The 6 stages of the digital asset lifecycle

13th January 2025

Your organisation is relying on digital assets to drive your marketing campaigns, convert leads into sales and deliver your products and services, and a Digital Asset Management system is crucial to ensuring these vital assets are organised and stored correctly.

However, each asset has its own lifecycle that needs to be defined and managed in order to maintain effective DAM processes.

In this article we’re going to explore what the digital asset lifecycle is, why it’s so important and the stages involved.

What is the digital asset lifecycle?

The digital asset lifecycle refers to the stages a digital asset (such as an image, video, document or design file) goes through from initial creation to archival or disposal. 

In the context of Digital Asset Management (DAM), the lifecycle is the journey of an individual asset or type of asset, starting with its creation or acquisition, followed by organisation, storage and distribution. Assets are then used, modified or repurposed, ensuring they stay relevant and valuable. 

Finally, assets may be archived for future reference or deleted when no longer needed. Managing this lifecycle efficiently ensures assets are easily accessible, secure and used effectively, saving time and maintaining brand consistency.

Why managing the digital asset lifecycle is important

Managing the digital asset lifecycle is crucial for ensuring efficiency, consistency and value across an organisation's digital resources. Proper management ensures that assets are easy to locate, reducing time spent searching for files and improving efficiency across the organisation. This is particularly important in organisations where branding, marketing and content creation rely heavily on the availability and usability of approved assets. 

By overseeing the lifecycle, organisations maintain control over the quality and relevance of their assets, while version control ensures that only the latest, most accurate files are used, reducing the risk of outdated or incorrect materials being shared by mistake. 

Additionally, efficient lifecycle management safeguards assets, ensuring they are stored securely and meet compliance standards. Archiving and disposal processes also prevent unnecessary storage costs and clutter, allowing teams to focus on what’s most valuable. 

Ultimately, managing the digital asset lifecycle fosters productivity, creativity and long-term resource optimisation.

Digital asset lifecycle, from creation to archival

There are six primary stages to the digital asset lifecycle:

1. Creation
2. Tagging and storage
3. Asset approval
4. Distribution and use
5. Version control and maintenance
6. Archiving and disposal

Creation

Creation includes the initial ideation and briefing, as well as understanding the objective of the asset. Asset creation could involve commissioning a photographer, requesting assets from an internal or external graphic designer, or even purchasing premade assets (such as stock images).

Asset approval

A DAM system is designed to act as the single source of truth and should be used to store final versions of assets only. Once the creative has been signed off, the DAM Manager will be responsible for reviewing, annotating and approving the asset for uploading to the DAM. This might involve reviewing technical factors such as file format and file size.

Each organisation will develop unique approval processes, but in general there will be three sub-stages:

1. Proofing — where the initial asset is shared with all relevant stakeholders (although not necessarily everyone at once).
2. Review and collaboration—the stakeholders share their feedback and work together to develop the final version of the asset.
3. Sign-off and approval—following the feedback being actioned, the asset is approved for sign-off and uploading to the DAM.

Tagging and storage

Following the creation of the asset, the file will be uploaded to the system and tagged appropriately with relevant metadata. This allows for it to be searched for and retrieved quickly and easily. Any separate usage or consent information can be linked to the asset at this stage as well. Workflows within the DAM can also be used to make sure the file and associated metadata meet the requirements of the organisation before being made live and accessible to users.

Distribution and use

Your organisation invests a lot of time and money in developing these digital assets, so you should make sure they’re distributed and accessible to the right people.

A dedicated DAM, such as ResourceSpace, makes the process of asset distribution much easier, allowing you to set roles and permissions on a team or user basis so they can only view, download or edit assets based on pre-defined rules. What’s more, you can send secure download links to third parties so they can access specific files, folders or collections or even make a specially curated section of your system available to the public.

READ MORE: Problems ResourceSpace solves: Sharing resources

Your DAM should also make it easier to utilise digital assets across multiple channels, such as social media platforms, your website and other systems within your tech stack.

Version control and maintenance

Once an approved asset has been uploaded to the DAM and shared with relevant stakeholders, that’s not necessarily the end of that asset’s development. Different variations could be created over time, for example with altered dimensions or different file formats depending on platform compatibility requirements.

All of these versions need to be managed and maintained to ensure you don’t lose track of them. One of the most common issues here is with brand assets. If multiple versions of your brand’s logo are created they all need to be updated or removed if your logo is developed. Developing processes and policies around digital asset version control is essential to manage this challenge.

Archiving and disposal

The lifespan of an asset will vary. Some will be created for one off events, such as an annual conference or AGM, while others will be intended for use indefinitely.

Once an asset is no longer required, it’s important that it’s archived and / or disposed of correctly to ensure it isn’t used once it becomes out of date. For example, an old brand logo should be removed from all digital platforms, archived within the DAM (or permanently removed) and access permissions revoked.

In ResourceSpace, assets can be set to ‘expire’ at a specific date and time by the administrators, which is ideal for ensuring assets can’t be used beyond their intended lifespan.

To find out more about how ResourceSpace streamlines the digital asset lifecycle, click below to request your free DAM demo today. We’ll show you how DAM Managers can manage each stage, including granular metadata tagging, securing sharing and setting various levels of access and usage permissions.