DAM brings immersive omnichannel marketing to life
Digital touchpoints continue to multiply and the customer experience gets more complex every day
Five years from now, it will be commonplace for people to be captivated and engaged with through high-quality images and video, as well as new mediums like virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and 3D. With the right technology, these changes present an opportunity to marketers, not a problem. Digital asset management systems (DAM) systems are one of the marketing technology (martech) tools you can use to bring these experiences to life. But first, let’s start by defining immersive omnichannel marketing.
What is immersive omnichannel marketing?
Immersive omnichannel marketing is the strategic creation of an immersive experience across all channels at every touchpoint in the customer journey. This means that every interaction is personalised from available customer data (in as close to real time as possible) to make the content you deliver more relevant and meaningful in each moment.
Currently, this kind of marketing centres on immersive audio and visual content. In the future, the rest of the five senses (e.g. smell) could be regularly added to brand storytelling. A good example of a current immersive omnichannel experience starts with a podcast. Imagine that someone is listening to a new podcast episode on Spotify, navigates to Instagram, sees an ad for your product, and clicks through to your website.
In this scenario, you want them to feel a consistent visual experience from the product image in the ad to the experience on your website. Once they’re on your website, you can use 360º spin photography to give them the sense of picking the object up and looking at it. With the right technology, it’s easy to store and distribute all this content from a central source. That’s where DAM software comes in.
What is DAM software?
DAM software provides a centralised library or hub for your brand’s photos, product images, videos, collateral, and other assets or digital content. It allows your marketing teams to securely access the latest version of your brand assets on-demand. Your DAM system also acts as an automation engine that replaces outdated assets across your digital channels based on the master file housed in your DAM platform.
How DAM tools brings immersive omnichannel marketing to life
Version control. Change one image, video, or audio file in your DAM software and that updated version can cascade to all your digital channels. This capability alone makes your omnichannel marketing process more efficient and can give you time to imagine new immersive experiences.
On-the-fly file conversion. Whenever you need to use an asset for multiple channels, your DAM software can resize and convert to the content file types and sizes needed for each channel. From there, the digital assets can be shared and distributed to all the necessary places. This lets you eliminate the complexity and wasted time of having your team do all of this manually.
Secure organisation. Immersive omnichannel experiences demand a secure, well-organised, and searchable library of digital assets. Without this foundation, processes are inefficient and potentially damaging to your brand (e.g. outdated logo files, expired licenses, etc.). With a DAM solution, comprehensive permissioning structures keep content secure and accessible.
Leverage artificial intelligence (AI). If you’re starting with an unstructured library of digital assets, you can auto-tag and organise your whole library with AI-powered computer vision. If you’ve already got a good start on your library, your DAM software can help improve your content organisation and searchability with quality metadata.
Keep product information in one place. One other important thing to remember is that your images in ads should always display product images for colors and sizes you have in stock and available for sale. It’s a simple-sounding thing that can feel impossible to manage while you sell through high volumes and ads run in the background for months at a time. You can combine the information in your product information management (PIM) system with your DAM software to help streamline this aspect of your content operations.
Choose DAM software for immersive omnichannel marketing
The future of marketing is exciting if you have the right technology in place to create immersive omnichannel experiences. Imagine the reward if your company can be the first to provide a new customer experience that defines a category. We don’t know of any DAM software that stores digital smells (yet) but you can choose a DAM platform that supports all your current marketing needs and will grow with you as new audio and visual mediums are adopted.
At Widen, we continue to power the content behind our customers’ marketing experiences — no matter where the world of digital marketing takes them. Want more information about our DAM platform, the Widen Collective®, and what it can do for you and your company? Get in touch today.
By Nate Holmes, product marketing manager, Widen