The Role of User Feedback in Digital Asset Management (DAM)

For those whose interactions with digital assets is less frequent or more sporadic, DAM, when done right, can provide huge efficiency gains and insights from asset creation to. Along with managing assets themselves, DAM is concerned with the information about those assets, otherwise known as metadata. When this information is organized, it unlocks loads of possibilities when it comes to moving assets throughout their lifecycle and mitigating risk to your organization.

Obviously, a well-organized DAM program is an incredibly powerful tool for any brand, especially those that produce a high volume of branded content such as Fortune 1000 companies. Powerful tools, however, require an often-dismissed or overlooked ingredient to continue producing value: user feedback. Collecting user feedback is the key to sustainable growth for your digital asset management system, as it ensures continued buy-in and adoption, allows you to prioritize initiatives for DAM growth, and provides a different perspective from which to view your current DAM health.

To help define the importance of collecting user feedback regarding your digital asset management system, let’s shift for a moment to a different kind of powerful technology that many of us have likely interacted with: ChatGPT. If you’ve ever used artificial intelligence (AI) to help with a task at work, you understand the importance of user feedback. 

Often, the first prompt isn’t enough. If you’ve asked an AI tool to help you write the introduction paragraph for a report you’re working on, it probably won’t nail the content, tone, structure, and/or style on the first try. After it’s given you something to react to, you likely will add additional context to the prompt or provide direct feedback to help the tool deliver what you’re looking for more accurately. 

While a DAM program and ChatGPT serve very different purposes, the principles are the same. Every digital asset management program serves a single foundational function: serve end-users. Whether that’s by giving them a centralized area to access assets, providing channels to sharing or collaborating on assets, or keeping assets they don’t need out of reach, the mission of any DAM program boils down to helping a brand’s users get the most out of their digital assets. 

Just like giving AI feedback on its output, user feedback helps your organization better identify where users are looking for help. While this analogy isn’t perfect for a number of reasons, it helps define the role that user feedback plays in a DAM program’s governance and growth, helping administrators and key stakeholders determine what the most effective and important changes they can make to the DAM program are. 

Typically, budgets for digital asset management are limited, meaning that those managing the DAM program must make decisions about where to invest and where to wait. Feedback is critical to these decisions. Without it, the DAM program will grow into something that doesn’t serve those using it, leading to decreased adoption and return on investment (ROI).

To get more practical, let’s take a look at a few practical ways that user feedback allows for more effective DAM growth and resource allocation.

• Enhancing User Experience and DAM Adoption

We all like to be listened to. The end-users of your digital asset management system are no different. The simple act of asking for their feedback goes a long way in helping them feel ownership and connection to the DAM program. This leads directly to increased adoption, which is the number one metric to look at when it comes to evaluating your DAM program’s health. 

While every piece of feedback is not created equal, you’re likely to collect valuable ideas and thoughts from your users that have a real impact on your decision-making regarding the future of your DAM, as well as current processes and standards. As changes are implemented, this directly impacts user experience and the effectiveness of your program. 

• Improving Asset Discoverability and Management

One of the areas which user feedback is most critical is metadata. We mentioned earlier that metadata is the key that unlocks many of the most important DAM functionalities. It is what allows your users to quickly search for, filter, sort, and organize assets, meaning that they no longer need to ask others where specific assets live or spend hours looking through huge folders. 

In order for metadata to do its job effectively, however, the words and phrases applied to your assets need to be relevant to your end users and use the language of your brand. Otherwise, search results won’t yield the results you want and filters will confuse users, leading to frustration and low adoption. Your users are the people who know intuitively what kinds of information are most valuable to them as they find and manage assets. As you develop and manage your metadata taxonomy, use your users as a resource!

• Guiding Decision-Making for DAM Enhancements

If you asked any digital asset manager what changes they’d make if they had carte blanche when it came to their DAM program, you’d end up with a very long list of answers. Part of the reason DAM is so powerful is that it can do so many different things. While this is exciting, it also means that DAM teams must prioritize and focus their investments and efforts in order to achieve growth. 

Collecting user feedback is critical to help the DAM team decide where to invest time and resources. Which processes are working, which are broken, and which could use some fine-tuning? Where are users spending the most time? What kinds of assets are used the most, and which ones can be removed? What other tools are assets being used within, and would an integration help? User feedback can speak to these questions and many more. While users shouldn’t be responsible for final decision-making, their insights are immeasurably valuable in helping DAM leaders determine where on the roadmap certain projects lie. 

Now that we understand the impact that feedback has on a DAM program and its future growth, we can discuss how to go about collecting user feedback within the context of your digital asset management system. With deadlines, tasks, and other distractions on their plate, it’s unlikely that users will go out of their way to give you the information they have. With this in mind, it’s important to integrate mechanisms for feedback directly into your DAM program. One-time surveys and focus groups have their place, but making submitting feedback as easy as possible is the key to consistently refreshing your library of information. Let’s take a look at some of the best practices for collecting feedback from your DAM users.

• Use Your Platform

Many DAM platforms understand the importance of feedback and have features that allow seamless collection of feedback directly from the platform itself. Often, this looks like sections of the DAM platform homepage that allow users to submit feedback to the administrative team or platform representative. If you haven’t looked into whether your platform has these capabilities, do so today. This is often very easy to set up. 

Beyond these features, there may be ways to work feedback opportunities into your core DAM workflows, such as asset ingestion and approval. If users know that they can send a note directly to the team leading the DAM as they are working through their normal process, they are much more likely to do so.

• Identify “Passive” Forms of Feedback

Sometimes users can provide feedback without knowing it. Simply by working within the DAM system as they create, organize, search for, and share assets, they provide data that DAM leaders can leverage quickly and easily. This data can provide insights into which groups use the DAM most often, how effective their search results are, what terms and words they are searching for most frequently, what assets they are sharing with others, and how well your integrations and automations are working.

If you have a dedicated DAM platform, it’s likely that you have access to these (and other) reports. As a team, define which pieces of data are most valuable, which are the best representations of your DAM program’s health, and which should raise red flags for your team. Set goals and review these key performance metrics (KPIs) on a regular basis.

• Reward Users for Submitting Feedback

Because user feedback is so valuable, it’s important that users understand that contributing their insights about the DAM isn’t something that will get them in trouble. In fact, the exact opposite should be communicated to users. They should feel that contributing honest feedback is appreciated by your team. Obviously, this can be communicated with words, but it’s more powerful and real when your appreciation is shown in more concrete ways.

This is where you can get creative. Some organizations choose to do raffles on a regular basis for those who submit feedback. Others do more ad hoc gifts and shows of gratitude like hand-written letters or gift cards. 

Beyond those high-level ideas that guide your thinking about how to collect user feedback, here are some other practical ideas we’ve seen work well:

• Have Clear Objectives for Feedback - When collecting user feedback, it’s important to know what you’re looking to learn. Do you want to understand what users don’t like, how they’re searching, where they need support, or what automations they would like? These goals are likely guided by your current DAM situation. If you’ve just launched a new DAM program, you’re likely looking to understand whether things are working as you intended. If you’re 5 years in, your questions may be more roadmap-focused. 
• Utilize Regular Surveys - If users aren’t surprised by your request for feedback, they are more likely to fulfill it. At the launch of your DAM program, communicate how and when you will ask users for feedback, as well as channels where they can submit insights whenever they’d like. This way, you can track how their feedback changes over time and see actionable growth.
• Ensure Feedback Stays Constructive - People feel deeply about the way they work. If this is disrupted, it can cause a range of emotions that could bleed into the feedback you receive. If feedback is negative, it needs to be constructive rather than hurtful or pessimistic. Communicate clearly the standards for feedback and address unhelpful feedback.
• Leverage User Interviews to Dive Deeper - One of the best ways to engage with users is to tell them that what they said was interesting to you. If a user provides feedback that you’d like to understand more, ask them if they could spare 15 minutes to review it in more detail. This typically makes users feel empowered and more likely to provide feedback in the future. Be sure to stay positive and not question them defensively, however.
• Attend Team Meetings for End-Users - In a similar way, attending team meetings for groups of users is a great way to collect high-level feedback while also setting the table for future follow-up. It’s always good for users to associate a face with the program they are using, understanding that there is ownership and someone to talk to if they have questions. 
• Ask Your Platform Provider - If you have a dedicated customer success manager (CSM) through your DAM platform provider, meet with them! They talk with organizations of all shapes and sizes with the same goal: succeeding in DAM. It’s likely that they have ideas for how to collect feedback, whether it’s from another customer or their own insights.

Here at Stacks, we aim to make succeeding in DAM approachable and easy, whether it’s through working directly with our team or coming to our blog for resources. With that in mind, below we have listed some sample feedback questions to spark some ideas for your own feedback efforts. If you’d like more help connecting with your users and driving adoption, contact us today!

As a general rule, questions for feedback surveys should lead users to provide feedback that is relevant to your goals and decisions. Like the banks of a river, they should ensure that the user’s mind flows toward specific topics and insights without leading them toward a bias. 

Example Questions

1. Over the last 6 months, my experience of the system has…

Over time, responses to this question will help you evaluate your DAM program’s growth and allow you to easily ask follow-up questions about their experience.

2. How do you typically search for assets?

This will give you a good idea of whether your users could use additional training. If they are newer to DAM and slow to adopt new methods of search, be sure they feel equipped.

3. Is there content you’d expect to find in the DAM but can’t?

This is a great question that can help determine the future of the DAM as well as whether your metadata is working. If users say they can’t find assets you know are available, you may have a metadata issue.

4. Does the metadata and organizational structure of the DAM make sense?

It’s likely that this question is most relevant leading up to (user acceptance testing) or directly following the launch of the DAM program. That way, you can quickly address immediate concerns.

5. Are there additional metadata fields that would be helpful?

It’s always interesting to understand how your users would search if they had Google for your brand. This can inform taxonomy changes as well as ingestion workflows.

6. Does the DAM make your job/day-to-day easier or more efficient?

This is the foundational question. If the answer is no, then follow-up is needed.