Remember that time when you had just one channel, the humble website, to create content for? Web banners were a standard size. You didn’t need to worry about how images would appear when your customers used their mobile or tablet instead. Things were simple.
Well, we all know those days are long gone. And things are only getting more complex with the addition of more and more eCommerce channels – think mobile apps, IoT, social, marketplaces – and the demand for content ever-increasing.
To help save you time and streamline your production workflows when creating, managing and publishing content, to eliminate the need for you to toggle between different platforms and software when you’re looking to get content scheduled, we thought we’d let you in on a few of the key reasons why a good (not just any) digital asset manager (DAM) paired with a world class digital experience platform can help you ditch Photoshop (or any other program you’ve been using to manipulate your assets).
Reformatting images is so early 2000s.
So many devices. So many channels. And so little time. Yet so many of you are still hustling away creating however many variants of each image because it needs to be resized for mobile, or it needs to be a different format or aspect ratio for Amazon or as part of your product configurator, or whatever it is.
A good DAM helps you work smarter, and faster. Because it will do it all for you. With auto cropping and scaling tools for example you can create hundreds of different variants from a single master asset. You save loads of time. And you know the right image size or ratio is being served to the right channel/device. (We know, genius.)
What’s more the right DAM will also allow you to automatically serve the right format and optimal size image relative to which browser or application your customer is on. No need for file size adaptation. Instead, your content and delivery is exactly as you expect it to be, and large file sizes are no longer hindering the performance of your page or site. Google especially will thank and reward you for it.
Refocus your efforts thanks to focal points.
Need more sophisticated control over how images crop and resize depending on the device they are served? No problem. As well as all the image variants you’re creating above, we know a lot of you are also constantly tinkering with images in Photoshop to make sure the key parts of images, the products etc, are shown properly and look perfect regardless of where it’s placed. Because all too often you’ll use an image and it will look great on desktop, then when you go to mobile your product is cut off or the model is half off the screen. It's not the greatest look. And it can be super frustrating playing around with images sometimes pixel by pixel to make sure they fit, or worse, having to compromise on how it looks on certain platforms.
So, here’s where we throw in a functionality called focal point technology. This basically means you get to set which part of the image is a point of interest, and then it will be dynamically cropped to keep that point of interest in frame regardless of where it’s live. Plus, you can preview it all beforehand. So there’s no guesswork nor compromise. The best part is you can set it yourself, or you can leave it to AI to do it for you.
Customize and personalize whatever you want.
But how can you do it when working with Photoshop and a traditional content platform? You probably can’t, because how could you create all the different variations? How could you add in the personalization element? With a DAM that allows you to manage and manipulate SVG templates you can. Because there’s tooling that allows you to dynamically serve up whatever variation is needed all from a single base asset.
Outside of personalized products, dealing with SVG templates also lets you more easily create web content that’s personalized too, banners for example, with the ability to use substitution rules to change text, fonts, styles, images, effects, all on the fly. Talk about time saved versus the amount of content you can create.
Rethink your assets. Reevaluate your software.
With the right DAM there’s simply no need to have to manipulate all your imagery in Photoshop. Your DAM can become your single source of truth and can take you from studio to site (especially when it integrates with your content management system seamlessly, which it should). Goodbye Adobe license fees. And hello a sole platform that allows you to get on with your job a lot quicker than before.
The right DAM can remove duplication and help streamline the way you work, giving you back the time you need to focus on other things, like optimizing your content and creating more valuable content.
So, do you have the right DAM?
