You would be hard pressed to find any company not under a ‘digital transformation’ in the current climate. It’s the buzz-term of the year. For banks, educational bodies, corporations, retail and tourism alike, implementing a digital asset management system is fundamental for future content prosperity.
As someone who has spent countless hours teaching hundreds of marketers, agencies, producers and creators alike, here are my learnings on introducing new groups to DAM.
Build a purposeful mission. I know, I cringed writing that. More buzzwords – but it’s true. I’ve quickly realized without showcasing meaningful use cases… quite frankly, no one cares. Delve into potential scenarios that the group could come across, send assets to people’s mobiles instantly to keep the room alive and build on more generic examples so all users understand why this is so important long term.
Make it fun. The last thing anyone wants to do with their busy working day is training! Metadata, historical content – it’s not exactly the most stimulating conversation for a 3pm afternoon. I always start with a game of Kahoot, which is free to set up for your business! It’s a great way to engage the room, test pre-existing knowledge of participants, and build out the ever-important use cases.
Housekeeping. You are only as good as your metadata. You can have the world’s greatest system in place, but without the correct metadata, you’ve lost the key ability to find content quickly. Ensure there are checklists. Collecting all content across all departments, ensuring nothing is missed, and integrating this within the workflow of your workers should be outlined and updated as you grow.
Allocate a leader. Someone who can guide the transition, check in on users to ensure users are participating – and most importantly fuel feedback to management! One size does not fit all. If you can’t find the content – it’s not working. Make sure this is funnelled back to your account manager, to ensure the necessary changes are made.
Shoutouts. It can be hard to articulate the ROI of DAM’s as there’s often not a numerical value that can be put against it. However, it’s important to empower users when they’ve been able to get ROI from the DAM. I’ve recently had a production team create 80% of an ad with footage taken in 2015. Now that’s incredible.
