From Work-in-Progress to Final Product: 4 Benefits of Creative Asset Management Solutions

Delivering high-quality content across multiple channels is crucial to business growth. But when you regularly create a ton of content, organizing and managing creative assets can be painstaking.

Creative teams often use a variety of standalone solutions to store, edit and share assets. They also rely on emails to communicate feedback and approve those assets. But this introduces roadblocks into the creative workflow, making it slow and inefficient.

Wouldn’t it be great if there were a centralized platform to organize assets and collaborate with team members? That’s precisely what modern cloud-based creative asset management (CAM) solutions offer. These CAM platforms come in handy at every stage of the creative workflow, from ideation and production to distribution.

Why use creative asset management solutions

First things first — a CAM platform is more than just a cloud-based file-sharing application.

Of course, it serves as a centralized repository for all your assets, be it audio clips, images or videos. But the true merit of a CAM solution lies in its ability to empower creative teams with a streamlined workflow. It can speed up content production and even help repurpose existing assets when judiciously used.

Here are a few benefits of using creative asset management solutions.

Enhanced version control

Any creative asset will go through a series of edits before it’s ready for distribution. In the absence of CAM software, tracking edit history and identifying the final version can be challenging.

Let’s say you’re developing a product page for the latest addition to your fashion brand’s spring collection.  You’d naturally have a few images to add to this page that would need to be retouched. Your team of retouchers will work on these images in collaboration with creative art directors and marketers to ensure they’re publish-worthy. Now, if a creative art director spots an error in a product image, they might reach out to the retoucher and ask them to correct it.

But if others in the team don’t know this change has been made, they’ll likely go ahead with the erroneous version. Otherwise, they’d be forced to manually compare both images to identify the latest one. Needless to say, the process can be tedious and time-consuming. And then there’s the fear of publishing the wrong version.

That’s a simple illustration of how multiple versions of an asset can slow down your workflow and potentially affect content quality.

On the other hand, when you use CAM software like globaledit, you get complete visibility into an asset’s version history. With globlaedit’s Versions feature, you can mark an asset’s latest version, along with a record of previous iterations, in a single thumbnail.

This eliminates the need to browse multiple folders and scroll through different files to spot an asset’s final version. You can also compare different versions side by side or in a slider to track changes. Besides speeding up your workflow, it ensures that you don’t lose usable versions of an asset.

Seamless collaboration

Whether you’re shooting content for your new fashion campaign or producing a video for your next show on wildlife, you need a team. However, selecting experienced and skilled team members isn’t enough. You also need to provide them with the right tools to collaborate on tasks. That’s particularly crucial when they work in a hybrid setting.

With a CAM system, you can build a virtual workspace for your team members to brainstorm, share ideas and feedback and approve creatives. Here’s how:

A cloud-based CAM solution makes every asset accessible to team members, regardless of their location. That makes it easier for them to work at their convenience without disrupting the workflow for other team members.

Plus, with features like globaledit’s Markup Editor, it becomes easier to add comments and annotate directly on your assets. You can even tag relevant team members in your comments, asking them to make specific edits. Finally, you can add ratings and labels to assets so that team members can prioritize them accordingly.

This eliminates the need to scroll through lengthy email threads to share and implement feedback. That, in turn, simplifies your workflow, making it faster and more efficient. It’s not surprising that Barkbox, a dog product subscription service, managed to cut its production time in half with these features.

Streamlined workflow

CAM software also helps weed out approval bottlenecks from your workflow. For instance, globaledit Sync lets you upload assets as they’re created. That means editors can review raw video footage while a shoot is still in progress and determine whether anything needs to be re-shot.

When assets are ready, you can quickly send them out to clients and other external stakeholders, who can check and approve them and leave comments on the same dashboard. All these changes are automatically updated in real time, minimizing communication gaps and delays.

The best part about CAM software is that it integrates with other tools, such as  Photoshop, WordPress, Shopify, and Airtable. globaledit even offers API keys for custom integration, which ensures the seamless transfer of assets from one tool to another. That, in turn, makes it easier to upload, edit and distribute assets.

Optimizing your workflow with the right integrations and automation makes the entire process faster and more efficient. It also gives your team members more time to focus on what they’re good at, especially developing superior content.

Improved asset protection

CAM platforms implement various security measures, including role-based access control and password protection, to safeguard your assets. With globaledit, you can grant and revoke access to assets based on a user’s role in a project. You can even track how team members are utilizing various assets.

Similarly, when you use globaledit’s Share Link feature to distribute assets, you can set passwords and expiration dates to prevent unauthorized access. This security is instrumental in avoiding copyright infringement and ensuring compliance with privacy laws like GDPR.

globaledit: the solution to all your creative asset management challenges

Creative asset management software offers a centralized workspace for your team to collaborate, share ideas and approve projects. It optimizes your creative workflow with tighter version control and third-party integrations. Ultimately, you get a faster, more efficient workflow that empowers your creative team to deliver better content.

So, if you’re looking for a solution that can help you manage, secure and share your creative assets, globaledit is a great choice. Book a demo to see our platform in action.