Gartner defines content marketing platforms (CMPs) as software solutions that support the end-to-end content production process. These solutions facilitate creating and curating text, video, images, graphics, audio, e-books, white papers and interactive content assets that are distributed through paid and owned channels. These assets are used to tell connected stories that help brands engage with and nurture multiple audiences with content that drives awareness, demand, purchases and loyalty. CMPs enable the fundamentals of content marketing — specifically, content strategy, editorial planning, creative workflow, distribution and performance measurement — to drive a coordinated approach and standardized production process at scale. CMPs collect and analyze data to inform content creation and reuse, streamline operations and iterate on content to improve marketing effectiveness. These platforms can also generate branded iterations of content for different audiences using artificial intelligence and human creators. They enable internal teams, external contributors and agencies involved in content creation to coordinate efforts across projects and campaigns.
Digital asset management (DAM) is a self-serve content repository. It facilitates the management, ingestion, storage, organization and distribution of all types of content an organization uses. The content includes any digital asset, such as text, graphics, images, videos, audio, design files and product information used by an organization to communicate with internal and external audiences. DAM platforms not only support marketing but can also serve internal and external parts of the organization including sales, HR, legal, finance, call and service centers, third-party suppliers, agencies, and distributors. The primary purpose of a DAM is to manage governance of digital assets and make them available and useful, enabling brand consistency across the organization. Beyond its role as a self-service solution, DAM products are part of a content operations ecosystem, which includes capabilities that overlap across technologies such as content marketing platforms (CMP), marketing work management (MWM) and product information management (PIM). Individually, technologies support different variations of content taxonomy, content editing, management of and content access controls to third parties (e.g., agencies). Their goals are to drive efficiency, transparency and scale of content deliverables across the organization. The primary purpose of a DAM is to manage governance of digital assets and make them available and useful, enabling brand consistency across the organization. DAM platforms serve as a repository for all digital content assets. Organizations that have a large number of digital assets use a DAM solution to manage, catalog and transfer files, and to store digital assets. The solution allows organizations to share and edit digital assets across multiple platforms and channels. DAM platforms can support external partners with portals to access an organization’s assets. Overall, it is a self-service content repository and can facilitate collaboration.