How Asset Quality Scoring Can Unlock Consistency in SaaS Marketing
Have you ever decided on a whim to do a huge clear out of your closet? You know, finally get rid of all of all of the jeans you swore you’d magically fit into again someday, box up your old band t-shirts that have been growing cobwebs, and Marie Kondo everything else to within an inch of its life?
Yep, we’ve all been there.
You might get off to a strong start, but after a while, you get an overwhelming feeling that you’ve bitten off more than you can chew, and inevitably end up shoving everything back into your closet, promising yourself that you’ll deal with it another day.
In our experience, the same thing happens when Enterprise SaaS brands want to level up their creative assets. The sheer thought of wrangling hundreds, possibly even thousands of assets to evaluate and ultimately redesign is enough to send cold shivers down anyone’s spine. Granted, if you have a digital asset management solution, assessing your creative assets won’t be as steep a mountain to climb. But the fact remains that when projects are too big, they tend to never get done.
Why consistency beats perfection
Frankly, no one has the time to sift through their entire asset library and fill in all of the gaps that exist across sales decks, presentations, case studies, social media graphics, the list goes on.
But let’s not forget that 63% of marketers attribute creativity and design to their business’ success. So how can brands ensure that all of the content they’re putting out into the SaaS stratosphere is up to scratch?
The answer is by striving for consistency over perfection. Achieving perfection is unattainable. Particularly if you’re a rapidly-scaling SaaS business. Consistency, on the other hand, is what can really move the dial on the quality of your creative output. And one of the most effective ways that you can achieve consistency is through asset scoring.
How does creative asset quality scoring work?
Creative asset quality scoring is a method whereby you can evaluate how well each asset aligns with the best practices you’ve set out for your brand. It’s essentially a barometer for measuring the quality and consistency of all of the creative assets that are being used across an organization.
Sounds complicated, huh? Well, the truth is that creative asset scoring can be as stripped back or complex as you want it to be. Doing a full creative audit of a brand is a massive undertaking that can take weeks to complete, and is largely subjective, which only serves to complicate matters (remember those cold shivers?!)
At Perpetual, we subscribe to the school of not complicating things, but instead getting things done.
Here’s our approach to creative asset quality scoring:
- Isolate and examine each asset category (presentations, social media, website, etc.)
- Get a general score for each asset category from the key stakeholders who are using them, taking branding, look and feel, and format into consideration
- Very quickly, we can get a clear view of the perceived quality of a brand’s entire creative catalogue.
Just like that. By adopting this data-focused approach to creative, brands can immediately start to make improvements to their existing creative assets, achieving consistency and improving their impact over time. So rather than having a colossal undertaking where you don’t know where to begin (and are probably afraid to start!), you have a roadmap that’s essentially designed itself.
Let’s look at a real life example of how creative asset scoring can be the first step in transforming a brand’s creative output.
Armis, a leader in the cybersecurity industry achieved remarkable growth from its launch in 2016 to securing Series B funding in 2020. Despite having a world-class product and strong brand identity, Armis was struggling to maintain an efficient and high-quality creative output while rapidly scaling.
Short-term needs had led to a neglect of critical asset types, resulting in inconsistencies, as well as varying quality levels.
Using our SmarterCreative framework, we worked with Armis to regain control of output, with asset scoring playing a key role in the process. First, we highlighted all the creative that was being circulated, and compiled all relevant assets. Then, each asset type was evaluated in terms of volume, reach, and quality. From there, project creative requirements could be based on commercial goals in a given period.
With this understanding, a clear picture emerged of the future requirements of the creative department, and Armis were able to effectively restructure based on their own projected needs. This also gave them the breathing space they needed to both plan and execute creative projects, with undeniably impressive results. Visibility was provided on over 40 asset types, more than 250 assets were evaluated and banked, and within 3 months, productivity increased by 140%.
Want to learn more about creative asset quality scoring and how it plays into asset management on a larger scale? Book a call and we’ll help you take the steps needed to achieve consistency across your creative asset library.
