Repurposing your best content using digital asset management

We all know that content is king, and today’s businesses need a ton of amazing content if they want to have any chance of being heard and seen in a crowded market. The days of sparse websites and boring text-only emails have long since given way to an era of dynamic and engaging content designed to provide a better experience for customers and prospects. This shift has prompted many organizations to invest in brand management strategies that help them strengthen their brand identity and explore new and exciting ways to engage with the market. Reusing and repurposing content is just one of many ways they can leverage their growing collection of brand assets more effectively.

What is content repurposing?

A good brand management strategy doesn’t look at digital assets as disposable resources. As organizations generate marketing and production content, they accumulate vast libraries of assets that continue to have value even after their initial use. Rather than deleting these resources or filing them away never to be seen again, there are many ways that they can find new life and purpose for many years to come.

Content repurposing is the process of taking existing assets that have been used in one format or channel and using them to generate additional content elsewhere. A photo used in a blog post one day, for example, might end up as a social media post background on another. Video clips can be cut into smaller segments to use on other channels.

Why reuse or repurpose digital assets?

There are a few reasons why developing a system for repurposing digital assets is a great strategy for creative teams:

Scale production

The sheer amount of content being consumed across the digital landscape is truly mind boggling. As organizations grow, their library of brand assets needs to grow with them to keep up with the ceaseless demand for content. Reusing existing material in new and unique ways can help even a small content team keep up with that demand without forcing them to dedicate all their resources to creating new assets.

Manage costs

Organizations spend a lot of resources on multimedia content. Digital photos, videos, audio recordings, artwork, and animated graphics all cost money to produce. Creating unique assets for every campaign and channel will quickly strain the capabilities of even larger enterprises. By strategically repurposing assets, resourceful organizations can get additional value from their content library and stretch their existing budgets.

Save time

It takes time to create digital assets from scratch. Whether an organization is using an in-house team or outside collaborators to produce content, it usually can’t get them right away. This can cause marketing teams to miss out on opportunities or slow down the content process in other areas. If a system is in place to quickly identify and reuse assets, creative teams can move much more swiftly to respond to the market and engage with customers.

Ensure quality & consistency

One of the challenges with creating any kind of content is maintaining a high level of quality and consistency. Part of any effective brand management strategy is making sure nothing that falls short of brand standards goes out the door and into the public eye. As organizations democratize their content creation, they run the risk of people not familiar with brand guidelines using unapproved or inappropriate content across media channels. Allowing people to reuse existing assets ensures that every resource they have access to has already gone through an approval process and will be consistent with content already in use.

Expand reach

New opportunities for sharing and promoting content continue to emerge each year, making it vital that organizations have the ability to quickly adapt and utilize the best available resources to support their brand identity. Reusing existing content allows them to mix and match their assets in different contexts as needed. Today’s long form video can be tomorrow’s social media clip and the next day’s blog GIF. By reaching into their library of approved assets, organizations can easily experiment with new channels without having to invest in an entirely new content creation strategy.

How to repurpose content with digital asset management

Leveraging an existing content library is much easier with a digital asset management (DAM) platform like Canto in place. For starters, a DAM system creates a single source of truth for all assets within an organization. This makes it easy to know what assets are even available to be used in the first place. Powerful search tools can locate assets based on predefined tags and keywords or content metadata. Assets that are deemed eligible for reuse can be labeled as such for easy reference, or even placed within a dedicated portal that allows anyone to browse through reusable content.

More importantly, a DAM platform also tracks how every asset stored within the system is utilized. This makes it much easier to determine which content pieces have been most successful. Brand managers can track how people have engaged with videos, images, and other assets or see which files have been downloaded most often. By routinely reviewing these reports and auditing content, they can determine which assets need to be retired for good, which ones may need to be put on hold to prevent overuse, and which ones have generated the most engagement.

Take control of your brand management strategy with Canto

As an industry-leading digital asset management platform, Canto provides all the tools brand managers need to take control of their assets and streamline content creation. Canto offers multiple organization options and powerful search functionality that makes it easy to identify and retrieve assets that are suitable for repeated use. Brand guidelines can also be stored alongside assets to help maintain brand integrity and consistency. With a wide selection of reporting and auditing tools for analyzing assets within the library, Canto can also track how those assets are being used across the organization.

To learn more about how Canto can strengthen your brand management strategy and help you reuse your assets more effectively, sign up today for a free trial.