10 Reasons to Not Choose Picturepark DAM

The Picturepark website contains many great reasons to choose Picturepark digital asset management software. To keep things balanced, here are 10 good reasons not to choose Picturepark.

  1. You’re looking for instant DAM ROI — If you’re impressed by the idea of the instant return on investment that many DAM vendors promise, you shouldn’t choose Picturepark. The fact is, we don’t believe that short-term DAM ROI is very likely. We think the ROI you get from your DAM will be proportionate to the amount of work you put into the system after it has been launched. In other words, you will be the source of DAM ROI, not us. Read more about our thoughts on DAM ROI »
  2. You want to ensure you never lose a file again — Assuming DAM software will prevent you from ever losing a file is like assuming having a personal chef means you’ll never again eat fast food. The fact is, files are lost not because of a lack of software but because of a lack of policy or adherence to policy. A good DAM solution can certainly make finding files easier and faster, but if a file isn’t uploaded into your DAM, or the file is irretrievably deleted from your DAM, it can become lost.
  3. You want to increase the SEO value of the files you distribute from your DAM — Search engine optimization is an art and science that requires almost daily monitoring of the algorithms and practices used by Google and other search engines. Most people don’t fully understand SEO, and DAMs don’t get it either. What a DAM can help you do is provide good, keyword-rich files names or provide you with a place to craft the perfect ALT tag or caption. But the value of the information you provide is up to you. Some DAMs can also be used as the storage locations for those images that appear when you share stories on LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook and other social sites. For example, pages on the Picturepark website refer to live links that are served directly from our own Picturepark in Switzerland. When the page is shared (like this one), the accompanying image (og:image) is pulled directly from Picturepark. While this doesn’t directly affect SEO, it sure helps to make the articles more clickable, which, in turn, can improve their worthiness in the eyes of search engines.
  4. You want to make sure the wrong version of a file never gets released again — Let’s say the correct version of the file is inside your DAM and the wrong version of the file is on your marketing manager’s laptop. You ask the marketing manager to send the file out and she selects the copy on her computer. No DAM in the world could have stopped her. Your best weapon against situations like this is not a DAM; it’s policy and training. Train users to always pull fresh copies from the DAM before distribution. If your DAM makes it easy for users to do this, your problem should be (mostly) solved.
  5. You want to ensure you never have to recreate or re-license a file because you can’t find it — Finding a file in a DAM can sometimes be even more difficult than finding it on your hard drive. The reason is that finding a file in a DAM requires metadata matching. In other words, what you type into the search field must also be what’s been tagged inside the asset you need. If the metadata isn’t there, or worse, the wrong metadata is there, finding that file can be tough. Picturepark can’t prevent users from adding the tag “dog” when they should have added “cat.” Further, it can’t prevent you from building a taxonomy that makes no sense. (The Picturepark services team can help you here, though.)
  6. You want to avoid using a file you’re not licensed to use — Remember the lazy marketing manager in point #4? Until she learns to check the DAM before distributing anything, she’s liable to release files whose licenses have expired. Further, license protection starts with documentation. Where do you keep the information that determines which digital assets can and cannot be used, and for what purpose? How do you know when a license expires? Picturepark can provide you with fields where you can store that info alongside the affected content, but it can’t become your defense attorney.
  7. You have a system for file management and distribution that works great now — This means you have already mastered one of the most important aspects of digital asset management: policy and training. Your users know the rules, and they know the process. This is what DAM is all about. Better yet, if you do decide to take it up a step and introduce a DAM solution in the future, you’ll find the transition much easier.
  8. You know nothing about digital asset management — Until you know something about DAM and, more importantly, your expectations of DAM, you shouldn’t be buying DAM software. The Digital Asset Management menu of this website provides a collection of resources that are designed to help you learn. They’re all free, and none of them try to sell Picturepark. Take your time and learn, and speak to Picturepark when you have a better idea of how DAM can realistically help you. You’ll be glad you took the time.
  9. You think that unless you spend well into six figures, you won’t get “enterprise” class digital asset management — Remember when a good laser printer used to cost thousands? DAM software used to be that way too. But for the same reasons (advances in technology and smarter design), it’s possible for Picturepark to now delivers true enterprise-class technology and functionality for less than the cost of a business jet. If you’d like some examples of what “enterprise” means, download The Enterprise DAM Checklist. It’s free, and it details in 45 pages all the technologies we believe are needed for enterprise-wide DAM deployment.
  10. You hate things from Switzerland, like fine watches, miraculous cheese, and decadent chocolate — Come on, no one hates things from Switzerland!

What I’m trying to say in this post is that we want you not just to be a Picturepark customer but a satisfied Picturepark customer. One of the reasons we maintain a greater than 99% annual customer retention rate is that we’re honest with prospects and customers, and we say no when no is the right answer. DAM can help you solve problems, but DAM is never the solution to a problem.

David Diamond
Director of Global Marketing
Picturepark