Digital Asset Management & Integrations Protect Your Branding Assets – in an Evolving Industry like Healthcare

Written by Guy Vreeman, Director of Technology at Fineline Printing Group

As more baby-boomers continue to qualify for Medicare, new healthcare options like the Affordable Care Act and HIP 2.0 emerge, and healthcare acquisitions occur – it’s no secret that the healthcare landscape is rapidly changing.

We’re often asked for best practices on protecting brand assets in an evolving market and what tools can streamline this process. We see it more than ever in the healthcare industry, with good reason.

Fineline is no stranger to staying ahead of this changing environment and we continually partner with healthcare clients to keep branding consistent and assets accessible, whether it is with multiple locations, departments or facilities.

Challenges

As Director of Technology for Fineline, when I first consult with the marketing teams of Healthcare clients about brand management, they typically face common challenges such as:

Still, this issue isn’t specific to just healthcare. Regardless of industry, this infographic points out that, an average of 1 out of 10 days and $8,200 is spent per year, per person on file management activities.

To solve this, I focus on the two most important components to protecting brand assets: technology and integration.

Digital Asset Management

The technology that most effectively ensures quality, consistency and protects your brand is a Digital Asset Management tool – often referred to as DAM. This web-based software can house, store and update assets to ensure you are continually staying up-to-date.

Fineline clients use a custom DAM system named Creative Companion. This powerful software provides useful features that protect brand, assets and share-ability, including:

• Stores all assets and large file types within one system
• Ability to modify photos and images directly within the system
• Built-in utilities to adjust file type on the fly
• Keeps rogue files from appearing within the network
• Digital Rights Management – maintains licensing notifications and expirations
• Connects documents to digital assets via a constant connectivity to your database
• Set expiration dates on assets for brand planning
• Brand planning and strategy – control over those documents in any big company
• Dedicate assets to specific branding purposes like exterior signage
• Compatibility and storage for multi-purpose marketing and campaigns, like video files and presentations
• Combination of library and notifications that prompt marketing to continually evaluate and approve assets

With all of the recent changes, and within a heavily regulated industry like healthcare, it is especially critical to use a comprehensive DAM system that supports continual approval and updates to brand assets.

Fineline’s partnership with IU Health is a great example of how a centralized DAM system like Creative Companion can provide brand consistency across locations and affiliations. This system also helped to protect and maintain brand during the major re-brand of Clarian health.

Integration

The second important component to protecting your branding assets is integration. The more you can integrate your asset management into other marketing & corporate systems, the easier it is to control. The most valuable integrations for a DAM system include:

When it comes to protecting your brand in all situations, and across all employees and vendors, it is all about accessibility and intuitive management. If you are taking appropriate steps with technology and integrations – protecting your brand should be like keeping a well-oiled machine…simple and straightforward.