Creating a SharePoint Asset Library for your marketing department is a quick and effective way to streamline content management. In just a few steps, you can set up a centralised space to store, organise, and easily access all your marketing materials. This exclusive post for Patreon subscribers walks you through building the library in under 30 minutes—let’s get started!
Step 1: Create a Library Called Marketing Assets
First things first, you’ll need to create a new document library in SharePoint to store all your marketing assets. Name it something simple and clear, like Marketing Assets, so your team will know exactly where to look for these files.
- Navigate to your SharePoint site.
- From the Drop-Down menu on the Homepage
- Click New and select Document Library.
- Name the library Marketing Assets and click Create.
Step 2: Add Custom Columns to your SharePoint Asset Library
Now, let’s enhance the library with custom metadata that will help organise your assets. We’ll create two key columns:
- Asset Type: This column helps classify the content type. For example, it could be images, videos, PDFs, brochures, etc. You can call this column Content Type or Media Type if you’d prefer a more descriptive title.
- Topic: This column will tell you what the asset is related to, such as a campaign, event, product, or general marketing purpose.
To create these columns:
- Go to your Marketing Assets library.
- Click on the Add Column heading within the document library to the right of existing columns.
- Select Choice, then Next.
- Name the first column Asset Type and choose Choice as the type. Add options like Images, Videos, PDFs, Brochures, Graphics, Presentations, etc.
- Click Save
- Create the second column (using the same steps above) for Topic and choose Choice as the type. Tailor the options to your marketing team’s needs, such as Campaign, Event, Product Launch, Social Media, Website Content, etc.
Step 3: Create Folders for Each Asset Type
For organisation, create folders within the library for each Topic. This will help your team quickly navigate and drop files in the right place.
You may ask why you would need folders and metadata? I have written an entire blog post on this exact reason, and it’s benefits which you will find here.
- In the Marketing Assets library, click New, then Folder.
- Create folders named according to the topics you’ve set up, such as Campaign, Event, Product Launch, Social Media, Website Content, etc.
Step 4: Set Default Column Values
To make it easier for those uploading assets into the library, you can create default metadata values for each of the folders. To do this follow the steps below.
- In the Marketing Assets library, click the Gear, then Library Settings and More Library Settings.
- Under General Settings select Column default value settings
- Select a folder on the left and then under Column (click to set default value) select the topic column
- In the Edit Default Value window select Use this Default Value and in the Default Value box type the name of the default value you are setting.
- Select OK.
Step 5: Upload and Organise Assets
Now that you have the library and columns set up, you can begin uploading your marketing content. Here’s how you’ll do it:
- Navigate to your library Folder and from the Upload button, select Upload Files
- If you’ve enabled auto-column labeling, (in step 4 above) SharePoint will automatically assign metadata based on the topic column for you
- For the Asset Type column you need to update the metadata by selecting Edit in Grid View and your library will able to be edited like a spreadsheet
- Within the Asset Type column edit the metadata
- Select Exit Grid View when complete.
Step 6: Sorting and Filtering Your Assets
With everything uploaded and organised, SharePoint gives you powerful tools to sort and filter your assets. This makes it super easy to find what you need quickly.
- To sort: Click on any column header (e.g., Asset Type or Topic) to sort the files alphabetically.
- To filter: Use the Filter Panel on the left or click the filter icon next to the column name. For example, you can filter by Asset Type to see only images or videos or by Topic to see assets related to a specific campaign or product.
Final Thoughts
In just a few simple steps, you’ve created an organised and easy-to-use SharePoint asset library for marketing. This system will help your team quickly find and manage marketing materials, saving you time and effort while keeping everything in one place.
Don’t forget that you can always further customise the library with additional columns or use views to tailor it to your specific needs!
Step-by-Step Guide with Scribe
For a more hands-on approach, we’ve created a Scribe that takes you through all the steps outlined in this post. The Scribe includes visual instructions and walkthroughs to ensure you can follow along and complete your Marketing Asset Library setup with ease.
Click the link below to access the Scribe and get started:
With the Scribe, you’ll be able to follow along with every click, making the process even faster and more straightforward.
