Think of your favorite brand. You're probably picturing its logo and colors, or even a unique tagline or tone of voice.
A company's brand is its identity. It's what customers remember and what sets the brand apart from competitors. Companies must protect their brand at all costs to ensure they present a unified image across every touchpoint, particularly in customer relationship management and interactions. Inconsistencies can confuse customers, erode trust, and damage a brand's reputation — not to mention drag down its value to consumers.
Brand compliance and brand management are tough to get right — and keep right. However, the right tools can help companies alleviate that burden and positively impact everything from how customers interpret product marketing to how internal teams collaborate to deliver an asset.
A brand management platform is like a command center for your brand identity. It centralizes all aspects of your brand so everyone who touches it can create, maintain, and distribute resources and brand assets consistently.
Brand management software includes specialized digital tools used to reinforce a company's brand. Some of the most common features you'll see in brand management tools include:
Anyone who plays a role in shaping or communicating a brand's identity should take advantage of a brand management solution. These tools allow stakeholders across roles and departments to ensure a cohesive, on-brand experience and build trust and loyalty among customers and their target audience.
It can be hard to keep branding in check and cohesive across platforms, channels, and departments. A brand management platform helps keep everyone aligned to brand strategy in order to maintain a consistent brand reputation.
Here’s how brand management software prevents miscommunication:
Say your company sells uniforms to other businesses. A potential customer calls and asks if your company can embroider individuals' names onto uniforms. They speak to a member of the sales team, who assures them this is possible and tells them they can place their order right away: 200 customized uniforms, quoted at the standard price.
Many confused phone calls between fulfillment, marketing, and sales later, and the original salesperson has to call the customer back with the bad news: they promised a service the company doesn't actually offer.
This embarrasses your team member and leaves the customer with a bad impression. Unsurprisingly, they take their business elsewhere and drop a few nasty reviews online along the way.
However, if the company had a brand management solution in place, this salesperson could have consulted the brand assets housed there and learned that customization is not a provided service. This would have saved time making and receiving phone calls, and would have avoided damage to the brand via a displeased customer.
Factors to consider when exploring a brand management solution for your team include:
Let's take a closer look at each of the features to look for in a brand management solution.
Brand management is an all-hands-on-deck task. Content marketers craft messaging. Graphic designers create visuals. Customer support fields brand-related inquiries. With so many tasks in motion, it's easy for teams to become disconnected and silo off into their own areas.
Brand management software creates a bridge between teams. A brand management solution grants everyone access to the latest information so they can provide feedback on projects and collaborate in real time.
A clearly defined workflow outlines roles and responsibilities for each stage of a project. When team members know what they need to do and when, there's less confusion and fewer bottlenecks in the process. Using digital asset management, teams can create high-quality brand assets faster and without as many starts and stops along the way.
Many brand management tools offer automated routing features. Automated workflows move projects through predefined review and approval stages, eliminating manual handoffs and involving the right stakeholders at the right time.
Version control acts as both a safety net and a time machine. When marketing teams disagree over which version of a file is the latest, brand management software gives them a single source of truth to rely on.
Thanks to version control, teams can see when and where other team members made changes to brand assets. If unapproved changes slip through the cracks, they can revert to previous versions housed in their brand management solution.
Brand guidelines set the foundation for consistency and compliance. No matter the asset or who creates it, these style guides give the brand a unified look and feel. They tell anyone working with the brand what to do — and what to avoid.
For example: If you're working with an influencer, these guidelines will tell them what type of messaging to use, what language to avoid, and how your product should be positioned.
Your brand management software is a repository for the most current and approved brand guidelines. This is especially valuable for remote teams and global organizations where time zones and physical locations can be barriers to accessing information.
Plan for the future of your brand, not just your current reality. As your brand evolves, so will your needs.
Let's say your team gets larger or you begin taking on more complex projects. You'll need brand management software that enables you to maintain control over your growing company. Being able to customize the software to fit your organizational needs and brand management strategy is important.
Consider how you might integrate brand management software with your existing marketing tools and CRM. This will allow your teams to work without switching between multiple applications.
Integrating brand management with project management and communication tools facilitates better collaboration among team members, ensuring everyone is on the same page. When teams are already familiar with tools, they're also more likely to use them.
When it comes to helping creative teams maintain brand consistency, brand management software is a no-brainer. It simplifies and automates workflows so teams can collaborate more effectively.
So let's dive into some of the top contenders. We've included various types of brand management tools — collaborative proofing, DAM, brand monitoring, and reputation management — to address a range of needs.
Ziflow is a cloud-based collaborative proofing tool that enables teams to review all creative assets on one platform. With simple, easy-to-use markup tools, team members can accurately capture feedback and reach decisions on projects faster. This means fewer brand slip-ups, greater transparency, and better brand management.
Built with scalability and enterprise-readiness in mind, Ziflow makes it easy for businesses to stay on top of brand management — whether you're dealing with a few projects a month or dozens. Ziflow can easily grow with your business and accommodate changing needs.
You can choose between monthly or yearly billing, with the Standard plan starting at $199/month for up to 15 users. A free option is also available.
Frontify is a brand-building platform that offers user-friendly digital asset management and customizable portals. It moves the brand asset management process online so teams can collaborate in one unified digital space.
The number of monthly active users drives Frontify's value-based pricing.
ReviewStudio puts an end to long email chains, unclear feedback, and messy approvals. With this online proofing software, teams can gather and manage feedback, reduce turnaround times, and get sign-offs faster.
The platform connects both internal and external teams of partners and freelancers, eliminating some of the most common workflow challenges.
ReviewStudio offers four plans, including a free plan. Plans are billed monthly or yearly and start at $12/user/month.
An AI-powered DAM platform, Bynder is the single source of truth for digital content across systems and marketing channels. It's a scalable solution that helps big and small businesses ensure 100% brand consistency across touchpoints. Bynder offers an intuitive user interface and a rich set of integrations.
Multiple factors determine Bynder's subscription plan pricing, including the number of users, storage, products included, and the desired level of support.
Sprout Social is a unified social media management platform built to transform not only your marketing strategy but every area of your organization.
With help from Sprout's advanced AI and machine learning (ML) technology, businesses can stay ahead of their competitors and make strategic decisions based on accurate data from major social media platforms.
Brand24 is an AI social listening tool that helps companies protect their brand reputation and measure brand awareness. Tracking brand mentions helps you understand what people are saying about your brand across social media, news, blogs, videos, forums, podcasts, reviews, and more.
Plans are billed monthly or yearly, starting at $149/month for the Individual plan.
BrandMaster offers an online brand management solution that helps users easily access their digital assets. Focused on collecting and distributing digital marketing assets, BrandMaster's online tools foster more efficient communication flows and operations for brand managers, marketing teams, and human relations managers.
The number of users in your organization will determine your pricing.
Hootsuite is a social media management tool with scheduling, content creation, analytics tools, and social listening capabilities. Even those with beginner knowledge of social media marketing can manage social platforms and optimize audience engagement using this tool.
Hootsuite offers two pricing plans billed every month starting at $99/user/month.
At the core of every successful business is a consistent brand. Brand management tools help companies build stronger, more impactful brands that resonate with their target audiences and drive business growth.
If you're looking for the best brand management tool for your creative and marketing teams, Ziflow gives them everything they need for brand management in one place, making team collaboration easier and ensuring compliance with brand guidelines.
Schedule a demo or get started with a free trial today.
Digital brand management tools are software platforms that help teams organize, protect, and deliver brand assets across channels. These tools centralize everything from logos and templates to brand guidelines, making it easier for marketing teams, creatives, and stakeholders to stay on brand.
Digital asset management focuses on storing and organizing brand assets like images, videos, and documents. Brand management software goes further by adding workflows, approvals, version control, brand guideline enforcement, and integrations — offering a complete solution for brand consistency.
Creative professionals, marketing teams, content managers, brand strategists, and even sales teams use brand asset management software to access approved brand assets, collaborate on campaigns, and maintain consistency across platforms.
Consistent branding builds trust, recognition, and loyalty. Without digital brand management tools, creative teams risk producing off-brand materials, causing confusion and eroding brand reputation across social media, websites, and customer communications.
Look for features like digital asset management (DAM), version control, workflow automation, collaboration tools, brand guidelines enforcement, and integrations with project management or social media scheduling tools.
Many brand management solutions integrate with social media tools to ensure approved assets and messaging are used consistently. This helps teams manage posts, maintain brand voice, monitor brand reputation, and align campaigns across all social media platforms.
Yes. Most brand management platforms are built to scale. Look for tools that offer customizable workflows, user roles, and asset libraries that adapt to growing marketing teams and expanding brand strategies.
The best tool depends on your team's needs, but Ziflow, Frontify, and Bynder are top contenders for creative teams managing collaborative workflows, feedback loops, and digital brand assets at scale.
Pricing varies based on features, users, and usage. Some tools, like TestLink, are free. Others, like Sprout Social or Ziflow, offer subscription models starting around $99–$199/month. Many offer free trials or freemium plans to test before committing.
Traditional file storage tools aren’t built for brand governance. Brand management software adds approval workflows, access controls, brand guidelines, and integrations that generic storage platforms lack. If brand consistency and efficiency matter, a dedicated solution is worth it.