Digital Asset Management for schools and universities in Australia

In an era where education sector faces unprecedented challenges, from declining enrolment to an erosion of trust, it’s never been more crucial for colleges and universities to sharpen their brand identity and elevate their digital strategies.

As the landscape shifts, Digital Asset Management (DAM) solutions for higher education provide a vital tool to help institutions stay competitive, streamline their marketing efforts, and manage their digital content effectively.

DAM provides the tools your institution needs to adapt, thrive, and gain the trust of prospective students.

It is not only about the need to capture and store content, it is about having this content available to the right people, in the right format, at the right time.

What schools and universities say about Canto

Creative workflows are up to 83% faster. And marketing content is more effective, advancing strategic goals like enrolment and retention.

With Canto, we can just keep everything in one place and not work in silos. We have a go-to spot where the whole department has access to a central storage hub that contains multimedia files.

Our Canto instance is organised and efficient, making locating assets a breeze. It has saved us so much time and provided access to the most current photography, which helps our work – whether print or digital – stand out.

Canto is a key resource for our university's stakeholders. The look, the ease of use, the MS Office Connector have made it very popular throughout the school - from staff all the way to students.

Challenges Universities, Colleges and Private Schools Face

1. Brand Identity and Trust

The global pandemic and the ongoing cultural and economic shifts have eroded trust in many institutions, including higher education. As narratives questioning the value of a college education gain traction, universities must work harder than ever to restore and protect their brand identity.

2. Declining Enrolment

Post-secondary enrolment has seen a sharp decline in recent years. Even more concerning, projections suggest that the number of college students could drop by 15% from 2025 to 2029, fuelled by a significant decline in high school graduates. This is placing immense pressure on colleges and universities to compete for a shrinking pool of prospective students.

3. Increased Advertising Spend

To compete in this increasingly competitive environment, institutions are ramping up their advertising budgets. Nonprofit colleges, once hesitant to invest heavily in digital marketing, are following the trend. Steadily institutions have increased their advertising spend, and this upward trajectory is expected to continue as schools battle for visibility and enrolment.

4. Disorganised Content

With multiple departments and staff members creating digital assets, it’s easy for important files to get lost or duplicated. This leads to inefficiency and wasted time.

5. Collaboration

Educational institutions often use disparate systems to store their assets, making it difficult to share resources across teams and departments. This fragmentation hampers collaboration and can cause delays.

6. Sharing

When files need to be shared across multiple platforms or with multiple stakeholders, the process can be time-consuming. Each department might need to send out individual files via email or upload them to various platforms, leading to duplicated efforts.

7. Storage and Scalability

As the volume of digital assets grows, manually organising, tagging, and sharing content becomes increasingly complex. When digital assets are stored in fragmented systems, it becomes difficult to manage storage capacity. Files might be duplicated across systems, leading to excessive storage use and unnecessary costs.

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Why schools and universities use digital asset management

CENTRALISED STORAGE

All digital assets created by students, departments and agencies accessible from one centralised repository.

BRAND CONSISTENCY

Communicate brand standards with Style Guides, tailored content collections, approval process and asset expiration.

AI CAPABILITIES

Easily tag, search and find assets with advanced AI functionality, such as Facial Recognition and Visual Search.

INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY

Quick image retrieval and more efficient handling means better way to share images, designs, and other digital assets with departments, students, and public.

DAM Use Cases for Education industry

Marketing Team

DAM allows universities to easily store, organise, and distribute marketing assets such as videos, brochures, and social media posts. By having quick access to these resources, marketing teams can launch campaigns faster, maintain brand consistency, and more effectively communicate with prospective students.

Students and Faculty

Whether it's class lectures, presentations, or photos and videos, DAM systems make it easier for faculty and students to manage, access, and distribute educational materials. By creating a central repository, universities can streamline learning and ensure that students always have access to the resources they need.

Brand team

For the Brand team, it can be difficult to know if photography still meets brand, ethics, and diversity standards. A DAM helps universities to protect their brand and promote it to domestic and international audiences. The software attractively delivers tailored and branded collections of assets to different groups such as the media, faculty members, or newly recruited students.

Alumni relations and fundraising

Keep alumni engaged with consistent and professional communications. DAM helps manage alumni profiles, event photos, and promotional content, ensuring every piece of communication is aligned with your brand, leading to more successful fundraising campaigns.

Event documentation

From orientations to graduations, education institutions host numerous events. DAM systems allow you to store and manage media files from these events, including videos, photos, and promotional materials, ensuring that every event is documented and promoted efficiently.

Canto for education sector

Canto is as a scalable, cost-efficient digital asset management solution. Canto offers core DAM functionality, including:

Single source of truth for all your digital assets, such as photos, videos, audios, templates, Adobe creative files, presentations, pdfs, etc.
Advanced search features
Nicely organised files with thumbnail display
Added metadata and tags
Brand portals for specific projects, external partners, departments
Asset level team collaboration
Version control
Digital rights management (DRM)
Streamlined asset sharing
Asset analytics
Integrations with other popular workflow and project management platforms
Advanced security protocols

Customer experience

databasics have been Canto’s partner in Australia and New Zealand for nearly 30 years. Our only focus is providing the best possible customer experience to our Canto customers.

Prouding ourselves as DAM experts with over 30 years DAM experience, we offer DAM consultations, 100% personalised Canto DAM onboarding and Hands-on customer service.

We will assist you throughout your DAM journey from start to finish. 100% dedication to our customers is what will set us apart from the rest of Australian DAM vendors. Choose databasics. Schedule your free consultation now.

See if Canto is the right DAM for your school

After your team has outgrown Dropbox and Google Drive, it is time to look at a suitable DAM solution – one that is user friendly and intuitive, a solution that will streamline your workflows, ensure brand consistency, adhere to regulatory requirements, and empower your teams.

Canto is considered the pioneer/ inventor of DAM with their flagship on-premise solution Cumulus, later introducing the Canto cloud DAM – named - Canto, solution that has now been their focus for the last 10 years.

Investing in a DAM system is not just a cost but a strategic business decision. It can substantially improve operational efficiency, compliance, and even provide insights into your digital assets' ROI.

Don't wait, explore your DAM options today and redefine how your organisation manages its digital assets. Reach out to databasics to schedule a DAM consultation.

Digital asset management (DAM) for Schools and Universities

Rebuild Trust, Strengthen Your Brand, and Compete in a Changing Educational Landscape

DAM provides the tools your institution needs to adapt, thrive, and gain the trust of prospective students.

It is not only about the need to capture and store content, it is about having this content available to the right people, in the right format, at the right time.