How to Increase DAM User Adoption

Maybe activity in your digital asset management (DAM) system has been lackluster lately. Maybe usage never got off the ground to begin with. No matter why your DAM platform has lost value, there are a lot of ways to re-establish that value and spur greater user adoption. 

The first step to improve usage of your DAM system is to consider your DAM site metrics to understand current activity. When you start seeing patterns of people who you expect to be in the DAM system no longer logging in or downloading on a regular basis, that gives you a good starting point to find out why these users aren’t engaging with the tool. You could do this in the form of a survey or individual user interviews. Once you identify why your DAM site is being underutilized, you can take steps to turn things around. 

Having supported many Acquia DAM customers through all phases of their journey with digital asset management, from implementation to audits to optimizations, I’ll share some common reasons for lower-than-expected user adoption and recommendations for how to boost activity.

Lack of system awareness

If you have an awareness challenge with your DAM system, change management techniques can go a long way. Connect with user groups in Acquia Community to learn how other organizations are promoting their DAM internally. One common practice is to link from the company’s internal employee resource pages to their DAM or a training portal that houses DAM user guides, FAQs, and other training materials. Timberlake Cabinetry, for example, encourages user engagement, by including DAM training, videos, and tutorials in its new employee orientation. 

It may seem simple, but giving your DAM system an identity can go a long way in building awareness. Consider a unique or memorable name that sparks interest. You could use an acronym, like T-Mobile’s TMAP (short for “T-Mobile Asset Portal”), or choose a name that’s closely aligned with your brand identity, like Crayola’s The Crayola Gallery. If you don’t yet have a creative name for your DAM, this can be an easy win to bolster awareness and adoption, especially if you pair the announcement of the new name with some improvements in the DAM dashboard and/or configuration structures. You can use a monthly newsletter to announce the DAM name and other updates, as well as re-engage DAM users with news of the latest system enhancements, highlights of recent uploads, and direct links to important content. 

Insufficient training

Circling back to the topic of training, do your users need more of it? If so, consider updating your training materials and going around to different user groups to give them more guidance. Another great way to support your users is to offer regular office hours where they can come and ask their questions or receive guidance on the best ways to find what they need in the DAM site. 

Iconic crayon manufacturer Crayola created a multifaceted training program to ensure DAM system adoption across the organization. Crayola Gallery Basic Training is incorporated into the company onboarding program to ensure all employees know where and how to find digital assets, while advanced and specialized training is offered for different user groups, such as uploaders or Portals users. Combined with ongoing email quick tips and self-service support materials, Crayola’s training program has helped keep its 600+ regular DAM users engaged and supported. 

Difficulty finding what they need

Do your users come to the DAM site and give up because they can’t find what they need? A structured, visually appealing dashboard can have a huge impact on user satisfaction and sentiment in the DAM experience. You can use your dashboard as a way to welcome users to the DAM and present them with links to common searches so they’re less frustrated with having to start their search from scratch every time. 

Find out how your users are searching, or better yet, find out how they want to search for particular assets. The answer to this could be very enlightening! It might reveal that you need additional metadata fields or values to capture information that your users would like to search and filter by. For example, global cosmetics brand Laura Mercier’s DAM admin set up the system with metadata fields and a hierarchy that aligned with user searches and mimicked how customers shop for products (e.g., sorting by product type rather than file type). User feedback was also taken into account to modify the system to better support their work. This included adding common company acronyms into the system and adjusting file-naming conventions upon the discovery that users were looking for asset size and spec information in the actual filenames.

Inconsistent uploads

Are you getting the amount of uploads that you expect and is metadata being filled out accurately and consistently? If not, you may need to take a look at your upload profiles to make sure you have created experiences that allow your uploaders the ability to upload and enter information more efficiently. Requiring too many metadata fields at upload may be creating user friction, resulting in nobody uploading anything. In this case, consider whether you can reduce or eliminate the required metadata fields for uploaders and, instead, instill a workflow where a DAM admin reviews assets and completes the metadata before releasing content to all users. This can promote more consistent uploads and encourage more users to populate the DAM system with their newly created content, while still ensuring assets have all of the metadata needed to be found. 

Another way to streamline the upload process is to consider DAM integrations. An integration can be particularly useful if you have assets and content being uploaded by multiple sources, such as external agencies. For example, you could set up an integration with your file-sharing software, such as Dropbox or Sharepoint, so that certain folders can be synced with your DAM, automatically uploading those assets with certain metadata already auto-applied. This will eliminate a few steps from the uploading process and help get assets live in the DAM system as efficiently and completely as possible.

What’s next?

There are many success stories available via Acquia Community user groups from companies who were able to overcome DAM system adoption challenges. If you’d like to collaborate with an Acquia expert to find a solution that makes sense for your organization and use cases, connect with Acquia Professional Services for a strategy workshop where we can evaluate your current system and consider enhancements that will empower and engage your DAM users.