7 reasons Digital Asset Management is essential for employer branding teams

Employer branding is more important than ever in 2024. Remote and hybrid working. A globalised recruitment landscape. Widespread skills shortages. A demanding talent pool and candidates’ market. 

Brands face stiff competition to secure the best people and to keep them. And employer brand professionals are the frontline in talent acquisition and employee engagement. 

You know that a strong employer value proposition is a candidate magnet. It helps your organisation attract and retain the talent it needs for success. But creating a consistent, compelling employer brand is a challenge in itself.

So many touchpoints. So many stakeholders. So little time. 

If you’re here looking for an answer – a way to ‘do more with less’ – then you’re in the right place. 

From working with employers of choice like Unilever and Vodafone, we know Digital Asset Management software can revolutionize employer branding efforts – helping create a strong brand presence on every platform and in every locality.

Here’s what you need to know.

Employer branding is crucial – but hard – in 2024 

In a landscape characterised by skills shortages and increasing choice, great candidates have the upper hand. You’re in a global competition for talent – both to attract it and retain it.

Businesses that win the war will secure in-demand skills and value-aligned individuals to drive their ambitions forward. Businesses that lose… not so much. 

But it isn’t just the (current) candidates’ market that’s making employer branding more important. It’s our shifting expectations of employers. From ‘the great renegotiation’ inspired by global lockdowns – to the influx of Gen Z into the workplace – we’re demanding more of employers than before.

Employee engagement is key. We want great benefits, work-life balance, and an inclusive company culture. But we want meaningful work, authenticity, corporate ethics, and societal impact too. And people aren’t stupid. Employers need to walk the walk… or their people will. 

In this challenging employer branding environment, businesses need to improve their employee value proposition, embed it, and communicate it consistently across every touchpoint.  

In the burgeoning digital landscape, there are so many places to communicate your brand. Managing that to maximize impact and consistency is getting harder. Your platforms and digital brand assets seem to multiply exponentially – but your budget and hours in the day don’t.

And that’s before we even think about localising employer branding campaigns to maximise their impact in different regions and cultures.

If this problem sounds familiar, Digital Asset Management (DAM) software is the answer.

An avalanche of assets is overwhelming employer brand teams

An avalanche of digital brand assets is overwhelming employer branding teams. Digital assets are the images, artwork, video, audio files, campaign materials, PDFs, guidelines etc that you use to market your business internally and externally.

[See What are digital assets and how do you manage them? for why you need to treat these files with the utmost care].

• There are the digital brand assets you use as building blocks to create campaigns – your photoshoots, your graphic design files etc. You need easy access to these to create brand content quickly and efficiently.
  
• Then there are the employer branding materials you create – your finished artwork, campaign materials, brand guidelines, templates, etc. You need to be able to distribute these easily to the people who’ll use them. 

There are so many of them because employer branding is increasingly digital. You need to create employer branding content for your company website, social media channels, third-party sites, campaigns, employee advocacy, and more.

That means you’re creating and managing more digital assets than ever. And that can get messy, real quick. And that’s a serious risk to your employer branding efforts.

You cannot manage brand assets at scale without an appropriate system. And that spells risk for your team and the wider business. 

Challenges managing employer branding assets

• Wasted time – Searching for assets that are hidden away in the wrong place or have file names like ‘IMG07624.jpg’ – not helpful.
• Wasted money – Recreating assets from scratch because you simply can’t find them and your stakeholder needs the content ‘yesterday’.
• More risk – Using outdated assets because you don’t know which is the most recent version – or using restricted assets because there’s no way to know.
• Inconsistency – Because people are frustrated with the current system and just start doing their own thing.

Problems distributing employer branding materials

• Distribution issues – Getting brand assets to the right people at the right time. You can have the best employer brand ever…but it’s useless if you can’t get it out there.
• Diluted brand – People simply not knowing how to apply your employer brand and putting out materials they think are right… but aren’t on-brand at all.
• Missed opportunities to localise – Issuing one-size-fits-all campaigns because you don’t have time to optimize materials for different markets.

You might be so used to the scenarios above that it feels normal. 

But it’s not. 

There is a better way.

7 reasons your employer brand needs DAM

To excel in the ever-more demanding future of work, you need to reclaim control now. Savvy businesses leverage Digital Asset Management for employer branding. They know a DAM platform makes brand content creation easier and brand asset distribution foolproof. 

Digital Asset Management (DAM) software provides a single space to store, access, and use your digital assets – like images, videos, brand collateral, and multimedia materials that support effective employer branding. 

DAM makes it easier for every team that touches your employer brand – HR, recruitment, marketing, regional managers, employee advocates – to stay on-brand. And it accelerates campaign activation. It’s a two-for-one win for ambitious employer brands. 

Here are seven things DAM can do for you – whether you work in employer branding, corporate branding, marketing operations, creative services, or any other team with digital-asset-heavy workflows.

1. Cut costs and maximise efficiency 

Using Digital Asset Management software for employer branding saves you time and money. A centralized digital asset library – for brand content creation, management and distribution – streamlines your processes. This efficiency translates into better resource utilization and cost savings. 

Team members can quickly locate and utilize the necessary materials, reducing the time spent on searching and requesting assets. Internal and external contributors can collaborate in the cloud, bypassing messy manual processes. And branding materials can be distributed instantly. 

2. Make more space for strategy

Your personal creativity and strategic approach are key differentiators for your brand – but they’re drained by the demands of the job – and your great ideas and good intentions get lost in admin.

Using DAM software reduces time spent on pointlessly ineffective processes – like fruitlessly searching for assets and manually emailing them to people – so you’ve got more time for stuff that actually adds value – like strategically shaping your employer value proposition and getting creative about how you communicate it.

3. …And localisation

You know you should be localising campaigns to increase their relevance to regional audiences. From changing photography to accurately reflect local demographics and cultural norms, to offering materials in multiple languages. But you simply don’t have time.

With efficiency gains from using a Digital Asset Management system, your team can dedicate more time to impactful campaigns for specific audiences – supporting recruitment and DEI goals. And, thanks to easy distribution via your brand portal, you can make sure each region only accesses materials meant for them.

4. Guarantee your brand consistency 

In employer branding, consistency is key. A strong, consistent and recognizable visual identity increases brand recognition and supports organizational objectives around talent acquisition, recruitment, and engagement.

A Digital Asset Management platform doubles as a brand asset management portal – an online space where stakeholders can access branding guidelines, employer branding materials, templates, approved image sets etc. 

This empowers your wider collaborative team – everyone from external design agencies to regional divisions to employee advocates – to find, use, and create on-brand materials for the organization. 

5. Enhance your agility 

How many times are opportunities passing you by? Like experimenting with a new platform or localizing assets for higher regional impact. Without efficient Digital Asset Management, your slow processes can limit your agility. 

Centralized DAM software lets you quickly locate, modify, and repurpose digital assets, accelerating content creation and increasing overall creative capacity. This lets you respond promptly to emerging opportunities, ensuring a dynamic and consistent brand experience. 

6. Reduce brand risk

The biggest risk to employer branding efforts is unfit-for-purpose processes. We’ve shown how a digital asset library can address this issue.

Beyond this, DAM software also mitigates risks associated with the misuse or unauthorized access of sensitive brand assets – thanks to robust access controls and permission levels. Plus, version control features reduce the risk of using outdated materials, preventing inconsistencies and potential damage to the brand image.

Imagine job descriptions using a retired logo, or a social post using a photo where the participant has since withdrawn their permission for use. Centralizing assets – and removing and archiving assets that should no longer be used – protects against this kind of risk.  

7. Empower employees to become brand ambassadors 

If you want to help your employees advocate for your employer brand, you need to give them on-brand tools and materials. A DAM used as a brand portal gives employees easy access to a curated collection of brand assets. 

They can share branded content on their social media platforms – such as job ads, announcements, and the popular ‘new position’ celebrations to LinkedIn – so your brand benefits from their authentic excitement about working for you. This builds trust with the audience, as it comes directly from the voices and experiences of employees.

Key features of DAM for employer branding

A single source of truth keeps assets secure but accessible

A DAM system provides a single secure repository for all your brand assets. Cloud-based DAM is accessible 24/7 online. No more assets lost and languishing on desktops, attached to emails, or in different departmental folders. 

Metadata puts files at your fingertips 

A DAM applies metadata to assets to make them findable in a few clicks. You don’t need to know file names anymore. Just search on keywords that describe the file you want – and see beautiful visual previews to identify the file you need.

Automatic version control keeps you up-to-date

No more time wasted wondering which file is the latest version. You’ll always see the most recent version in your DAM – but with a full audit trail and ability to revert to previous files if needed.

Integrations make design processes easier 

A DAM is designed to integrate. Integrate it with InDesign or your website CMS to give designers immediate access to all your brand assets without even leaving the window they’re working in.  

Online portals effortlessly deliver assets to end users 

A DAM doesn’t just make your content creation processes easier. Distribution is easy and instant, anywhere in the world. Upload finished employer branding materials and guidelines to your online brand portals for easy internal and external access.

Permissions protect embargoed assets 

Worried online access means a free-for-all? It isn’t. Permission controls mean people only see what you want them to. Protect embargoed assets and commercially sensitive content.  

Workflow automation accelerates creation 

A Digital Asset Management platform automates so many processes you perform manually at the minute – saving you tonnes of time. For example, bulk uploads, instant content sharing, and one-click, in-app editing (eg applying crops and ratios for different platforms). 

Employer branding teams to power up with Papirfly

You know the employer branding landscape is changing. Your systems need to evolve to cope. Digital Asset Management software is a game changer for busy, ambitious employer branding teams. Papirfly’s platform is a full suite of enterprise-grade brand management tools, including a portal for brand guidelines, Digital Asset Management, on-brand templating, campaign management, real-time data analytics, and more.  

Discover how global employers of choice strengthen their strong employer brand with Papirfly.