The perfect storm continues to brew for businesses looking to improve their omnichannel retailing experience. COVID has accelerated the rush to digital at an incredible rate, placing new demands on brands.
Take app downloads, for example. According to Statista, between March 2nd and 16, 2020, app downloads in the remote work category increased by an astounding 1,457%.
Additionally, as of March 2020, 68% of all surveyed respondents increased time spent on social media by more than an hour at minimum vs. pre-pandemic consumption, according to eMarketer.
COVID took digital usage to a whole new level, proving that the importance of digital is undeniable, and businesses who wish to remain competitive must keep up.
Not only is the acceleration of digital creating a demand for an increasing number of digital channels, but it is also accelerating the importance of a flawless experience.
Customers expect consistency across every touchpoint, and they expect personalization throughout every interaction.
The problem is that most businesses’ budgets for content creation and digital marketing strategies are not keeping pace. This means marketers must find a streamlined way to ensure that content is personalized, published at a steady flow, and flawlessly experienced across channels and devices.
Digital Asset Management Powered by Adobe
In this new world of omnichannel retailing where digital takes center stage, the challenge for businesses becomes, how do you keep up?
We are all using more digital channels than before. We consume digital magazines instead of paper. We prefer contactless digital payments to the old swipe and sign method.
We consume more ads, spend more time on social media, and download more apps.
We expect commerce at our fingertips, and we expect omnichannel retail to be a seamless experience.
Businesses must keep up with this demand by producing enough content and experiences to satiate a constantly hungry audience.
The problem is that many businesses are weighed down by their existing content management system. Perhaps assets are stored in a file system with a complex folder structure. Assets quickly become buried four levels deep, and cross-department collaboration is stilted.
You might understand the logic of placing the product information spreadsheet where you did, but can anyone else follow that logic without your assistance?
This is where a digital asset management system can accelerate productivity and, ultimately, business.
What is Adobe Content Management?
What if someone told you that you could see a 366% three‑year ROI for an asset management platform?
According to a report by IDC, Adobe’s content management platform has done just that for numerous enterprise-level businesses.
Part of the Adobe Experience Manager (AEM)—responsible for integrating numerous Adobe products, such as Adobe Analytics, Adobe Target, Adobe Audience Manager, Adobe Commerce Cloud, and more—Adobe Experience Manager Assets is a powerful digital asset management system.
AEM Assets allows businesses to store digital assets in a meaningful way. Assets can be organized, tagged, secured, and distributed seamlessly, all from one platform.
AEM Assets’ real power is in how easy it makes asset creation, sharing, and distribution.
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The Practical Ways Adobe Is Solving for Business
Businesses must find ways to streamline digital content creation, management, and distribution without losing the personal touch or consistency in branding and experience. No longer does this problem rest solely on the shoulders of one team.
Rather, the entire business must be thinking digital-first, requiring an immense amount of collaboration.
This is where Adobe is solving for businesses in practical ways.
Reuse, Recycle, Rethink
First and foremost, one of the most powerful benefits of Adobe’s content management system is that everyone has access to the same files, which makes it easier to ensure all of the following:
- Everyone is working off of the same file version
- The business is being consistently branded
- Multiple teams can collaborate in real-time
- Assets are never lost, reducing creation time
Not only does AEM Assets make asset management easier, but it also makes it more efficient.
According to IDC, the most commonly cited drivers for efficiencies through the use of AEM Assets include:
- Reuse of assets: Participants in IDC’s study state that they gained back several hours per week by creating fewer assets. These hours translate to cost savings, as well as to more time spent on meaningful projects.
- Minimization of duplicative work: Participants in the study saw a reduction in redundant work by 30%. Reducing duplicative work frees up teams to focus on their core responsibilities instead and create new experiences for their customers.
- Faster access to assets: According to participants, AEM Assets cut download and upload times more than in half. Faster access means campaigns can get out the door at an improved pace.
Overall, AEM Assets makes it easier for teams to manage their digital assets so that all teams can quickly reuse, recycle, and rethink the use of existing content.
Streamline Laborious Processes
With the push toward omnichannel retailing, marketing organizations are now expected to accelerate the speed at which they deliver campaigns and content to market.
Digital experiences must be launched rapidly, increasing speed as fast as consumer demand rises.
However, budgets don’t always line up with this growth.
Digital asset management is a key to streamlining previously laborious processes, allowing marketing teams and cross-collaborators to rapidly accelerate time to market in three key ways.
1. Rapid Creation and Increased Productivity
Previously, content and user experience creation often involved using a myriad of tools pieced together to create a clunky, bulky solution. Marketers had to hop between tools, wasting valuable time transferring files, changing file types, and battling antiquated technologies.
Conversely, IDC cites that businesses utilizing AEM Assets experience:
- 47% faster creation of new assets
- 84% faster speeds to render existing assets
- 27% faster delivery of content by digital marketing teams
- 19% higher productivity levels for digital assets teams
With streamlined workflows, teams can unlock the ability to rapidly create new assets and improve productivity across the board.
Rather than spending time waiting on an antiquated system of meshed-together tools, crawling along at the speed of a turtle, AEM Assets allows digital marketing teams to focus on their actual job role as Adobe’s content management system rocket speeds forward.
2. An Easy, Straightforward Approval System
In the same study by IDC, organizations cited that, on average, they reduced the time they needed to launch a marketing campaign by 20%.
Why did an assets management system speed up launch times dramatically?
As one organization put it, AEM Assets made it simple to obtain approvals, which then sped up the process of getting a campaign out the door.
Rather than projects being held up while teams wait for the right sign-offs, AEM Assets made it simple and straightforward for decision-makers to access assets and give their blessing to campaigns.
3. A Power-Up for Publishing and Distribution
When digital was in its infancy, one asset could be used the same way across multiple users. People did not expect content to be tailored to their personal preferences.
Today, this is no longer the case. The need for unique content is exploding, making content publishing and distribution more technical and tricky to manage than ever before.
With an increasing expectation that content is personal, there is an assumption that new things will be published all the time. The lifetime of content has become astoundingly short as audiences digest content at a rapid pace.
Additionally, consumers expect content to be timely. Think live feeds, immediate updates, and campaigns that are relevant to the moment.
With all these increasing demands, the technical requirements to successfully publish and distribute content are higher.
It becomes impossible for a marketer to keep track of everything, such as image formats, resolutions, video proportions, size limitations, SEO and usability best practices, and user experience across platforms.
Adobe’s content management system acts as a power-up for publishing and distribution. Marketers no longer carry the burden of juggling technical requirements, hyper-speed content calendars, and multi-platform publishing. Instead, by storing assets in a meaningful way and connecting Adobe tools seamlessly, AEM Assets allows teams to manage, publish, and distribute content at previously unmatched rates.
Prepare for the Future Today
IDC calculates that teams that utilize AEM Assets to focus on a streamlined content management approach achieve an average of 19% higher productivity levels, translating to a value of $2.90 million per year per organization over three years.
However, Adobe’s content management system and other tools are only as good as their implementation. Businesses interested in using AEM Assets and other powerful Adobe tools need to take a strategic approach to the addition of these tools.
At Vaimo, we have the expertise needed to guide you in a transition from outdated solutions to Adobe’s powerful suite of tools. Our team can help your business think strategically about how AEM Assets could empower your marketers to create, publish, and distribute content and experiences in a streamlined way.
Additionally, we can work with you to create a holistic approach to your digital experience. With omnichannel retailing taking center stage, now is the time to invest in your business’s future with a robust digital strategy. Talk to our team today to learn more.
