Dropbox is a well-liked cloud storage supplier as a result of they’ve a easy platform and tiered packages to assist totally different customers — they even provide a free plan for customers who don’t have a ton of digital content material. Total, it’s a high-quality file storage and file sharing resolution and it will get fairly good opinions.

Nonetheless, at its core, Dropbox is a conventional cloud storage drive, so it’s largely suited to people or small companies that don’t want a lot past file storage and file sharing. Many groups and companies ultimately develop out of Dropbox and want one thing extra strong to raised handle — not simply retailer — their digital recordsdata.

The pure subsequent step is digital asset administration (DAM) software program. DAMs develop upon the capabilities of cloud storage drives and provide you with a large number of different methods to:

• Oversee your asset library to maintain it organized and up-to-date
• Enhance the accessibility of your belongings so all people who wants them can discover them
• Management how others work together together with your asset library and use your model collateral
• Hold observe of sharing, monitor asset utilization, and collect information on how belongings carry out together with your target market
• Enhance productiveness and permit your entire groups to work extra effectively

So on this publish, we’ll introduce you to a handful of digital asset administration methods — beginning with our DAM, Brandfolder (voted greatest DAM software program of 2021 by each G2 and Capterra) — so you may be taught concerning the top-rated choices. Then, in the long run, we’ll additionally talk about a couple of different cloud storage suppliers for people who solely want a really primary file storage and sharing resolution.

Our digital asset administration software program, Brandfolder, isn’t a “one-size-fits-all” software program resolution — we don’t pigeonhole you into preset packages and power upgrades each time you want extra space for storing or entry to a brand new function.

As an alternative, Brandfolder is totally custom-made for you and your groups from day one: We provide you with entry to all of our normal options, then you definately decide the space for storing, add-ons, and integrations/APIs you wish to join. Then, earlier than transferring over to our software program, our hands-on buyer expertise will meet with you and gameplan the whole transition course of so it goes as easily as doable.

Better of all? Brandfolder scales together with your staff. You possibly can change space for storing, add (or subtract) customers, modify your add-ons, or join new integrations everytime you need. And our staff will likely be there to assist alongside the way in which. That is how our resolution can work for thus many companies, and why we now have a 98% retention price with all of our prospects.

Let’s discuss a couple of methods Brandfolder is extra superior than your normal cloud storage drive like Dropbox.

1. Design Your Asset Library in a Manner That Makes Sense for Your Groups

First, Brandfolder enables you to manage your belongings in probably the most logical approach for you and your groups. We’ll even aid you map out your asset library and its group (a.okay.a. your asset taxonomy) earlier than you start transferring belongings over, so that you’re not left to deal with that typically somewhat daunting job by yourself. Strategically mapping belongings offers your asset library a logic that completely matches the way you really use your belongings. In flip, this improves the general consumer expertise, simplifies sharing, and improves the accessibility of your belongings for all finish customers.

Our DAM additionally accepts all asset sorts and file codecs, together with photos, brochures, enterprise playing cards, Adobe recordsdata, templates, movies, audio recordsdata, PDFs, Excel spreadsheets, Google Docs, fonts, shade HEX codes, logos — you identify it. That approach you may retailer your entire model’s recordsdata in a single spot as a substitute of getting to make use of totally different storage drives for various units of belongings.

We forgo the standard “folder/sub-folder” construction and permit groups to prepare belongings in Brandfolders, Collections, and Model Portals.

• Brandfolders home the entire belongings associated to a selected model. Many groups simply have one Brandfolder, however advertising and marketing companies or retailers with digital belongings for a wide range of manufacturers can create separate Brandfolders for every model they handle.
• Collections stay inside Brandfolders and permit groups to prepare associated teams of belongings. You possibly can create separate Collections or product strains or providers, forms of collateral, seasonal campaigns, and so on.
• Model Portals are teams of related belongings for particular finish customers. You possibly can create Portals for various groups or departments — which is tremendous helpful for international manufacturers which have regional groups. We’ve additionally seen massive retail manufacturers create separate Portals for every of their distributors. With Portals, every of your customers is logging in and accessing simply the belongings which are related to their roles or initiatives.

On high of permitting groups to ascertain an organized asset repository, Brandfolder additionally has instruments to take care of that group…whilst your library grows and you’ve got a billion (and one) customers interacting together with your belongings.

• Duplicate asset detection prevents customers from importing dupe recordsdata and permits groups to merge related belongings for fast reference; this fashion you don’t have duplicate asset variations cluttering your library or inflicting confusion.

• Our real-time collaboration instruments enable groups to work on asset updates straight in Brandfolder, so that you at all times have the newest variations of belongings in your DAM. (Model historical past tracks all edits so you may entry previous variations and see how an asset evolves.)
• Overview and approval flows be sure that an admin checks all new belongings earlier than they’re out there in Brandfolder for different customers, stopping simply anyone from including belongings to your library.

Regardless of the way you manage your asset library, our superior search performance makes it easy to seek out the precise asset you want with only a search time period — no extra digging via folders and subfolders or racking your mind for actual file names each time you want an asset. Extra on that beneath.

2. Enhance the Search & Discovery Of Your Property

Brandfolder’s search performance is extraordinarily handy and time-saving for a few causes: 1) It searches your whole library — at the very least the entire belongings you might have entry to — as a substitute of limiting your search to particular Collections or Portals, and a couple of) It’s powered by our proprietary AI know-how, Model Intelligence, and might really analyze the content material of your belongings to drag every part related to your search.

So as a substitute of making an attempt to recollect precisely the place a file is saved or its particular file identify, you should use the search bar and sort product names, colours, background imagery, fonts, and so forth, and Model Intelligence will discover the entire model belongings that relate to your search.

Word: Model Intelligence AI additionally comes into play throughout importing — it analyzes belongings upon ingestion to robotically add the entire acceptable metadata and tags, and this information additionally improves the search and discovery of belongings.

When your groups can simply search the belongings they want, and uncover new belongings associated to their initiatives, all people can extra successfully use the entire artistic collateral your design staff spends time and vitality making.

3. Have Larger Management Over Asset Sharing (& Asset Utilization)

Brandfolder additionally expands upon the fundamental sharing strategies you’ll discover in cloud storage platforms, so you may totally management and monitor how/when/the place belongings are shared and with whom.

There are two methods to share digital belongings in Brandfolder:

• You possibly can share belongings with different staff members by including them to the Brandfolder, Assortment, or Portal you wish to share. Whenever you add staff members with consumer permissions, you may management precisely how they work together together with your asset library (and particular person belongings). You can even add staff members to singular belongings or teams of chosen belongings if you wish to get extra granular with sharing.
• You should use customized share hyperlinks to ship belongings to non-Brandfolder customers (i.e., stakeholders, exterior collaborators, freelance companions, and so on.). We enable limitless free visitor seats and by no means put limits on sharing.

Share hyperlinks are handy as a result of they let you share recordsdata straight from the Brandfolder platform as a substitute of sending massive recordsdata through e mail, however they’re additionally helpful as a result of they allow you to observe asset sharing.

With customized share hyperlinks, you may:

• Give the hyperlink a novel identify
• Require an e mail tackle to open the hyperlink and entry the belongings inside
• Set the hyperlink to run out
• Watermark your belongings or disable downloading for end-users
• Add or take away belongings at any time
• Set alerts to be notified when shared belongings are opened or downloaded

In Brandfolder, you may view all energetic and expired share hyperlinks, and, if wanted, make modifications to your energetic hyperlinks.

4. Use Brandfolder As a Single Supply of Reality to Energy All Your Initiatives

DAMs are additionally far more helpful than common cloud storage options as a result of they operate as a single supply of reality — that means, you should use Brandfolder to energy your entire on-line publishing and assist your different digital initiatives. Our DAM even has a web-to-print function so you may push belongings on to print, too. Let’s discuss extra about how all of this works.

Brandfolder is constructed with a content material supply community (CDN) system, a wide range of out-of-the-box integrations, and an open-source API.

Our CDN system assigns every asset a novel URL. This URL will be copied and pasted throughout the net (e.g., in your web site, in e mail advertising and marketing campaigns, in weblog content material, and so on.) to host your belongings on-line. Whenever you use Brandfolder to publish digital recordsdata on-line, you may take consolation in understanding that your entire on-line collateral is present and on-brand, as all updates made on the Brandfolder stage are robotically mirrored anyplace the asset’s CDN hyperlink is embedded.

Integrations and our open-source API let you sync Brandfolder with the entire instruments your groups use of their workflows — reminiscent of content material creation apps, content material administration methods, gross sales enablement software program, challenge administration instruments, messengers and productiveness platforms, and so on. — so you may push belongings straight from Brandfolder into your different initiatives. This enables groups to work extra effectively and ensures all people is at all times utilizing the proper variations of your belongings.

5. Leverage Asset Insights to Monitor How Your Branded Content material Performs

Final however not least, Brandfolder additionally outdoes Dropbox and different cloud storage choices with its reporting capabilities. Though Dropbox affords reporting options with its premium plans, they’re fairly restricted (and, as we talked about, solely out there for enterprise customers who pay for the dearer packages).

Brandfolder’s highly effective reporting instruments are totally customizable to trace any information you wish to dig into, over any timeframe, so you may have a look at how your customers are interacting together with your belongings and see which belongings carry out the most effective together with your target market.

For instance, you should use our reporting instruments to see:

• What number of occasions an asset has been seen, downloaded, or shared
• An asset’s “Occasion Feed,” which reveals an in depth historical past of when an asset was downloaded or shared over time
• Which customers have seen, downloaded, or shared your belongings
• Prime-performing belongings and most energetic customers
• The URLs the place your belongings are embedded on-line
• And extra

These insights and analytics aid you refine enterprise and advertising and marketing methods, plan new artistic, and higher management your model picture.

Able to take the subsequent step and check out digital asset administration software program? Schedule a free demo with our staff to be taught extra about our customized resolution (and customized pricing) and see precisely how Brandfolder can assist your groups.

Different Digital Asset Administration Software program Choices

When researching the top-rated digital asset administration software program, you’ll additionally see Canto, Bynder, and Widen Collective listed as well-liked choices. Every of those DAMs is high-quality and well-reviewed, however all of them have their variations — consequently, they’re all designed for various end-users.

On this part, we’ll evaluation these different DAMs and who we suggest them for.

Canto

Canto is a well known digital asset administration software program model as a result of they have been one of many first names within the area. Along with providing a cloud-based model of their DAM resolution, in addition they present an on-premise and hybrid model of their software program for groups who want a self-hosted DAM (i.e., anyone who would need higher management over information storage or backups, groups who wish to function on a personal server). iPhone customers additionally like the truth that Canto affords an iOS cell app, which is somewhat unusual for DAM manufacturers.

Historically, Canto has been a preferred alternative amongst small companies as a result of the platform is fairly easy and straightforward to make use of, and so they provide plans at inexpensive costs. Nonetheless, with that being the case, many groups develop out of Canto and attain some extent the place they should swap to a extra superior DAM.

Canto has launched some options to enchantment to bigger companies, however they’re nonetheless not the greatest digital asset administration resolution for enterprise groups as a result of they don’t provide free visitor seats (that means they cost you each time you share exterior of the platform). So despite the fact that Canto is budget-friendly for small companies who don’t have to do numerous file sharing, it may be somewhat expensive for mid-size and massive companies to make use of.

Bynder

As an alternative, mid-size and enterprise companies ought to contemplate Bynder.

Bynder, like Brandfolder, is one other versatile DAM that works for a big number of groups and companies — even in the event you’re a small enterprise, you should use Bynder and add space for storing and further options whenever you want them.

Bynder affords a reasonably superior digital asset administration resolution: Along with performing as a safe cloud storage resolution to your digital recordsdata, the platform has dozens of options and integrates with 50+ different instruments that can assist you use your belongings. Nonetheless, the draw back of these superior options is that they are often considerably troublesome to navigate, and coaching groups to make use of Bynder can pose a problem.

Total, Bynder affords a great product and receives constructive buyer opinions. That mentioned, Bynder will get fairly low marks within the customer support division. Not solely did we learn this in buyer opinions, however when speaking to prospects who have been leaving Bynder or looking for Bynder alternate options, we heard that Bynder’s customer support staff will be not possible to come up with… and fewer than useful when you do. Because of this, transitioning to Bynder’s platform is nearly not possible in the event you aren’t tremendous tech-savvy or have the inner assets to assist.

Widen Collective

The final DAM on our checklist, Widen, is an enterprise DAM+PIM resolution for big B2B and B2C manufacturers that want a sophisticated product data administration (PIM) resolution along with their digital asset administration software program. So in different phrases, software program that lets them retailer all of their model’s digital belongings and all of their product data paperwork in a single platform. Widen’s DAM is without doubt one of the most superior choices out there, and its value displays its uber-robust function set.

Contemplating simply how superior Widen’s platform is, the software program isn’t overly troublesome to be taught and navigate. Coaching your groups to make use of the software program can take a few weeks, however Widen additionally has a financial institution of “Widen College” movies to assist your groups get adjusted extra rapidly and independently.

Whereas Widen is a superb possibility for international manufacturers which have a necessity for the entire extras Widen affords, it may be approach too superior and costly for smaller groups. Groups who don’t want all of Widen’s options can lower your expenses by selecting a less complicated resolution (as they wouldn’t use half of the options Widen offers, anyway).

Different Cloud Storage Companies to Use As an alternative of Dropbox

If you happen to’re not fairly prepared for digital asset administration software program, you would possibly wish to contemplate a number of the cloud storage suppliers beneath. Field, SpiderOak, and Sync.com are just a little extra superior than primary choices like Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Apple iCloud, and Amazon Drive, however they don’t have a ton of additional options, in order that they’re nonetheless simple to make use of and comparatively cheap.

Word: If you happen to’re simply looking for private cloud storage drives, a kind of primary choices listed above could also be the most effective cloud storage resolution to your wants. They provide as much as 5GB of free space for storing and require no coaching.

Field

Field is a cloud storage and safe file sharing resolution that’s constructed to let customers retailer and collaborate on digital belongings: It has extra collaborative instruments than different cloud storage drives, and it connects with a wide range of different instruments to assist your groups work extra productively. (Nonetheless, it doesn’t assist a lot past file storage, file sharing, and staff communication.)

Field lets customers begin with a free account, however in addition they provide quite a few paid packages to accommodate totally different groups, and all of their paid plans are reasonably priced. For instance, the entry-level marketing strategy is $5 per consumer monthly. Nonetheless, some customers don’t like Field’s tiered pricing mannequin as a result of they cut up up the options amongst the totally different packages, requiring customers to improve to an entire new bundle simply to entry a few further options or extra GB of storage.

Field additionally sells further merchandise like Field Signal so customers can ship necessary enterprise paperwork and obtain digital signatures immediately. Additionally they have iOS and Android apps so you may entry your recordsdata in your cell machine from wherever you might have an web connection.

You possibly can learn our different publish to be taught extra about their platform and store the greatest alternate options to Field.

Sync.com

Sync.com is one other well-liked cloud storage drive as a result of it has a contemporary really feel, intuitive interface, and is very easy to be taught. Additionally they stand out as a result of they satisfaction themselves on their safety protocols, holding your recordsdata protected utilizing end-to-end encryption.

Along with serving as a storage drive, Sync additionally has options to streamline file sharing and enhance collaboration. Sync is a go-to possibility for people or small groups which are looking for Google Drive alternate options and desire a cloud storage supplier that’s just a little extra user-friendly.

Sync affords a wide range of packages to suit totally different customers, together with each small groups and massive companies. (Nonetheless, we actually solely suggest them for smaller groups since large companies will doubtless want DAM software program to handle their digital recordsdata.) They even provide 5GB of free cloud storage for brand new customers. Many groups reward Sync as a result of they provide limitless storage plans, so it might retailer the biggest of recordsdata, and all of their packages are inexpensive.

You may get began with Sync by signing up for a free plan on their web site.

SpiderOak

The final possibility on our checklist, SpiderOak, is a cloud storage resolution designed completely for enterprise professionals who want extremely safe cloud storage — we’re speaking federal companies, authorities contractors, these within the healthcare area, and so on.

Their platform is without doubt one of the most safe cloud storage options on-line as a result of they use blockchain know-how of their safety measures to stop outsiders from accessing your information and recordsdata. Additionally they promote totally different variations of their software program to satisfy totally different storage wants.

SpiderOak is constructed with a number of collaboration instruments to encourage higher staff communication. Additionally they provide safe:

• Messaging and file sharing
• Knowledge storage & backups
• Software program growth instruments
• Spacecraft communication — sure, you learn that proper

Contemplating the character of SpiderOak’s product we actually solely suggest it for companies who have to retailer confidential information and can’t danger that data turning into compromised. Plus, it might work for companies of all sizes since they provide budget-friendly costs.

Get Began With Brandfolder’s DAM Answer

Digital asset administration software program is the subsequent step for groups and companies which have graduated from Dropbox’s cloud storage drive and want software program that offers them higher management over their asset library and digital recordsdata. If you happen to assume you’re able to make the swap, Brandfolder is an ideal resolution as a result of we do greater than present good DAM software program, we really present the entire onboarding and assist providers to get you efficiently transferred over out of your previous platform.

Our buyer expertise staff is obtainable that can assist you resolve in the event you’re actually prepared for DAM software program. Then, we sport plan the whole transition course of with you and assist each step of the way in which. To be taught extra concerning the Brandfolder platform and join with our staff, click on the button beneath.