We totally get it. Brand management requires thorough work and it is a jungle to navigate all the different brand management tools that exist in the market. Don’t lose faith, we are here to help you sort out your options and what you need to consider.
In this guide we'll look at the following brand management tools and it's capabilities:
- Digital brand guidelines
- Digital asset management
- Digital design templates
- Digital marketing planner
What is brand management?
Before we get to it, let’s agree on what brand management is. Brand Management is the process of managing your brand’s identity and strategies with the purpose of building a strong, reputable brand that aligns with your company’s growth objectives. This includes how your brand is presented, communicated, and adapted across your company and your markets, and how it is incorporated into your overall marketing initiatives.
All companies have some form of brand management strategy, but it is not enough just having a plan. The success of your brand management is also determined by how effective your execution is. And this is where the right brand management tools come in handy. But first, what makes brand management difficult?
Also read: What is brand management?
Challenges in brand management
If we look at brand management with the perspective of handling the processes manually, it is safe to say that trouble quickly follows. Brand management as a process is simply too complex and it requires the entire company’s involvement to be successful. In other words, implementing brand management with the help of emails, company chat channels, intranet and random actions is not a recipe for success.
- How do you make sure anyone read your messages and execute as you request?
- How do you make sure everyone understands your brand and use it as you intended?
- How to you keep your colleagues from using old brand assets or marketing collateral?
- How do you make sure your brand is communicated and presented in alignment with your brand strategies?
This list is long. What you have to ask yourself is – How can you secure brand control, when all you have to rely on is what you communicate? Brand Management is a company task, and you need to make sure you have the correct tools at hand if you want to succeed.
Also read: This is internal branding and how you get started
These are the digital brand management tools you need
Digital brand guidelines
Every brand needs brand guidelines. With digital brand guidelines however, a world of new possibilities appears.
Get rid of the traditional PDF document if you have not already done so. But be aware, if you are creating your guidelines using a standard CMS solution, you are missing out on some great brand asset management functionalities. A proper digital brand guideline tool provides capabilities you need to have in place if you want to succeed with your brand management.
Capabilities
- Design your digital brand guidelines to perfectly match the brand’s identity and make it easy for everyone to follow your example.
- CMS technology with flexible section and content builders allows you to create, maintain, and always keep your brand alive. Digital brand guidelines will keep your brand valid and up to date 24/7.
- CMS widgets created for branding purposes allow you to create brand guidelines quickly and professional. With widgets for adding color swatches, typography, marketing calendar, digital assets, code library ++, creating brand guidelines becomes seamless.
- DAM integration allows you to put your brand into context. By connecting your brand assets with the actual guidelines, anyone can easily apply your brand without any extra effort. Everything is in front of them, either downloadable, as a template or as a purchasable item.
- Automated workflows enable operational efficiency which is key for proper brand management. You can’t expect everyone to love branding, and this is where digital brand guidelines are magic. With the correct setup, applying your brand will be bulletproof. Your users can follow workflows from a-z without any extra effort or skills.
Also read: What to look for when you choose your brand identity system
Digital asset management
A key ingredient in branding is having brand assets available and always updated. And most marketers will agree that this is a time consuming, expensive task where stumbling is easy and brand inconsistency is the result. That is, if you don’t have a DAM tool to help you out.
Digital asset management is the tool that collects, organizes, and distributes all your company’s assets from one single location. Stop wasting time looking for files and re-creating lost assets. It’s a time thief and a budget killer. And here’s the beauty of it. With a digital asset management tool, you kill two birds with one stone.
First you get to standardize how everyone in your company handle assets in a proper manner and streamlining operations. Second, you get to connect your digital asset library to the online brand guidelines and establish reliable and seamless brand management.
Capabilities
- Cloud software allows your company to collect all assets in one single place, establishing file transparency across your entire company. Instead of having multiple server locations, VPN connections, inaccessible folders, desktop storage or similar for storing valuable assets that more than one person need access to, a DAM tool will keep everything safe and secure in one single location.
- Category enablement removes the traditional folders and naming conventions. Instead, your assets will be structured based on multi-leveled categories that matches company needs and makes files searchable.
- Faceted search expands search’n locate by allowing you to add filters and tags to your assets. Additionally, you’ll have filters to narrow down your search based on file type, file format, orientation and more. Finding files has never been easier.
- Pre-defined file handling is a powerful capability that will do wonders for your digital asset management. Instead of the painful and time-consuming task it is to manage and maintain multiple asset outputs, let the system do it for you. Pre-define crops, extension outputs, resolutions and more, and transform your assets for multi purposes.
- Share assets with style. No more “your file is too large for this email”. Simply share your files directly from your DAM system. Either as a single file, or perhaps you want to share a collection?
- Two-way asset workflow is pure magic. Make sure you don’t end up as the file coordinator. Pre-set your digital asset management tool to handle uploads from creative agencies or colleagues directly to your DAM without breaking your asset structure.
Also read: This is how you organize digital assets
Digital design templates
Digital assets are more than static images. Elevate your brand management with digital design templates. This tool will transform the way you work, and it will keep you on-brand everywhere.
Eliminate the stress of supporting your colleagues with customized brand assets. Whether it is translations, image changes, format changes and more, digital design templates will do the job for you.
Simply transform your creative files to digital templates and define what can and can’t be altered and establish a self-serviced tool where all your colleagues can create their own assets without breaking the brand identity. It’s efficient, timesaving and brand consistency is at ease.
Capabilities
- Multi-platform templates. Whether it is assets for print, social media, video or dynamic banners, a full range template tool will cover whatever template you need. Regardless of what platform you need assets for, your colleagues can easily create their own.
- Responsive templates allow you to go easy on yourself. Allow your templates to be flexible and fit to more than one occasion. You reduce the amount of assets you need to maintain, and your colleagues have the flexibility they need.
- Content control secures your brand identity and keeps your content on brand. You decide what can and cannot be changed.
- Automated workflows make it easy to be a designer. Add guides and directions to your templates and lead your colleagues to design excellence.
- 3rd party connections are a great way of securing asset delivery when time is of the essence. Connect your template tool to printers, video platforms, media agencies and more.
Also read: Why digital design templates are essential for your business
Digital marketing planner
Your brand guidelines are in place, connected to all the right brand assets and you are ready for a smooth brand management execution. However, as stated earlier, you need to include your colleagues to succeed with your brand management.
By adding a digital marketing planner tool to your brand management, you’ll stay in complete control of the entire branding process and team alignment is at ease. Plan and collect all necessary information in one single place and make planning effortless.
Capabilities
- Central management – Local execution allow you to control your activities with ease. Coordinate and collect necessary information and assets and ensure activities are initiated on time and as intended.
- Asset control enables secure planning. Only share relevant assets and make sure everyone can easily understand what is going to happen and secure brand consistency.
- Email editor and newsletter capabilities allow you to communicate your initiatives with greater control. Know who reads and engage with your information and act accordingly. No more guessing if your campaigns(?) will go as planned. This tool provides you the insight you need to ensure smooth execution.
Benefits of brand management tools
With the above digital brand management tools at hand, your branding processes will never be the same. The benefits? Here’s a short list:
- Respond to market changes in a heartbeat: With your brand and assets available and updated 24/7, your response time will be impeccable.
- Reduce unnecessary expenses: This is a benefit for the entire company, not just the marketing team. By removing the time employees spend on looking for files, the time can be spent on value added operations that contributes to achieving company growth. You will also remove unnecessary hidden costs that occurs because assets are lost, and resources is spent on re-creations.
- Increase efficiency: Streamlining workflows doesn’t need further explanation, the easier the tasks are, the quicker you’ll execute and the more you’ll get done.
- Protect and grow your brand: Brand consistency is key to brand growth. With the right tools at hand, controlling your brand output is easy and achieving brand recognition is possible. Your one step closer to reaching your brand goals.
How BrandMaster’s digital brand management tools elevate your branding
We know that branding is a team effort, and it takes an entire company to grow a brand. This is why our brand management platform is packed with time-saving tools and features that will boost your branding processes.
In addition to brand guidelines, digital asset management, design templates and a marketing planner, our brand management platform has additional tools to complete the bits and pieces of your branding processes.
With BrandMaster you will also have the options for;
- Content proofing functionality that allows for seamless team collaboration across your entire company. Our integration with Filestage or Workfront enables powerful and efficient work lifecycles that makes online proofing a blast.
- Connect your brand management platform to Adobe and Microsoft office for a truly two-way workflow that goes beyond brand and marketing needs. With the CI Hub integration, you’ll secure your brand everywhere.
- When in need of print and eager to keep the costs down, this option is a must-have. Our integration with Gelato allows you to keep your printing costs down by printing and distributing locally.
- More integrations? Check this out.
This and more powerful digital brand management tools is supported by the BrandMaster platform. If you are interested in learning more about how we can help elevate your branding processes, reach out and we’ll show you with a live demo.