20 Feb What’s the difference between MAM and DAM?

What is the difference between Marketing Asset Management (MAM) and Digital Asset Management (DAM)? What is Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and how do they differ?

These are some of the tools that help companies access, customise and distribute marketing materials effectively. But how can they help your operation?

And why is consistent and tailored customer interaction so important?

By 2020, a company’s customer experience will overtake price as its key brand differentiator. This is because 60% of consumers expect consistency when dealing with brands online, in-store, or in person and 86% of buyers will pay more for a better experience. And personalised content is also key: another study showed that personalised leads produced a 20% increase in sales opportunities.

Here I dispel the top five myths and clarify the differences between the tools created to help businesses make informed brand management control decisions. We also explain which to use and when.

MYTH #1: Marketing Asset Management software does the same things as Digital Asset Management and Enterprise Content Management software

This is false as each of these tools has a very different use and feature set:

• Marketing Asset Management uses a central repository to customise, organise, and distribute finished sales and marketing content to both offline and online channels
• Digital Asset Management software organises, stores, and retrieves rich media and digital assets such as photos, music, and other multimedia content
• Enterprise Content Management is a set of defined processes that allow an organisation to obtain, organise, store, and deliver crucial company wide information

MYTH #2: Marketing Asset Management is just about storing/accessing files  

While file storage and retrieval are components of Marketing Asset Management, Digital Asset Management solely focuses on this capability. Digital Asset Management is a repository that organises and stores rich media and digital assets which often cannot be customised. It is ideal for internal marketing department content such as logos and imagery.

In contrast, Marketing Asset Management addresses the needs of a distributed sales and marketing organisation. It supports brand consistency and appearance, while allowing field offices and employees to localise and personalise content assets via approved workflows and templates. Assets can also be distributed across online and offline channels.

MYTH #3: Only marketers care about Marketing Asset Management

While marketers are responsible for the creation, distribution, consistency and effectiveness of marketing assets, the benefits of Marketing Asset Management extend throughout an organisation and its ecosystem. This includes field sales, channel partners and franchisees as well as global locations and regional markets.

MYTH #4: My industry doesn’t need Marketing Asset Management

The right system gives corporate marketers peace of mind regarding compliance. In highly regulated industries, such as pharmaceuticals, healthcare, and financial services, inferior Marketing Asset Management can result in obsolete data being inadvertently shared. Litigation can become a genuine risk.

MYTH #5: Marketing Asset Management is a ‘nice to have’ not a ‘need to have’

Poor Marketing Asset Management creates a very tangible, financial impact. Off-brand assets affect brand management and degrade the sales and customer experience process, while workers spend up to 8.8 hours every week, searching for the right information. With a properly implemented Marketing Asset Management tool, employees spend less time searching for, recreating or repurchasing lost assets.

Now I have dispelled these myths and highlighted the differences between Digital Asset Management, Enterprise Content Management and Marketing Asset Management, the question is whether your organisation is missing the opportunity to use a MAM solution to drive more effective personalised and customised marketing communications to enrich your customers’ experience?

Ask us how Ricoh’s MarcomCentral cloud-based Marketing Asset Management solution can help. If you would like to investigate this or other services and solutions in our extensive portfolio, contact your local Ricoh company and think about arranging a visit to our European Customer Experience Centre (CEC) in Telford, central England.