Response to Article: "How to Drive Greater Customer Engagement from Digital Asset Management"

  

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A recent post by consultant John Merritt discussing the evolution of DAM systems and how these can now be used to engage customers parallels Saepio philosophies on the future of marketing and how organizations’ marketing processes need to evolve to meet customer demand. (see his original article)

In the article, Merritt asserts:

"Companies today are facing the stark reality that despite all the insight gained through many of their other listening avenues, they are missing out on the holy grail of information - information obtained through real-time streaming of assets from their digital asset repositories to the engaged consumer and back."

He also discusses changes in customer engagement and the evolving media landscape, topics very important to Saepio.  

One area of Merritt’s article we would amend, however, is his use of the term “digital asset management.” DAM systems, as they have been traditionally defined, simply aren’t built for the type of two-way, on demand communication Merritt discusses.

Instead of DAM, Marketing Asset Management (MAM) offers the technology infrastructure that can provide the future-oriented communication Merritt advocates. While some individuals misinterpret MAM simply as DAM for marketing, this description isn’t accurate. The key difference between these technologies is MAM’s ability to build on top of a DAM system, adding collateral customization and back-end marketing automation functionality. Without these, the promise of two-way information streaming can only be considered in a generic, impersonal manner where a prospect’s interaction is responded to in an automated manner (think of a basic “if-then” statement that sends a link to an existing document after a certain prospect action).

A second Saepio clarification relates to the article’s focus on utilizing the data your systems can gather for research purposes to make future changes. While we definitely won’t argue that there is great data to be obtained, we think that stopping there is missing an opportunity. Instead, we’d suggest that marketers further broaden this view to consider how engagement data can be utilized as the basis for real-time interaction.

To address this missed opportunity, MAM provides the infrastructure to take this one step further and personalize a real-time interaction. The content’s pieces would still be drawn from the DAM system, but in a new and ever-changing manner. Instead of pulling a static marketing piece from the DAM and providing this as a follow-up based on the interaction, the system can dynamically assemble new content in whatever medium the consumer demands. So not only can you gather the data, you can also put it to work for you. This level or personalization and the ability to provide the consumer with the right message at the right time and in the right medium is something only recently made possible. But we believe it is likely to be part of the future of marketing.

Saepio’s “Marketing Asset Management as an Alternative to Digital Asset Management” whitepaper, one of our most popular items, supports the fact that many people looking to technology to help engage customers and prospects are finding that DAM systems alone aren’t providing everything marketers need. Take a quick read of the Saepio white paper, then re-read Merritt’s article with Marketing Asset Management in mind. Afterward, come back to this post and let us know what you think.

Original article: 

How to drive greater customer engagement from digital asset management