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Digital asset management software (DAM) is a key component of any modern organization's content creation and distribution strategies. It helps organizations store, organize, and access their digital assets in a centralized location, which can save time and money.
Yet, business isn't just about things that feel "neat." When you're building a business case for DAM solution, you have to consider how it will impact your business. Will the time and money you invest into the implementation of not the simplest of softwares actually make you more money?
In short, you need to calculate the ROI of a digital asset management system.
But how do you measure the return on investment (ROI) of DAM software? In this article, we'll explore the various ways you can calculate the ROI of a DAM solution and provide some examples to help you get started.
The Importance of DAM ROI
The digital asset management ROI is a crucial consideration for businesses looking to implement a DAM system.
After all, any investment in technology should provide a positive return in order to justify the expenditure. Fortunately, DAM systems can provide a number of benefits that can lead to a positive digital asset management ROI.
How to Calculate DAM ROI
Depending on your requirements for a digital asset management system, you may want to calculate ROI for DAM with different approaches.
Some teams might opt to focus more on the cost-saving aspect. DAM can save each user 10 hours per month that they would have otherwise spent searching for files. Meaning that they will have more to be productive.
Pics.io recently released a face recognition feature that can save a lot of time if you constantly need to look up photos of specific individuals. Learn more in our blog post about the benefits of face recognition.
For others, DAM can be used in a case where it adds extra business value, by streamlining the way you collaborate on assets with your team.
In any case, the following list is non-conclusive. It just aims to give you a few ideas on how you can approach the DAM ROI calculator.
- Cost Savings: One way to calculate ROI for your digital asset management system is by looking at the cost savings it generates. This could include things like reduced storage costs, reduced employee time spent searching for assets, and reduced printing and distribution costs.
- Revenue Generation: Another way to measure the ROI of DAM software is by looking at the potential of creating additional revenue streams or optimizing the existing ones. For example, if your DAM helps you create and distribute marketing materials more efficiently, you may see an increase in sales as a result.
- Cost Avoidance: You can also calculate DAM ROI by looking at the cost avoidance it provides. If digital asset management (DAM) helps you prevent lost or misplaced assets, you may be able to avoid the costs associated with recreating those assets.
Although many users think that a digital asset management tool is just about "looking up for pictures fast," the software has long evolved past this point. Nowadays, digital asset management (DAM) can become a fully-fledged link in the chain of your business processes.
To identify exactly how DAM can be most beneficial and calculate DAM ROI, you need to create a DAM strategy which can be accomplished by carefully looking at the assets you currently use and HOW and WHY you are using them.
What ROI Can You Expect from a Digital Asset Management System?
The ROI you can expect from DAM will depend on a variety of factors, including the size of your organization, the number of assets you manage, and the specific features and capabilities of your digital asset management (DAM) system.
I want to reiterate that building a digital asset management solution that is tailored to your needs is a challenging process that might require some window-shopping and a lot of trials and demo bookings to find the golden ticket.
Nonetheless here is the non-quantifiable side of ROI of DAM that you can expect from integrating it into your workflow:
- Improved efficiency: digital asset management (DAM) saves time by making it easier to find and access assets. Thus freeing up your team to focus on more important tasks.
- Better collaboration: DAM improves collaboration within your organization by providing a centralized location - a single source of truth - for your digital assets. This can help your team work more effectively together and reduce the risk of lost or misused assets.
- Increased customer satisfaction: By providing quick and easy access to assets, a digital asset management solution enables your team to deliver and receive assets quickly to the right stakeholders. This can help you build stronger relationships with your customers and drive revenue growth.
Example of DAM ROI Calculation
Let's consider a hypothetical to help us calculate the DAM ROI.
Suppose a company has 10 employees, spending on average 2 hours weekly searching for assets. The company pays each employee $20 per hour.
The cost of asset search time, therefore, is $400 per week or $20,800 annually.
Now. Let's say the company invests in a DAM system with a subscription cost of $6,480 per year. If the DAM system is able to reduce asset search time by 50%, the company would save $10,400 per year in employee time costs.
Thus, the ROI of the DAM system in this example would be:
(Cost Savings - Cost of Investment) / Cost of Investment = ROI
(10,400 - 6,480) / 6,480 = 60%
This means that the company would see a 60% return on its investment in the DAM system in the first year.
Still, it's worth keeping in mind that this scenario is just digital asset management (DAM) ROI estimates. So, don't necessarily expect such a high ROI in real-life applications as the reality is often messier than an ideal marketing vacuum space.
Nonetheless, this pricing model for DAM is real. Pics.io DAM is one of the most democratically priced solutions on the market, giving you the best price-to-value ratio out there.
The DAM pricing in the example I've just listed - 6,480 per year - isn't even the lowest amount! We also offer a Micro plan for 10 users which starts at $150/mo.
Combined with the fact that you can keep your own storage - Google Drive or Amazon S3 - makes our product quite user-friendly! This, in turn, lets you maximize DAM ROI by reducing both the monetary and time investment required to get started with DAM.
Other Factors to Consider When Calculating DAM ROI
While cost savings and revenue generation are important factors to consider when calculating DAM ROI, there are other factors you should also keep in mind.
Training costs
If you need to train your team to use the DAM system, you should also consider the costs of training in your ROI calculation. While Pics.io does provide free workshops for our users, these are still hours that your team will need to invest before they can fully master the product.
Integration costs
If you need to integrate your DAM system with other systems or software that isn't covered by the DAM vendors' integration list, you might have to invest extra resources into developing such an integration. This can be accomplished in one of two ways.
- Using API and building it yourself. Many DAM vendors, Pics.io included, provide access to its API so you can build whatever integration you might need. However, this feature tends to be packed in a higher subscription tier, so you might have to upgrade or either negotiate it as an additional feature for a fee. Both, of course, will increase your initial investment costs.
- Putting up a custom development request. Many Pics.io features have been built in coordination with our long-term users. Usually what happens is that a team will have a business need not yet fulfilled by our product and will ask for a custom development fee. The price and the ETA of the feature will depend on how generally applicable it is (i.e. can it provide value to our other users).
How Pics.io Helps Save Time and Money
Pics.io is a leading digital asset management platform that helps organizations of all sizes manage their assets more effectively. Some key features of Pics.io include:
- Customized workflows: Pics.io allows you to customize workflows to fit your specific needs, which can help streamline your digital asset management process and save time.
- Advanced search capabilities: Pics.io also provides advanced search capabilities that make it easy to find digital assets you need, even if you don't know exactly where they are stored.
- Collaboration tools: Pics.io includes collaboration tools like commenting and annotation, which can help your team work more effectively together and reduce the risk of lost or misused digital assets.
Conclusion
Ultimately, I will say that the most important part of calculating DAM ROI is actually figuring out your DAM business case. Don't get me wrong, never losing track of your digital assets is a wonderful idea, but are you certain that this is exactly the thing that you'd be willing to spend the money on?
Instead, it is worthwhile to ponder the following: exactly how DAM can improve my business? Maybe it can streamline delivering assets to your clients. Maybe you can use it to maintain brand consistency by providing easy access to all brand guidelines and collaterals?
By answering this question, you can then figure out the value of this particular business case, look at the DAM's features and realize how much time you will spend on this or another process if you integrate DAM into your workflow.
Only then, in my opinion, you should get to number crunching and measure DAM ROI.
And if you want a helping hand in figuring out your specific business case, book a demo with us and we'll talk with you about everything you want. It's free, I promise. Same way as our trial is (no credit card required, by the way).
Whatever option you choose, I hope to see you there ;)
Did you enjoy this article? Give Pics.io a try — or book a demo with us, and we'll be happy to answer any of your questions.
FAQ
How to measure DAM ROI?
To measure the return on investment (ROI) of a digital asset management (DAM) system, you can calculate the savings and increase in revenue resulting from using DAM. You can measure the time saved by automating asset management tasks or how many more clients you can reach thanks to the streamlined content distribution practices.
Why should you buy a DAM solution?
Answering this question requires you to take a look at your business processes and figure out how digital asset-adjacent they are. If you're working with digital assets (videos, photos, documents) on a daily basis, then DAM will certainly improve your workflow. The only question is: by how much exactly?
If you have a team of 10 people spending 2 hours each week looking for digital assets. So, how many hours a digital asset management system can save you here? That's ~$400 down the drain every week. But if your margin is too thin when you factor the initial costs of investing into DAM, then DAM might not be the right fit for you. It's all on a case-to-case basis, really.
