MarTech Interview with Wain Kellum, CEO at Canto

What does the future hold for DAM platforms? Wain Kellum, CEO at Canto weighs in:

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Welcome to this MarTech Series chat, Wain, tell us about yourself and your time as CEO at Canto

I have been fortunate to be part of building out over two dozen software companies. I love the building phase and find areas to work in where software can be transformational in helping people accomplish their work. I started out just helping Canto but as we, as a team, realized that that there were so many areas that we could accelerate to help our customers accomplish more of their goals, I was eager to sign up full time in November.

We’d love to hear your thoughts and observations surrounding the growth of DAMs and where you see this headed? 

Many if not most of our customers are seeing an explosion in the amount of digital content that they create and manage.  This makes the need to have a purpose-built tool to store, manage and distribute digital content even more important than it was in the past. We see so many opportunities to improve integration with other systems as well as build more automation and intelligence in our software.

DAMs will become more predictive and proactive systems, leveraging AI to help businesses anticipate needs, optimize workflows, and drive strategic decisions.

Can you talk about some core best features of a DAM that most marketers /sales teams don’t optimize enough on?

DAMs have many features that can significantly streamline operations for marketing and sales teams, but one often overlooked feature is the ability to streamline collaboration. DAMs are not just digital storage lockers; they are platforms that facilitate collaboration, version control, and faster content retrieval. Advanced searchability has a tremendous impact on helping customers get as much value out of the digital assets they own. When a DAM is used effectively, it can significantly speed up workflows and enhance productivity.

As AI becomes more influential in powering different areas of a marketing cycle, what do you feel about DAMs and AI down the line?

The intersection of AI and DAMs is something I’m particularly excited about. AI has the potential to revolutionize DAMs, making them smarter and more efficient – we can automate mundane tasks, enhance metadata tagging, and provide insightful content analytics. As AI technology advances, we will see DAMs becoming even more intuitive and adaptive, empowering marketers with predictive recommendations and more effective content management capabilities.

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We’d love to hear about some of Canto’s marketing strategies/typical marketing model and also the martech that helps drive all of it?

At Canto, we prioritize a customer-centric marketing strategy. We invest in understanding our customers deeply and craft our messaging and products to meet their specific needs. We use various MarTech tools for CRM, marketing automation, social media, and data analytics to drive this. Of course, we also rely on our DAM system for managing and distributing our content. We are continuously refining our strategies, making data-driven decisions, and keeping a pulse on the changing market dynamics.

As B2B tech CEOs navigate today’s tough economic climate, what do you feel are the five basic fundamentals they should rely on?

Today’s economic climate can indeed be challenging, but it also presents opportunities for those who are prepared. For B2B tech CEOs, I believe the five fundamentals are: (1) Customer Centricity: Always put your customers first (2) Adaptability: Be ready to pivot and adapt to changing circumstances. (3) Innovation: Embrace technological advancements and continue to innovate. (4) Financial Prudence: Allocate resources wisely to have maximum impact and most importantly create a company and a culture that attracts the absolute best people available and then empower them to work as team, make decisions, see their impact and experience satisfying achievement and professional growth. At Canto, these principles guide us; I believe these principles are the bedrock of our success.  The customer focus at Canto and the way the people at Canto work together to drive the company forward are the best that I have seen over my long tenure in the software industry.

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