it an improvement on the likes of Google Drive are:
Centralisation to make assets available for use throughout the organisation
Metadata and taxonomy to make assets infinitely more discoverable
Robust permissions to ensure people only access what they’re supposed to
Automated workflows to accelerate processes and workflows
DAM is more than just a digital asset library. Effective Digital Asset Management cuts your costs, improves efficiency and productivity, and gives you a significant advantage over your non-DAM-using competitors.
DAM is more than just a digital asset library. Effective Digital Asset Management cuts your costs, improves efficiency and productivity, and gives you a significant advantage over your non-DAM-using competitors.
Four types of Digital Asset Management software
You might hear people mention different types of DAM software – like cloud DAM, on-premise, enterprise, and headless. Here’s a quick introduction to the differences.
On-premise DAM
On-premise DAM – sometimes shortened to on-prem DAM – is Digital Asset Management software that you manage in-house. It’s installed on your internal infrastructure and you’re responsible for upgrades, maintenance, and troubleshooting.
Cloud-based DAM
Cloud-based DAM – sometimes just called cloud DAM – is a DAM system you subscribe to. It is hosted, managed, and used in the cloud. The software vendor is responsible for all upgrades and maintenance. We’ll compare on-premise vs cloud DAM below.
Enterprise DAM system
Enterprise Digital Asset Management is just DAM at a larger scale. Some DAMs market themselves specifically at the enterprise market because they have features that make it suitable for large-scale deployment. For example, more storage, unlimited licenses, or global/local support options. However, the underlying functionality is the same.
Headless DAM
Headless DAM is a Digital Asset Management platform that is designed to work in the background. It doesn’t have a front-end for people to search and access digital assets. It exists to power processes behind the scenes, like linking to a PIM system and automatically sending images to an ecommerce website.
Why is DAM so important in 2024?
The business case for Digital Asset Management grows every year. The main imperative is using digital advances to streamline and automate processes, saving businesses like yours time and money.
But societal trends are increasing the pressure even more – from the avalanche of digital assets to remote working, and online competition to cybersecurity.
If you’ve been toying with the idea of DAM, 2024 is the time to act. Here’s why.
The avalanche of digital content
The growth in online platforms means ambitious businesses are producing more content than ever – for your website, social channels, intranet, third-party sites, email marketing – not to mention traditional print media too.
To keep up, businesses are producing an unprecedented volume and variety of content – images, videos, audio, webinars, product tours, slide decks, POS materials, brochures etc.
Without an appropriate way to store, manage, and access this content, businesses risk being swamped by it – undermining their efficiency, productivity, and brand. DAM is the way you’re looking for.
The shift to remote work and collaboration
Businesses are benefitting from several remote work trends in 2024. As well as flexible working, organisations are increasing capacity, lowering costs, and delivering 24/7 operations by using freelancers and offshore support.
A cloud-based DAM system enables seamless remote collaboration by providing secure access to digital assets – from anywhere in the world with an internet connection – significantly enhancing productivity in the era of distributed workforces.
The value of brand in a distracted society
The online landscape is growing evermore competitive, as digital tech makes it easier for challenger brands to set up shop online. And we are an easily distracted society, looking at more content, across more devices, in ever more complex contexts.
Our attention spans and patience online are low and research says brands have only 8 seconds to grab it. In this context, an instantly recognisable brand is one of your most valuable assets. And yet many organisations struggle due to difficulties communicating and distributing the brand internally.
A DAM system fixes that by providing easy access to approved brand assets, style guides, and marketing collateral. So you can deliver a cohesive and recognisable brand experience across every channel.
Rising concerns about data security
With the growing frequency and sophistication of cyber threats, data security has become a top priority for organisations. DAM software addresses these concerns by offering robust security features, access controls, and encryption to protect digital assets from unauthorised access, ensure compliance with data protection regulations, and prevent intellectual property theft.
Features and benefits of Digital Asset Management software
1. Centralisation and organisation
All too often, your creative teams spend more time searching for files than actually using them. They’re hidden on people’s desktops, attached to emails, in third-party FTP sites, or hidden behind meaningless file names like ‘Image_38.jpg’. This wastes so much time that it’s almost impossible for your team to be agile and efficient. A digital asset library solves all that.
Centralised repository
A DAM system is a centralised repository for your digital assets. So instead of your digital assets being stored in random folders across your organisation, they’re all in one place.
And – in the case of cloud-based DAM – that place is accessible 24/7 from anywhere with an internet connection.
That means authorised users have almost-instant access, so they can spend less time searching for assets and more time making magic with them.
Version control and audit trail
Another feature of DAM is automatic version control, so your team always knows they’re accessing the most up-to-date version of a file. Version control also keeps an audit trail of any amends made to a file, so you can see what’s changed and when.
This is vital for any digital assets that require accuracy – like technical documentation or brand guidelines.
2. Search and discoverability
How does a DAM system make digital assets so discoverable? Through a double whammy of taxonomy and metadata. This gives people lots of different ways to search, browse, filter and find the file they need, fast. So no matter how big your digital asset library grows, it’s always quick and easy to use.
Metadata
Metadata is information added to a file to make it more findable. For example, in a footwear photoshoot, a single image may be tagged with the shoe make and model, material, style, colour, and which season it belongs to.
This gives people numerous routes to find the image they need compared to knowing what the file is called or where it is saved.
Metadata also provides valuable contextual information about assets – like usage rights or embargo information – to ensure they’re used correctly.
Taxonomy
Taxonomy is the use of systematic terms and categories to create a sensible folder structure. This means people can also navigate logically to images if they want to.
For example: Brand name > Footwear > Fall 2024 collection. But – to be honest – the search functionality in DAM is so good that most people will use that.
Visual search results
Search results in DAM systems are usually displayed as visual thumbnails that let you quickly see file content – even text-based documents – so you can confidently choose the one you want. No more clicking into anonymous thumbnails hoping to get lucky.
3. Security and sharing
A DAM system secures your assets and protects them from unauthorised access. It also reduces risk and frustration associated with sharing assets via email or external transfer processes (expired WeTransfer link anyone?)
Permission controls
Permission controls ensure that only authorised users have access to specific assets – and they can only do what you want them to – like view, download, or edit assets. This enhances digital asset security and stops awkward faux pas like using embargoed assets before their release date.
Encryption
DAM uses encryption to protect data and assets. This adds an additional layer of security, making it more challenging for unauthorised parties to access or manipulate the content of digital assets.
Secure file sharing
A DAM reduces the risk associated with transferring sensitive assets via email and third-party sites. Users can simply access the assets they need from within the system – whether that’s through their own account, link sharing with external contractors, or a public-facing portal.
Branded portals
You can create branded portals in a DAM to share curated asset collections with particular audiences. For example, an organisation-wide portal to share brand guidelines and logos. Or a sales enablement portal to share marketing materials with different branches.
4. Collaboration and automation
Don’t let anyone tell you DAM is just about centralising storage. Modern DAM is so much more than the media library it started out as. Today it is a hub of collaboration and automation, designed to accelerate and streamline any process that uses digital assets.
Cloud collaboration
Cloud-based DAM provides an online space for collaborating on content creation processes. For example, a photographer can upload a photoshoot, your marketing can approve or reject them, route them to an offshore touch-up studio overnight, ready to serve up to your graphic design team the next morning – all without leaving your DAM.
Task automation
DAM can automate manual tasks for faster delivery. There are so many time-saving DAM hacks you’ll wonder how you lived without it.
Anything from using AI to recognise asset content and tag them on upload, to automatically creating on-the-fly renditions of assets for use on different platforms – for example, converting a high-res CMYK tiff to a 72dpi RGB jpeg for use online.
Workflow automation
DAM lets you fully automate tasks to accelerate time to market. For example, receiving, quality checking, and publishing millions of product images to an e-commerce website with no human intervention.
AI tools
Many DAM systems offer machine learning and AI to speed up processes – from tagging assets with metadata to predicting the best search results to serve up. See the Future Trends section for more on AI in DAM.
5. Integrations
Virtually any system that needs access to digital assets can integrate with your DAM – and your DAM can feed images, video, documents, and data directly to that system. Here are some common DAM integrations and how they work.
DAM + CMS
Most CMS have a media library where you can store images. But finding those images again isn’t always easy. Integrating DAM with your CMS gives web editors powerful search and retrieval tools – so they can quickly find the perfect assets to bring your website to life.
DAM + design software
A DAM integrates with graphic design tools so designers can search and find the perfect visual assets without having to leave the window they’re working in. This keeps them in the zone and their creative juices flowing – while allowing for seamless editing, version control, and collaboration. [Think that’s not important? Check out the cost of context switching on productivity.]
DAM + PIM
PIM is a Product Information System – software used in manufacturing, retail, and ecommerce. Integrating DAM and PIM lets you automatically pull images from your DAM into catalogues and websites, so you can get your marketing out there – and start making sales – faster.
DAM + CRM
Integrating a DAM with your CRM system accelerates the process of creating on-brand communication with customers. Sales and marketing teams can pull assets into messages – automatically cropped and formatted for optimum display.
Benefits of Digital Asset Management software explained
DAM feature
DAM benefit
Centralisation
– Central accessible digital asset library – Single source of truth creates clarity/reduces confusion – Everyone can quickly find and use the files they need – Increased visibility into assets reduces duplication – Productivity and creativity go up
Metadata
– Digital assets are easier to browse, search, and find – Contextual information ensures confident, compliant use of assets
Version control
– Everyone is working with the latest versions of assets – Keeps an audit trail of changes and approvals – Prevents version conflicts and confusion
Access permissions
– Ensures that only authorised users have access to specific assets – Safeguards sensitive information and intellectual property – Ensures compliance with data protection regulations – Prevents unauthorised use and reduces legal risk
Collaboration tools
– Supports communication and remote collaboration – Streamlines project execution and reduces time to market – Facilitates use of contractors, gig workers, and offshore providers
Portals
– Provide access to approved brand assets for all creators and end users – Supports better brand consistency – Mitigates brand risk
Workflow automation
– Streamlines workflows through automation – Accelerates project completion – Reduces manual interventions and human error – Improves human resource utilisation
Integrations
– Reduces duplication through syncing and sharing data – Facilitates cross-departmental workflows – Accelerates processes and improves efficiency
Analytics
– Insights into asset usage help optimise future commissioning and creation strategies
Marketers use DAM to centralise and organise digital assets, ensuring everyone involved in campaigns can collaborate efficiently. DAM gives creatives access to up-to-date assets and artwork, accelerates creation workflows, and allows for rapid distribution to end users.
DAM for agencies
Creative agencies create and use a high volume of digital assets for customers. They use DAM to streamline and accelerate production processes, and protect and manage assets for different customers. Agencies can even offer DAM services to customers as an additional revenue stream.
DAM for publishers
Content creators and publishers build their business on distributing written, visual, and multimedia content. They need a DAM to store and access this content quickly during the creation processes, manage production and approval processes, and power automated publishing workflows.
DAM for ecommerce and retail
Retail employs DAM to organise and distribute product images, marketing visuals, and multimedia content. This streamlines product launches, enhances customer experience, and supports effective merchandising strategies in a highly visual and competitive landscape.
DAM for employer brands
Businesses work hard to attract, recruit and retain top talent. Employer branding teams create campaigns that position organisations as an employer of choice. Using a DAM helps streamline this process and create a consistent employer brand across every platform.
DAM for corporate brands
A strong brand delivers a competitive advantage. Corporate brands use DAM to centralise and distribute brand assets. This improves brand consistency by sharing brand guidelines and assets with everyone involved in promoting the business.
When should we invest in Digital Asset Management technology?
Most businesses reach a critical point where the business case for DAM becomes undeniable. Here are five operational challenges that DAM can solve. Do any sound familiar? If so, you probably need to invest in DAM.
1. Your systems are inefficient and productivity is compromised
Problem: You face avoidable frustrations, bottlenecks and delays due to disorganised assets.
Solution: DAM centralises your assets and streamlines workflows, reduces time spent searching for assets, and minimises manual interventions. Replacing unfit or decentralised storage enhances overall efficiency and productivity.
2. You need to cut costs, without cutting corners
Problem: You’ve been asked to cut costs. Or worse, ‘do more with less’. How do you maintain quality?
Solution: DAM accelerates and automates workflows, allowing you to do more with the same headcount. Or to maintain existing services when faced with budget and staff cuts. Time savings come from less duplication, waste, and higher operational efficiency.
3. You have sensitive assets you need to protect
Problem: You have sensitive or embargoed assets and no way to prevent unauthorised access.
Solution: DAM’s access controls and user permissions let you restrict access to authorised users only. This helps manage GDPR compliance requirements, prevent potential legal issues, and protect against leaks of time-sensitive assets (accidental or otherwise.)
4. You need to improve brand consistency and governance
Problem: Multiple departments or divisions involved in marketing pose a risk to brand consistency.
Solution: DAM provides a central place to share and distribute brand assets – from brand guidelines to approved imagery – so everyone can create and use on-brand materials. Templates – and even translation tools – help divisions localise materials while staying on-brand.
5. You want remote access and online collaboration
Problem: You want to take advantage of remote workers, the gig economy, and offshore contractors.
Solution: Cloud-based DAM enables online collaboration from anywhere with an internet connection. Users can upload, download, view, edit, comment, and collaborate online, supporting a global workforce.
6. You’ve outgrown our old storage systems
Problem: Your business and digital asset demands have grown and your current system can’t keep up.
Solution: DAM scales with you. So no matter how many digital assets you accumulate – or how many staff you have – people can always search, retrieve, and access the files they need, fast.
7. You want to raise your content game
Problem: Competitors are running rings around you with higher quantity and quality of content.
Solution: Implementing a DAM system supports content creation at scale. With DAM in your corner, you’ll be able to create, distribute, and publish more content to more platforms.
8. You have a digitisation strategy
Problem: Legacy processes and manual workflows are holding your business back.
Solution: Put DAM at the heart of your digital transformation journey and build new processes around fit-for-purpose tools. Don’t think about how DAM can digitise your processes – think how it can revolutionise them.
The business case for Digital Asset Management software
The business case for DAM
DAM delivers significant operational, financial, and competitive advantages to brands. Here are three benefits of Digital Asset Management software that you can take to the bank.
1. Higher operational efficiency
DAM improves your operational efficiency in a variety of ways.
By helping people assets instead of endlessly searching for them
By reducing the time creatives spend recreating lost assets
By automating tasks like resizing and cropping images
By translating written content and transcoding video
By automating manual workflows
By reducing context-switching
We could go on and on… These faster processes save you money but they also give you a competitive advantage – getting you to market faster and better than ever before.
2. Resource optimisation
Resource optimisation is concerned with getting the most valuable work from your people. And when they’re engaged in manual admin that’s way below their pay grade – or fruitlessly playing ‘hunt the asset’ – you’re not getting ROI.
DAM eradicates low-grade work and puts assets at people’s fingertips so they can spend more time adding value to your business – through strategy, creativity, and understanding your customers better.
3. Resource optimisation
As well as efficiency gains, DAM delivers cost benefits you can take to the bank. It’s not just about using your human resources more efficiently. You save money because:
People can access existing assets and repurpose them instead of starting from scratch
Enhanced visibility into your asset stock reduces the risk of duplicated work or purchases
You reduce your risk of costly legal exposure
Agencies and content creators can also commercialise their DAM – selling their artwork or selling Digital Asset Management as a service.
The ROI of Digital Asset Management software
The Return on Investment from Digital Asset Management software can vary depending on factors like your specific use case, the size of your business, the functionality of the software, and how many people use it.
Papirfly combines powerful DAM functionality with a suite of branding tools. A composite business based on our most typical customers* achieves
212% Return on Investment (ROI)
$1.17m Net Present Value (NPV)
80% reduced effort in asset creation
$200 average agency spend avoided per asset
Payback in less than 6 months
What does DAM software cost?
Here are some DAM costs you need to be aware of.
Upfront costs –Usually only applicable to on-premise deployment – the cost of buying a license for the product and costs associated with the infrastructure you’ll need
Subscription costs –Cloud DAM will charge per user per month (also known as ‘seats’) and may have a minimum number of users
Storage costs – A certain amount of storage may be included in your fees – you may need to pay more for extra capacity
Number of assets – Some pricing models consider how many assets you need to store
Features –Some DAMs may have an all-in price tag, others might charge extra for advanced features
Customisation – You may need to pay for product Customisation or custom integrations
Maintenance, support and upgrade fees – You may need to pay a monthly fee for technical support and training – plus an annual renewal fee
Migration costs – You may choose to pay the vendor or a third-party to migrate your assets to the new DAM
In-house costs – Don’t forget to factor in-house costs like the time it will take to research and implement the system – perhaps funding for a DAM librarian role
When totting up the cost of Digital Asset Management software – and calculating your potential ROI – you need to remember how much your current content chaos is costing you.
How to choose and implement a DAM system
How to choose a DAM system
Choosing a DAM system takes research, consultation, and consideration. Rush it and you’ll regret it. Here’s a very quick overview of how to choose a DAM and make sure your first choice is the right choice.
1. Determine your requirements
Once DAM is on your radar, think about it from an organisation-wide point of view. DAM is a centralised digital asset library that serves all business functions. You don’t want different departments to implement their own separate DAM solutions – that undermines the whole point.
Once you know who’s going to use your organisation-wide DAM, start determining and prioritising your collective needs.
What does the DAM need to do?
What’s outside the scope of the project?
How many assets do you have and what type?
What workflows need automating?
What systems need to be integrated?
Write a requirements document to start shortlisting DAM systems – and share it with your shortlisted providers when the time comes.
2. Research your options
In 2024, there are over 100 DAM platforms on the market. Start with online research to narrow down your options. Don’t just click on the ads at the top of your search results – just because they have the biggest ad budget doesn’t mean they’re the best DAM for you.
Search for DAMs that serve your sector successfully, look for external endorsements from the likes of Forrester Wave, and check out user review websites like Capterra.
3. Demo your shortlisted products
Create a shortlist of products and do a side-by-side comparison against your requirements document. Whittle it down to no more than five and speak to the vendors for an online demo. Which ones feel like a good fit? Invite your favourite vendors to give a demo to your main stakeholders before deciding which to buy.
What to look for in a DAM platform
Implementing a DAMS takes time and money. But it isn’t just about investment, it’s about impact. The right DAM system can be transformative. Beyond price and features, here’s how to pick a DAM platform that will deliver…
Functionality
The majority of DAMS have similar functionality. However, some may be targeted more toward specific use cases – such as branding or ecommerce. Define the requirements of your DAM – for example, do you need it to act as a brand portal or integrate with a PIM system – and make sure your shortlisted DAM systems deliver that functionality. Look for existing customers in your sector and check out reviews.
Scalability
Don’t just think about your current digital asset needs. Your number of assets is only going to grow. Ensure the DAM system is scalable to accommodate your future needs and growth plans to avoid outgrowing the DAM solution you choose. If you expect your user base to grow, make sure you can scale accordingly, within your budget.
User experience
An IT system only delivers ROI when people use it – and use it properly. If your DAM system is hard to use, people will bypass it and continue to store files on their desktops and departmental folders. Choose a DAM system that is intuitive and easy to use. That will encourage widespread adoption and reduce the learning curve.
Integrations
Consider the DAM system’s ability to integrate with other essential business platforms. For example, your website CMS or PIM system. This helps create seamless cross-department workflows that enhance productivity. It also reduces data duplication and silos.
Vendor support
Regardless of whether you deploy your DAM on-premise or in the cloud, you’ll need support from your vendor – during set-up and beyond. Check that they’ve provided adequate self-service documentation and ask how much support you can access as part of your contract.
Deployment options
Consider the pros and cons of on-premises vs cloud-based DAM (see table below). The choice comes down to how much control and responsibility you want to take on, as well as questions of data sovereignty.
On-premise vs cloud-based DAM: pros and cons
On-premise DAM
Cloud-based DAM
Access
Restricted access
Anywhere access
Scalability
Limited by your in-house storage capacity
In theory, unlimited storage, but with costs attached
Maintenance and updates
You are responsible for upgrades and maintaining the system
The provider is responsible for upgrades and maintaining the system
Security and control
Direct, maximum control
Reliant on provider
Customisation
Customisation options via your in-house team – maximum flexibility but limited by IT capacity
Some customisation usually availability via support request – may incur additional cost
Integrations
Via your in-house team
Some available out-of-the-box and others via your own team using APIs
Upfront costs
Bigger upfront costs – you buy the platform outright
Lower upfront costs – you buy subscriptions (seats)
Deployment
Slower due to need for infrastructure set up
Faster as minimal infrastructure needed – simply deployed online
Data sovereignty
Greater control over geographic location and data sovereignty
Less control over geographic location and data sovereignty
Five best practices for Digital Asset Management
Be strategic about DAM
Your DAM implementation should align to your organisational objectives. Common goals include improving workflow efficiency, enhancing collaboration, ensuring brand consistency, cost savings, optimising resource utilisation, and digital transformation. Use your objectives as a North Star to inform your needs analysis, your KPIs, and your choice of DAM system.
Audit your assets and workflows
Your DAM provider will have a LOT of questions. Come prepared. Know how many assets you have, what types, what you need to do with them, who is involved, how many users you have, what types of access they’ll need etc. Download our Digital Asset Management checklist to help you start thinking…
Don’t just replicate, innovate
Implementing DAM is an opportunity for change. Don’t waste it. Talk to people currently involved in content, marketing and branding processes. What challenges do they have? Where do bottlenecks occur? What could be improved? Talk to your DAM vendor about how other customers use the software. DAM is transformative – think big.
Plan for onboarding and training
No matter how intuitive your new DAM system, people will still need training and support in order to use it. Different levels of user need different levels of training. Admins, for example, will need in-person training, while casual users can self-serve training videos or how-to guides. Make sure you have a communication and training plan to help you roll out your new software and get people excited about using it.
Commit to the long-term (Digital Asset Management governance)
Digital Asset Management is an ongoing commitment. The key principle of DAM is to manage your digital assets so people can confidently find and use the right ones. If you neglect your DAM system, this gets increasingly difficult. In businesses with a large volume of digital assets, you may need to appoint a DAM librarian who is responsible for Digital Asset Management governance like
Regularly archiving old or outdated assets
Checking your metadata and categories are still fit for purpose
Adding, training, and removing users as required
Applying software and security updates
Monitoring and optimising DAM performance
Future trends: AI in Digital Asset Management
AI for metadata application
Most DAMS these days use AI to automatically add meaningful metadata. The DAM recognises the file content and adds keywords to describe it – even if you’re bulk uploading 1,000s of assets.
You can also use machine learning to train a DAM to recognise your specific products or people who work for you. This makes the whole process of getting assets into your DAM super fast. This will become an ever-more standard feature of DAM systems.
AI-powered search recommendations
Another area AI will improve is predictive search results. Predictive algorithms analyse user interactions, search patterns, and content usage to provide personalised recommendations. This helps users discover relevant assets faster and put them to work.
Generative AI and DAM
Generative AI will become prevalent in DAM as the technology becomes more reliable. Some DAM systems already include generative AI to edit assets – for example, applying brand treatments to images or videos. A new application will be that users won’t just be able to search for assets by typing in keywords, they’ll be able to create them using AI.
Digital Asset Management Glossary
Here’s a round-up of key DAM terminology used in this guide to Digital Asset Management.
Access Controls – Mechanism restricting user access to digital assets based on permissions.
Audit Trail – Record of user actions within a DAM system for accountability.
Cloud DAM – Digital Asset Management hosted on cloud servers for accessibility.
Customisation –Tailoring DAM system features to meet specific organisational needs.
Data Sovereignty – Control and management of digital asset data based on geographic location.
Generative AI –Type of Artificial Intelligence that creates new visual and text content.
Governance – Policies regulating digital asset creation, modification, and usage.
Headless DAM – DAM that is decoupled from a front-end interface.
Hybrid DAM – Blend of on-premises and cloud-based DAM hosting for flexibility.
Integrations–Seamless connectivity between DAM system and other software applications.
Machine Learning–Enables DAM to learn and improve through experience.
Metadata –Descriptive information associated with digital assets for organisation and searchability.
On-Premises DAM – Local hosting of DAM system infrastructure for maximum control.
Optimisation –Continuous improvement and refinement of DAM system performance.
Permissions –Authorisations defining user rights and actions within a DAM system.
ROI – Measure of financial gains resulting from DAM implementation.
SaaS DAM – DAM provided via the Software-as-a-Service subscription model AKA cloud DAM.
Scalability –Capability of DAM system to handle growing volumes and user needs.
Security –Measures protecting digital assets against unauthorised access or breaches.
Taxonomy –Hierarchical classification system for systematic organisation of digital assets.
User Adoption – Degree to which individuals actively use and embrace the DAM system.
Version Control – Management of different versions of digital assets to ensure consistency.
