You don’t want to be caught without a solid process for using business images in 2023.
In a 2022 survey by Venngage, 64% of marketers either considered visual marketing “very important” or said they have no strategy at all without it. By leveraging images and visual content well, a building materials manufacturer can craft a strong impression on customers and channel partners.
However, all the effort that goes into creating those images and visual assets is often wasted, because they’re not used productively.
Here, we’ll unveil the productivity problem many companies face with their business images, and the solution for getting the most out of them. By following these tips, you’ll rescue your company’s image assets from atrophy and cyber “dust”…and maximize their potential in driving sales and brand growth.
Hint: RevBase, the leading digital asset management software for building material manufacturers, is the best shortcut to maximum productivity with your images. Read on to discover why!
The Problem: Disorganization and Chaos
As a building material company, you likely have thousands of product, project, and brand images scattered everywhere.
Your staff might need to use these images in marketing materials such as brochures, blog posts, banner ads, and sales literature. Accordingly, they’ll need to be able to access, edit, and download the right files.
However, it’s all too common for businesses to store these assets in a messy, haphazard way. There are many downsides to this:
- Zero return on your downloading or creating the tons of images in your repository.
- Inconsistent branding in your online marketing, given the difficulty in distinguishing new image assets from old ones.
- Frustration among sales and marketing staff as they try and fail to locate the right images to use at the right time.
If you’re a building materials manufacturer that’s focused on efficient marketing and growth, fixing the image chaos should be a priority.
The Old Solution: Computer and Online Cloud Storage
One way businesses attempt to house their images is to use cloud storage or other digital means, such as saving local files on company servers, or even relying on emails.
This seems like a workable solution, until it turns out not to be! The potential issues are many:
No Ability to Track File Versions
It’s often hard to keep track of the latest approved version changes to image files that are simply stored in cloud or server folders.
If sales reps or marketing assistants make their own edits, for example, the rest of your staff might be none the wiser. Multiple file versions can be mixed together in the big pool of images that everyone has access to. This can lead to the usage of outdated images, not to mention unintended file overwrites.
Confusion Surrounding File Names and Locations
Besides thousands of images potentially getting lost, the chaos is made all the worse without a clear, agreed-upon naming convention for images that identifies each file’s intended usage, file type, modification dates, version number, and other key attributes.
The problems are only compounded when there’s no strong agreement on where images should be stored, or if multiple apps or file storage methods are actively in use.
Losses in Marketing Efficiency
A muddled process for identifying and retrieving images directly damages marketing efforts. You simply won’t be able to produce business-critical content at a good pace.
Consider the stats:
- According to 2018 Tech Crunchies stats shared by FinancesOnline, corporate workers spend an average of 18 minutes searching for documents, and document issues account for more than 21% of daily productivity loss.
- In a survey from Express Employment Professionals, 57% of business leaders said they lose six working hours per week due to disorganization.
These operational pitfalls are dangerous. Marketing workflow issues around image assets can sneak up on your content production cycle and end up hurting your whole business.
Worsening Disorganization
If a company is used to doing certain things the “old way,” it can be hard to change.
Many businesses develop a sense of complacency towards organizing their images. They continue digging themselves into a hole with old processes, as the number of images they use over time grows in the background.
The knock-on effects are numerous. More images are lost to the void, preventing sales reps from using critical visuals in closing deals. New company personnel are left frustrated as they try to locate important assets for key marketing tasks.
Perhaps worst of all, your branding and online web experience suffer.
The New Solution: Smart Marketing Asset Management
It’s clear: better business image procedures will only enhance your ability to inform and persuade your prospective customers.
How do you get there? It’s a matter of determining a plan and using the right tool.
Implement a Plan to Organize Your Business Images
It’s key to start by getting relevant sales and marketing personnel — the ones who actually have to use image assets regularly — together on a step-by-step plan to clean up the repository once and for all.
Here’s what a solid process might look like:
- Determine your company’s specific needs around image assets. Start by documenting the kinds of images your building materials brand relies on. This includes everything from ad creatives and social media graphics to product photos, video content, logos, and infographics.
- Gather existing files and review them. Assign the task of gathering up all existing images, both digital and print, to one or more staff members. Review them as a team, and discard any that don’t serve the company’s current purposes or are out-of-date with the brand’s values, promise, and positioning.
- Lay out a budget. If your business has also lost sight of the costs of producing images, now is a great opportunity to get clarity in this area. Determine your company’s budget for creating new visual assets (including working with outside photographers and designers, hiring creative staff, or using stock images) and calculate the hourly costs of every task involved in distributing and using them.
- Decide on and document a new organizational structure for your image assets. Figure out categories that make sense to your business…for example, which images you’ll use in sales communications, blog posts, online ads, brochures, and other key content pieces.
- Determine user privileges around editing, approving, accessing, and using images. Agree on a process for suggesting and making edits to images, as well as who in your sales and marketing teams will be responsible for approving final versions. Also determine who can access images when, and for what purposes.
If you’re not used to bringing staff together in this way, you’re not alone…but it’s time to take corrective action. According to stats gathered by EveryoneSocial, 31% of North American professionals who lead business communications fail to employ any formal planning, and 72% of employees lack insight into their company’s strategies.
This is a huge problem if you want to truly leverage your brand’s visual content. It can take quite a bit of time and effort, but implementing a plan like the one above can lead to productivity breakthroughs.
Use a Premium Marketing Asset Management (MAM) Platform
To manage brand images which number in the hundreds or thousands, you’ll need the right enterprise-level software.
Here’s where image or marketing asset management (MAM) comes in. The best MAM platform will make it a snap to be fully efficient with your visual assets — and for building materials manufacturers, that tool is none other than RevBase.
RevBase is the most powerful tool you can possibly use for the purpose of business image organization. It will let you securely upload, distribute, organize, find, and use images with more efficiency than ever before.
Here are just some of the specific benefits of next-level image asset management with RevBase:
- It keeps all your image assets in one centralized, easy-to-access place. With RevBase, your images will no longer be scattered across cloud storage apps, email accounts, staff computers, or old published web pages. They’ll be in one secure place that any authorized user can access anytime.
- It makes image editing and usage trackable. No longer will you lose visibility into file versions or usage. RevBase lets you track any modifications to image files, as well as how often they’re downloaded and used. This means you’ll be on top of which image file versions are “correct” at all times, as well as which visual assets get the most airtime across your brand presence and communications.
- It helps you enable your sales staff and channel partners. With RevBase, your sales staff will no longer have trouble finding the right charts, videos, and infographics to use in their touchpoints with customers. You can also allow dealers, distributors, and contractors to access designated images that will help sell your products to end consumers.
- It increases ROI on digital assets. By eliminating sales-marketing silos and content creation bottlenecks, RevBase will help you get more out of your images and content faster and more consistently.
To put it simply, RevBase is the ideal enterprise tool for revamping your image organization and setting the stage for more productivity.
Organize, Revitalize, and Get Maximum Value Out of Your Business Images with RevBase
As the old saying goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Content that includes visuals can garner up to 650% more engagement than text-based content alone.
That said, the greatest treasure trove of business images is a waste if those assets are disorganized and hard to find.
If you’re ready to finally get more productivity out of your business images, consider RevBase. This premium cloud SaaS solution owned and offered by Bullseye Locations is your surest bet for ending the image chaos.
The result? A major productivity boost with better internal processes, more cohesion between your teams, more consistent branding…and likely more sales!
If you want to see what’s possible when you get your business image processes in shape, schedule your demo of RevBase today!