Video Asset Management

Video continues to grow as a vital resource in digital marketing and e-commerce. According to Wyzowl’s 2023 Video Marketing Statistics, 96% of consumers have watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service. And 89% of people say watching a video has swayed them to make a purchase. All signs point to continued growth in video’s role through 2023 and beyond. With approaching 5G download speeds predicted at 1GBS to 10GBS, video consumption is going to skyrocket and brands need to keep up. 

Companies could soon find themselves with hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of video files to manage — if they don’t already. Any brand that wants to spend more time making high-quality videos and less time trying to find the right files needs to understand video asset management and the technology that makes it possible. To get a better understanding of what video asset management entails, let’s start by defining what it is. 

What is video asset management?

How does video asset management work?

Managing video assets through their full lifecycle requires dedicated resources and technology every step of the way. 

Creation, storage, and distribution are the three foundational areas of video management every brand needs to focus on. Each of these depends on a DAM system that can help store videos in one place, find and organize videos easily with metadata, and distribute video files to teams, websites, and other channels.

Creation

From branded videos to product explainer videos, video creation starts by understanding the ideal audience and purpose of the videos being made. Once concepts are briefed and storyboards have been approved the production team gets to work. Solutions that support video management give companies control over video access and user permissions that make it possible to coordinate with in-house production teams and contractors (agencies, freelancers, influencers, etc.).

Video creation requires a high level of collaboration between teams, departments, organizations, and business units. With the right technology, videos can be routed to stakeholders for multi-stage review and approval — saving everyone time. Production teams can batch upload and edit videos, create multilingual translations, and work safely within the permissions they’re given in the DAM system.

Distribution

There are many engaging ways to share approved videos through a DAM system. Videos can be published on product detail pages through integrations with a content management system (CMS), shared individually as needed, or distributed via custom branded collections.

Brands that use Acquia DAM (Widen) for video asset management can share curated videos through branded portals. Videos can also be arranged in playlists for specific audiences or business objectives and embedded on websites. This gives video teams the power to keep their audience's attention once they have it. 

Storage

Successful video asset management is built on a central source of storage for video files. Video storage has to be secure, easy to search, and organized with the right metadata. High-resolution video comes with very large file sizes and every brand needs to make a decision about whether to store full-resolution master files or not. Chances are, a mezzanine file format is sufficient for storage and can save space, time, and resources.

Because storage makes up the foundation of video asset management, we’ve created a short guide to video storage that covers everything from specific types of metadata needed for video to how a DAM system can publish directly to YouTube. 

Who needs video asset management?

Almost everyone in the company can benefit from video asset management — including obvious departments like marketing to less obvious ones like the legal department. With a central source of video that is easy to search and secured by permissions, everyone that has a role in building a brand can quickly find the videos they need and share them. Here are the teams that tend to benefit from video asset management the most.

Video professionals

Video professionals (videographers, editors, producers, etc.) can use video asset management to maximize the time spent on their creative work, streamline the video production process, and learn how to improve their end results from video analytics. It can also make it easier for team members in marketing, sales, and customer service to find videos (saving unnecessary email requests and interruptive shoulder taps). 

The video approval process can take up a lot of time that could be spent creating new videos, editing, or planning production. Thankfully, the right technology makes this part of video asset management more efficient with time-based comments, @ mentions, and automatic multi-stage routing. With video asset management software in place, every team member has visibility into project milestones and deadlines and knows when their feedback is needed.

Sales

Video gives sales teams an engaging way to communicate with prospects — if they can find the right videos for each phase of the sales journey. With video asset management, sales reps can respond to prospects quickly with relevant and helpful content, and build sales presentations with ease. 

Imagine sales reps being able to organize videos and share them in impressive, branded interfaces that are problem-proof and inbox-friendly. With Portals, they can send links to video collections that keep valuable customers updated on the newest products (and keep new leads warm).

Executives

The C-Suite often uses videos to communicate with other executives and build presentations. Their time is always of the essence, so they need quick, easy, and direct access to the videos they need. A video asset management workflow ensures this content is up-to-date and approved for company-wide use. This helps them generate brand awareness and protect the brand at the same time.

Adopting a specific system to handle video asset management also gives executives the ability to use analytics to establish and communicate return on value (ROI) from their video investments. This information helps them justify their video budgets and translate their strategic vision into a financially grounded plan for future growth and innovation.

Benefits of digital asset management for video

With DAM software, brands can store all their videos in one place, regardless of format. It’s also easy to organize videos with tags and keywords so that they can be found easily. Plus, teams can create video playlists of their most relevant content so their audience can learn more about products or services by viewing multiple video assets at once. This not only makes it easier for customers to digest information but also for marketing and sales teams to present it.

Using a DAM system for video management leads to higher-quality content, increased collaboration across teams, and expanded brand awareness and protection. Here is a summary of a few of the common benefits of video management.

• Central storage for teams to work from anywhere and any time zone
• Easy and fast search with custom metadata
• Ability to share curated video collections using Portals, with branded player options optimized for online video presentation
• Increased workflow efficiency with time-based comments, @ mentions, and automatic multi-stage routing
• Ability to show and improve video ROI with critical performance data — who uses which videos when, where, and how

What our video asset management software includes

Over 850 brands trust Acquia DAM to be their video asset management solution. Our DAM platform helps global companies in e-commerce, media, and many other industries get more value from their video content. Here are some of the main video management features that come with Acquia DAM.

• Full-length HD previews and 360º video support
• Automatic transcoding
• Video embedding
• Video Portals
• Proofing and approval
• Batch uploading and editing
• Support for closed captioning and multilingual translations
• ADA compliance
• Secure, scalable cloud infrastructure with AWS
• Global content delivery network (CDN)
• Enterprise governance controls
• Video analytics
• System reporting and dashboards
• Video asset archiving
• Web CMS integrations
• Social publishing

What’s next?

Video asset management is a dynamic journey of constant improvement. And there’s so much you can do with the right tools. Interested in learning more about how video asset management can enhance your video strategy? Request, watch, or click through a demo of Acquia DAM to see how we can help support your video efforts. 

Additional resources

Designing a Video Distribution Experience Worth Sharing
Four Tips for Shooting Better Video for the Non-Video Professional
Power Your Content Using Embed Codes
The Rise of Enterprise Video in Marketing

Note: This article was originally published on Widen.com.