Digital Asset Management can save hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars on your next video project.
Many companies spend a considerable amount of time and money on hiring video producers, camera crews, video editors, and graphic design teams to develop video content to promote and market their businesses. And, very often this content is created for a single campaign, tradeshow or conference presentation. After this, the video is posted to the company website and social media channels.
Little thought ever goes to safe-keeping the high-resolution master file, much less the assets or project file used to create it but herein lays the “video gold” as there’s tremendous untapped value in these assets. You simply need to find it and curating is the key.
There are many benefits to having a system in place to track and organize all your video elements and assets. The three most common are:
1) Revise & retarget –Revising the content for a different audience can be a breeze so long as you have the original footage, graphic elements and project file. Can’t find those assets anymore? No problem. It’s still doable – so long as you have a high-resolution master file.
2) Localization – There’s more to it than simply overlaying subtitles and dubbing in a foreign language voice to make your video accessible to international markets. Any graphics, including brand marks, lock-ups, or on-screen text, should be translated and replaced with localized versions. Changing these elements is much easier when you have a video’s project file (or EDL) and assets.
3) Creating Online Advertising Versions – Let’s say the explainer video you recently completed is generating positive results on your homepage and YouTube channel. Why not run it as a video ad on YouTube or Facebook? Great idea. But to succeed on either platform, your video must immediately engage and “hook” its audience before they click the ”skip ad” button or scroll right past.
There are plenty of software and hardware systems on the market, each available with a wide variety of features and price points. What’s most important is; to develop a “process” that fits your workflow, is easy to follow, and becomes routine. So start small and simple. Tagging project files and assets with job numbers is an easy first step. Then track those jobs & numbers on a spreadsheet. This can be a huge time-saver when searching for source files later on! Request that your vendors, agencies or freelancers do the same.
Regardless of where or how you start, once you begin the process, you’ll be amazed at how soon you realize the benefits and wonder how you ever managed without it.