In today’s digital age, modern industries need visual content. But without intelligent software, storing and managing digital content quickly turns into an admin nightmare. Digital asset management provides a valuable solution to the madness.  

As with any major software investment, you’ll need to know and understand the ROI of digital asset management (DAM) to justify its cost and value to executive sponsors. 

However, figuring out the ROI of DAM is complicated, let alone explaining it to your boss.  

It all starts with understanding what DAM ROI is, how to calculate it and how it increases digital asset value. Here, we’ll show you how to calculate the ROI of your DAM investment and really drive home the value and support it will bring to your organisation. 

How To Calculate DAM ROI 

The ROI of a DAM is often intangible, subjective and hard to explain. You’re not only looking at cost savings, but the time savings, productivity boost and stronger brand agility a DAM solution will bring to your business.  

It all starts with asking the right questions. Here’s our step-by-step guide to help you figure it all out:  

How Much Time Is Spent On Search? 

How much company time is currently spent searching for assets?  

You can calculate this using the hourly rates of employees. Of course, every company has different salary averages, but for this example, let’s use the average Australian wage of $45 per hour.  

You’ll want to think about:  

• The number of users using digital assets (think marketers, sales, IT, creatives, etc.) 
• Hours per week spent on asset search 

Now, let’s assume the following example:  

• Number of users: 15  
• Average wage per hour: $45.00  
• Hours per week searching for assets: 2 hours  

(15 users x $45.00 p/hour) x (2x 52 weeks) = $70,200.00 over a 12-month period 

How Much Is Spent On Content Creation?

To calculate the value of your digital assets, think how much you paid for them in terms of license fees, cost of commissions, contract work, photoshoots or any paid design and editing work. 

Once you know the average value of an asset, you can calculate the following: 

• Number of new assets you create/commission each month 
• Percentage of assets you need to re-create because you lost or forgot about them. 

Key Takeaway: DAM increases the value of digital assets by making them more searchable and accessible. It creates an intrinsic value by allowing the asset to be re-used, repurposed and easier to find, solving lifecycle retention issues and extending both the lifespan and usage potential.

How Much Is Spent On Asset Distribution?

Distribution costs take into account file storage costs, transfers and maintenance. Basically, any cost involved with using, sharing and storing assets. Consider the following equation: 

• Number of users per month: 20   
• Annual storage/service cost per user: $500   
• File transfer cost per month: $100  
• Number of people to maintain current system: 2   
• Average hours per/week to maintain: 5  

(20 users x $500 storage cost p/user) + (20 users x $100 file transfer cost) + [(2 maintenance employees x $45.00 p/hour] x [5 x 52 weeks]) = $35,400.00 

How To Explain The Value Of DAM To Your Boss

DAM empowers your staff with fast, secure access to the digital assets they need to conduct important business functions like branding, sales, marketing and business development. The trick is explaining it in a way that will guarantee a sign-off. 

Here’s 4 ways to explain the value of a digital asset management system to your boss: 

1. You’ll Save Time On Search

We’ve all been there – hours spent sifting through folders or email chains to find a specific digital asset. In fact, research from McKinsey highlights that up to 19% of an employee’s time is spent searching for files.  

And the worst part is this is entirely avoidable with a DAM solution. 

A DAM solution intelligently stores your digital assets, making them more searchable and accessible for users. Advanced metadata tagging and AI search functionalities allow your employees to sift through thousands of digital assets in seconds to find exactly what they’re after. They can even search for the dialogue in a video or a person’s face in an album of photos.  

By eliminating the bottleneck of outdated filing practices or naming conventions, DAM saves employees up to 10 hours a month that would have otherwise been spent searching for files. 

This is where the real value of DAM comes into play. It’s not just a storage platform – it’s intelligent, advanced and secure.

2. You’ll Increase The Value Of Your Assets

From images and videos to podcasts and eBooks, digital content costs your business thousands of dollars to make and countless hours to edit. So, you can’t afford to accidentally lose, duplicate or worse, entirely recreate important digital assets.  

DAM creates intrinsic value by ensuring your entire library of digital assets is always easily accessible and searchable for all relevant stakeholders.  

Say your business undergoes a rebranding initiative, instead of forking out thousands of dollars to create or reshoot assets, DAM allows you to quickly draw upon and adapt existing assets with ease. Your employees always have access to a rich library of up-to-date, market-ready assets ready for distribution when and where you need them. 

For every business looking to meet tight marketing budgets and deadlines, the ROI of reducing expenditure costs and extending asset lifecycle is invaluable.  

3. You’ll Build A Stronger, More Consistent Brand

From rebranding initiatives to product launches and weekly newsletters, businesses constantly need to create, distribute and implement new brand assets quickly. 

Yet without an easily accessible source of high-quality digital assets to draw on, marketers often struggle to deliver a consistent, meaningful brand message across multiple customer touchpoints. And this has a serious impact on your bottom line. In fact, 41% of consumers agree that consistency is the most important factor when it comes to brand loyalty.  

DAM acts as a single source of truth for all company assets. It empowers your teams with a rich, up-to-date library of digital assets they share with confidence knowing they are always on-brand and copyright compliant.  

Further DAM features like user permissions, passwords and expiry dates eliminate the legal and brand reputation risk of expired, unapproved or non-compliant assets accidentally slipping through the cracks. 

4. You’ll Collaborate Better

Collaborating via endless email chains, shared drives or zip files not only bogs down workflows, but it makes it all too easy for valuable content or information to get lost in the process. 

Storing every company digital asset in one central, cloud-based location, DAM software guarantees effortless collaboration between internal and external teams. Your DAM platform provides a secure space for employees and stakeholders to view, edit and share assets seamlessly from a single platform.  

There’s no need to wait hours to gain access to a file and there’s greater visibility and communication across projects. Custom share links also allow you to confidently give any stakeholder access to your DAM knowing they’ll only have access to the right, pre-approved digital assets and nothing more.  

With DAM, you gain greater control over your brand story and identity across all touchpoints. 

Determine The Risks Of Not Implementing A DAM System

Consider what your business will look like in 12 months time without a DAM system in place. This will create the urgency you need to secure the buy-in for DAM. 

Without a DAM solution, your business could face legal or compliance breaches, or continue to duplicate content and waste time searching for assets. Some potential risks that may arise include: 

The Cost Of Asset Recreation

Businesses spend large sums of money each year creating assets from campaign photoshoots, marketing videos, collaborations – the list goes on.  

Now say these valuable assets get lost at the fault of outdated naming conventions or storage systems. Think of the extra money you’ll need to fork out from the marketing budget to re-edit, re-make or re-shoot the asset. These additional expenses are easily avoidable with DAM. 

Copyright, Talent and Usage Risk

Say you run an ad where the talent usage and photographic copyright are out of contract. What will it cost your business to rectify the breach of contract? It could be anywhere from $1,000 to millions of dollars depending on the terms of the contract. 

With features like passwords, expiry dates and user permissions, DAM systems safeguard against breaches of contract or copyright agreements. They ensure only up-to-date, market-ready and copyright-compliant assets are available to your teams. 

Discover The Collaboro Difference. Book a Demo Today

With the right DAM solution and vendor, the ROI for your business extends far beyond cost savings. You’ll enjoy time savings, a boost to productivity and stronger brand agility.  

That’s why it’s important to choose a vendor that offers more than just the software and an instruction manual.  

Collaboro is an Australian cloud-based DAM solution that empowers your teams to do more. We bring local Australian expertise and support services to provide a bespoke end-to-end solution for your business. Book a demo with one of our Collaboro experts to experience what the right DAM solution will do for your business.