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DAM Best Practices

Post-Launch Care: Ensuring a Successful Rollout of Your DAM Program

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By Ben Owen | July 23, 2024

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Change is difficult. Even when the change is positive, shifting from a familiar way of doing things to a different, more complex one is jarring for most people. This is particularly true for how people perform their work. Many of us have likely found ourselves facing the challenge of presenting a new process to our co-workers. This can be a nerve-racking experience because the known, even if it’s an inefficient workflow, is often more comfortable than the unknown, even if it’s well-planned and organized. 

Many organizations face this exact dilemma when building and launching their digital asset management (DAM) programs. Rolling out a new program is a monumental step for any organization. It promises to streamline operations, enhance collaboration, and safeguard valuable digital assets. However, the real work begins after the initial launch. 

When planning your launch, it’s important to remember that first impressions are lasting. If your end users, who may already be resistant to a new way of working, don’t have a positive experience that immediately shows them the benefits, they may not adopt the new system

In this article, we'll outline the key activities involved in rolling out a new DAM program. At Stacks, we refer to this set of activities as “Post-Launch Care” and regularly support brands in executing these vital steps in their DAM journey. If you’d like to learn more about how Stacks can help you successfully roll out your DAM program, contact us today!

 

Establish a Detailed Governance Strategy

The first step in rolling out your new DAM program is to develop a clear and detailed governance strategy. In essence, this specifies how your organization will maintain, grow, and improve the DAM program on a weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis. A well-defined governance strategy ensures that your DAM program is managed effectively and continues to meet the organization’s needs. Without it, the program will slowly fall into disrepair and begin to resemble the previous way you managed your digital assets. 

Defining a governance strategy keeps your DAM program healthy and provides a structure within which your users can confidently interact with digital assets and use them to achieve their goals. Below are a few tips for developing a DAM governance strategy.

Identify Tactical Tasks

List the specific tasks required to maintain and improve the DAM system. This includes administrative tasks like regular data audits, metadata updates, and system performance checks. Your list should also include daily and weekly tasks such as asset enrichment and ingestion, user management, and front-end improvements. Stacks recommends building a living document where all these tasks are listed and defined. 

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Assign Roles and Responsibilities

Designate the individuals or teams responsible for various aspects of the DAM program. Clear role assignments help ensure accountability and streamline workflows. It also prevents anything from falling through the cracks and thus avoids creating problems that will need to be addressed later. One best practice at this stage is to track how long each task takes to complete. This ensures that no one is overwhelmed by the number of DAM-related tasks they're responsible for. If this is the case, it may be time to consider growing your DAM team, either by hiring new staff or partnering with a third party, such as Stacks.

 

Regularly Update Your Roadmap

Continuously review and update your DAM program roadmap to reflect new goals, user feedback, and technological advancements. Keeping the roadmap current ensures the DAM system remains aligned with organizational objectives. If the tactical tasks you outlined and assigned prevent issues from arising, the roadmap ensures that the DAM program is growing and evolving to meet new needs.

 

Engage and Educate Your End Users

The success of your DAM program heavily depends on how well your end users understand and use the system. If users are confused about how to use the DAM system, they’re not likely to use it. This means your brand would fail to take advantage of the security, centralization, and accessibility a DAM program can provide. 

If users make an effort to use the DAM system but lack proper training, they may inadvertently create problems and reduce the ROI as well. Here are some ways to engage and educate them effectively to avoid both scenarios. 

Conduct Comprehensive Training Sessions

Organize interactive training sessions tailored to different user groups. Ensure these sessions cover both the basics and the advanced features of the DAM program, enabling users to fully leverage the system's capabilities. These training sessions should be conducive to open discussion and questions. To facilitate this, Stacks recommends breaking user groups into smaller sessions to ensure people feel more comfortable participating.

 

Create Accessible Resources

Develop easy-to-understand guides, video tutorials, and FAQs. Having these resources readily available helps your users find answers to their questions quickly and use the DAM system efficiently. Typically, this documentation\ consists of a single, comprehensive user guide along with a series of shorter guides tailored to specific use cases or roles within the DAM program.

 

Foster a Supportive Community

Establish a user community where individuals can share tips, ask questions, and discuss best practices. This not only helps in resolving issues promptly but also encourages continuous learning and improvement. Activities involved in creating this environment may include DAM office hours, lunch-and-learns, and the establishment of a helpdesk. 

Lean into your community of excited champions to spread the word and serve as an internal cohort to help you drive adoption, build governance, and prioritize ongoing work. 

Leah Carlson, Senior Manager of Global Digital Growth, McCormick & Co.

Monitor Usage and Gather Feedback

To ensure your DAM program meets your user’s expectations and evolves according to their needs, it’s vital to monitor its usage and gather feedback regularly. Many DAM platforms have robust reporting and visualization capabilities for metrics ranging from asset usage to user activity. As you launch your DAM program, be sure to set up these dashboards and analyze them regularly with your DAM team. Here are some other ways to keep a finger on the pulse of your DAM program.

Track User Engagement

As we already mentioned, data is a great way to understand the health of your DAM program. Beyond the standard out-of-the-box reports from your platform, consider building a custom DAM health score made up of your key performance indicators (KPIs) for DAM. Utilize these analytics to monitor how often and in what ways your users interact with the DAM system. This will help you identify patterns and areas where users might be struggling, allowing you to address them proactively.

 

Solicit Regular Feedback

Conduct surveys and feedback sessions to understand user experiences and gather insights on how the DAM program can be improved. Actively listen to your users and make adjustments based on their input. The Stacks team recommends creating, implementing, and analyzing a comprehensive DAM user satisfaction survey within three to six months of launching your DAM program. 

 

Implement a Feedback Loop

Establish a clear process for handling feedback. Ensure users know that their suggestions are valued and that they see tangible changes resulting from their feedback. Doing this fosters a sense of ownership and boosts user adoption. If user feedback is unrealistic or doesn’t align with your DAM strategy, be sure to engage with your users so they understand the purpose and direction of the DAM program.

 

Conclusion: Embrace Post-Launch Care for Sustained Success

Effective "Post-Launch Care" is essential for the long-term success of your DAM program. By engaging and educating users, monitoring usage, gathering feedback, and providing continuous support, you can ensure that your DAM system remains a valuable asset for your organization.

Ready to take your DAM program to the next level? Contact Stacks today! Let us help you achieve seamless implementation and exceptional post-launch success.

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Successfully Take the Next Step in DAM

If you're ready to develop an effective DAM program, work with Stacks to ensure you cover all the details. We approach the process with a personalized focus to establish workflows suiting your operation. These systems develop consistency while offering simple operations, so your teams can implement them seamlessly into their work. Get in touch with our DAM experts today.