Who buys DAM software? When you’re marketing a Digital Asset Management solution, you have a lot of potential personas to target. Here are some of the main personas for DAM buyers and decision-makers. Are you targeting them effectively?
Archivist/Librarian
Archivists may work in the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries and Museums) sector, managing digital assets of historic and cultural significance. Or they may work in corporate archives, making sure business assets are appropriately stored, secured and easily accessible. They’re responsible for the often-overlooked but utterly essential parts of Digital Asset Management like taxonomy and metadata. They’ll be focused on functionality around asset ingest, categorisation, retrieval, security and storage. Providing public access may also be a consideration.
Brand Manager
Brand Managers are responsible for the consistency, quality and application of the brand across all customer touchpoints. Like the Marketing Manager persona, they’re looking to solve particular problems, so content should focus on brand-specific challenges like ensuring consistency across multiple channels and creative teams. In such a broad and busy role, messages around control, efficiency and organization are likely to appeal. A Brand Manager may be swayed by arguments for a Brand Asset Management (BAM) so talk around the wider cross-functional benefits of implementing a DAM system instead.
Chief Marketing Officer/Director
In a larger organisation, the decision to purchase a DAM system is likely to end somewhere in the C-Suite - possibly with the CMO or similar. There’s no need to nurture this persona with top of funnel content as they enter the process at decision stage. They’re already problem- and product-aware. They’re looking for a compelling business case to select your product over the others on the shortlist. It’s key to highlight the strategic, operational and financial benefits of your product, aligning what you offer to this persona’s KPIs, such as revenue growth.
Communications Manager
The Communications Manager is responsible for a lot of content across a lot of platforms. They’re managing a team that touches on print, web, social media, PR and more. They’re a busy team in high demand from across the organisation. And thanks to their often external-facing role, they can be subject to scrutiny from senior management. As such, the Communications Manager is looking for tools to improve efficiency, reduce roadblocks, speed up outputs, and create impactful on-brand comms.
Creative Operations Manager
The Creative Operations Manager is primarily concerned with the efficacy of the creative supply chain. They’re actively looking to solve sluggish systems and increase productivity through digital transformation. They want to know about the features and functionality that drive efficiencies. But they also want assurances that this product will succeed where others might have failed. So they’ll be looking for a great UX that supports user adoption and onboarding. And, of course, they want return on their investment, so illustrate how streamlining their systems with DAM translates into bottom-line benefits.
DAM Manager
The DAM Manager is someone who already runs an organizational DAM. They’re horizon scanning for opportunities to improve the performance of their Digital Asset Management system - either through implementing a new solution or just researching the latest innovations and integration options. This persona wants to know what your system does better so highlight advanced functionality and innovative applications of the technology. Talk about admin functions that will make their job easier - such as permissions, ingest and automatic metadata - as well as data functions that help them measure and report on usage. Talk about how they can deliver value to their organization by driving forward workflow automation using DAM.
Design Manager
The Design Manager is concerned with increasing the speed their team can create collateral, without undermining quality or customer satisfaction. They’re likely to be a visual and creative thinker, so it’s important to ‘show not tell’ with this persona - functionality and usability are both key. But they’re also concerned with organization, management and reliability - they’re tired of communication silos and poor asset management causing chaos. So showcase how your product increases control… as well as creativity.
IT Manager
The IT Manager is likely to enter the discussion at consideration stage and be highly influential at decision stage. They don’t need ToFu content that surfaces and solves creative problems. They’re laser-focused on the tech - what it can actually do and deliver - so you should talk about features and functionality with this persona. As an IT expert, they may be more sceptical about claims from tech companies, so it’s important to back up every claim with facts and stats. They may be supported in their own decision-making by other IT experts, such as a Business Systems Analyst and/or a Dev Ops Engineer. These specialists are likely to be interested in data and reporting functionality, and deployment and integration issues, respectively.
Marketing Operations Manager
The Marketing Operations Manager is primarily concerned with the efficacy of their marketing function. Like the Creative Ops Manager, they’re actively looking to solve problems through digital transformation. So they want to know about the features and functionality that drive efficiencies. But they also want assurances that this product will succeed where others might have failed - for example, a great UX that supports user adoption and onboarding. They want ROI, so illustrate how features translate into bottom-line benefits. Don’t forget, the Marketing Operations Manager is probably using multiple MarTech tools already. Highlight how DAM can integrate into a software stack and create seamless workflows.
Marketing Manager
Marketing Managers are looking for tools to make life easier for them and their team. Once they’re in consideration stage, they’re likely to be focused on features and flexibility. This persona is looking to solve particular problems, so content should focus on marketing-specific challenges, such as solving content chaos, improving consistency, reducing time to market, and other operational efficiencies. They may have already implemented a range of MarTech tools and could be sceptical about introducing another. Social proof and customer testimonials from other people in their position can help win them over.
Photographer/Videographer
Photographers need to be able to upload and share photoshoots fast with their clients. A cloud-based DAM is ideal for their needs - especially if they can use it from multiple devices, from any location. They’ll be interested in ingest and metadata options, as well as sharing functionality that gives clients a great experience accessing their photos/videos. Automated workflows might also be beneficial to this persona, such as AI-assisted tagging and automatic file renditions. File sizes may be large so bandwidth is important too.
Publishing Manager
A Publishing Manager is likely to face many challenges. From juggling multiple channels with content at different stages of the editorial workflow, to working out how to compete in a challenging market environment with high competition. Their interests may span operational considerations - like reducing content chaos, faster access to owned digital assets - as well as strategic ones - like how digital transformation can open up new business models. Improved access and control over assets, integration with existing PubTech tools, and streamlined collaboration are key selling points.
Social media manager
The Social Media Manager produces a high volume of visual content for a variety of different platforms. They’re concerned with getting fast access to quality graphics and photos. A DAM system can save them time by putting the perfect asset at their fingertips when they need to jump on the latest trend. And means they can use unique on-brand assets rather than wasting time and money buying generic stock images. The ability to automatically resize assets to specific crops and formats is also a benefit.
Website manager
The Website Manager persona might not realise they need a DAM as their CMS may have a built-in media library. However, this is unlikely to offer the benefits and functionality of a DAM system. So awareness stage content - that recognises and solves pain points related to digital asset management in a web context - is key. This persona may not know that a DAM system can plug straight into their CMS to provide advanced digital asset management functionality without leaving the system. Highlighting the benefits of advanced functionality - including the ability to surface assets more easily, identify and retire assets when they’re no longer in use, and automatically resize and crop assets - can help win them over.
There are so many applications of Digital Asset Management software and that means lots of possible personas. If the list above has inspired you to explore new target audiences, let me know - I’d love to hear from you. And if you need help with your content strategy or content writing, get in touch.
About the author: Libby Marks is The DAM Copywriter. A Digital Asset Management expert with over a decade of experience in the sector, she writes extensively on DAM for global software brands and their network of partners.