Canto Portals: A better way to distribute digital assets

Portals are Canto’s all-purpose solution for sharing assets at scale. With flexible configuration options and customizable branding, they adapt to fit a whole host of business needs.

Want to share assets externally? You can open Portals up to anyone – whether they’re a Canto user or not. Need to deliver content in something more polished than a Dropbox link? Portals have you covered, with colors and backgrounds that fit the look and feel of your brand. Every business is different, and so is every Portal.

So how do Portals help companies succeed? To offer some inspiration, we’ve rounded up a few popular ways brands use Canto Portals to get more out of their digital assets.

1. Empower sales teams to react on the fly

Portals aren’t just for external sharing – they’re also a convenient way to distribute content collections to other teams in your company. Because Portals are curated and easy to navigate, they allow sales teams to find images, video and other content at the speed of business. If an unexpected request comes up in the middle of a sales call, no problem – sales reps can find and share persuasive images while the customer is still on the phone.

“Project photos are often critical to making the sale,” explains Krista Short, marketing director at modular construction company Falcon Structures. Prior to using Canto, finding the right image was such a hassle at Falcon, it was starting to interfere with the sales process. Now, the most compelling photos of past projects are at sales reps’ fingertips. “We make sure that everything the sales team needs is in the Portal,” says Krista. “It works really well for us.”

2. Help retailers promote your brand and products

Consumer brands rely on retailers to highlight their products in marketing materials and in stores. Of course, so do their competitors. So how can brands stand out from the crowd and ensure their products are the ones that end up in the spotlight? Canto Portals provide retailers with an easy, reliable source of product images – making them the first place they’ll go to grab what they need.

“An REI-type store might carry 20 of our products and need imagery to put up on their website,” explains Jeff Williamson, creative producer at the iconic boot brand Danner. “Instead of photographing the boots themselves, they’ll just pull it from our library.”

3. Give external partners access to everything they need – and nothing they don’t

External partners, like agencies and consultants, offer welcome support – but you don’t always want to give them access to your whole library. Portals offer a convenient way to wall off parts of your content collection. That way, external collaborators have space to explore and find great content themselves – without having to email back and forth every time they need an image or design file.

“Anyone can go into the Portal to find what they need,” says Brandon Perry, co-founder and CMO of Island Brands USA. Now, content produced by Island Brands’ external partners always matches the look and feel the brand wants to project. “There’s brand integrity in this,” explains Chris Edington, the company’s creative director. “Anybody who interacts with our brand from the moment they get this link is always going to have the correct logo and approved photography.”

4. Create press kits journalists will love

Journalists’ days are dictated by tight deadlines. Too much back and forth over images and how to credit them can easily turn a PR win into a missed opportunity. With Canto Portals, PR teams can easily assemble and update press kits, so journalists have the right images – and all the information that goes with them – on hand.

For amsterdam&partners, the team responsible for promoting the city of Amsterdam, creating press kits in Canto has made delivering pre-approved visuals to journalists a breeze. “In the Portal, we can align everything with our logo and our style guides,” explains web editor Pauline Arkesteijn. “It’s really nice to share this with journalists – it looks amazing, and we can easily share a wide range of content.”

Stand out from the crowd with your own Canto Portal

Whether hundreds of retail partners or a handful or freelancers, Canto Portals offer a simple way to share large collections of digital assets with any audience. After all, it’s not just the digital assets that represent your brand – the package you deliver them in matters too.

Want to learn more about Portals and other ways Canto helps brands manage digital content? Book a free, personalized consultation with a Canto digital asset management expert.