Let us say you have an established DAM solution within your organization. You have a metadata schema. You have assets with metadata in the DAM. You have established workflows using the DAM for your business needs. You know the DAM is being used.
Now how can you measure the progress of the DAM?
Posted by Henrik de Gyor on April 7, 2009
Let us say you already have an established DAM solution within your organization. You have a metadata schema. You have assets with metadata in the DAM. You have established workflows using the DAM for your business needs. You know the DAM is being used by people in the organization.
Now how can you measure the progress of the DAM? This can be done several ways:
- How many active DAM users do you have?
- How many departments or groups in your organization use the DAM? Who does not? Why not?
- Who are the most active groups or users?
- How many assets are being uploaded (imported) to the DAM? Each day? Each week? Each month? Each year?
- How many assets are metatagged (i.e. applying metadata to assets either before or after upload to the DAM) per hour? per day? per week?
- How many assets are being downloaded from the DAM? Each day? Each week? Each month? Each year?
- What type of asset is the most popular download from the DAM? Photographs? Graphics? Video? Powerpoint? (You do use the DAM for more than one type of asset, right?)
- When does the activity in the DAM peak? What time of the day? What is most active month of the year? Do you know why this period is so active? There is usually a business need being resolved.
- Where are the most active DAM users located geographically? If you can locate them, congratulate them on being the most active DAM users and find out why they are the most active DAM users. They probably did not even know this themselves. More on this topic later.
- How else can you measure the ROI from the DAM?
When you selected the DAM solution, did it come with a reporting feature? Can you generate reports directly from the DAM to answer these questions listed above? Hopefully, the DAM did come with it this feature so it should not be too hard to filter reports generated from the DAM and yield these answers to give you measurable results. Just as people may file weekly reports, they may have ways to measure their progress. If these ways to measure progress are consistent, you can gather metrics (not the metric system, but rather quantifiable measurements) to report on the progress of the DAM regularly to stakeholders. Once the DAM has been used for a while, many people are amazed by what information is generated by these reports. Surprisingly, many people at first do not realize the extent of the DAM activity which these reports expose, even when it is increased by:
- Established workflows using the DAM
- Appropriate access given to DAM users
- Training and support on the use of the DAM
- Assets with metadata in the DAM
- An increase in user adoption of the DAM
Do you reward the reuse of assets in the DAM? Consider annual recognition or even awarding the most active users and “re-users” (people who have appropriately reused the most number of assets in a year) from the DAM. Give them company-wide recognition. Why would embarrass employees like that? This recognition may not sound like a big deal at first (even to the employee), but:
1. Using the DAM, they saved the organization measurable amounts of money every time they reused or re-purposed an asset from the DAM because:
- They spent less time looking for the needed asset compared to other places the asset might be hiding within the organization. This frees up employee time to accomplish more and/or produce better results.
- They did not have to create nor acquire (buy) that asset again because they found it again in one centralized location (The DAM).
2. This is one of the easiest way to get more user adoption. (How could others get an award and/or recognition for simply using a business solution as intended?)
3. This is a plus on the employees’ record for their annual performance review when it comes time for a bonus and/or raise. It shows that person uses company resources to benefit their projects and the organization as a whole by saving time and money in the use, reuse and repurposing of assets from the DAM. This fact can be highlighted even more so if they regularly contribute new assets to the DAM.
4. This may peak the interest of the rest of company who may not have heard of the DAM before. (What can the DAM do for them?)
5. When you find the individuals who are most active users of the DAM, ask them:
- Why they use the DAM so much
- For any best practices they have been using to achieve their results
- What they would like to see improved. This could be valuable feedback for future improvements.
- To tell their story as a DAM user so everyone could learn from them how and why they use the DAM. That has great value in encouraging even more user adoption or more departments getting on board with the idea of the DAM solution. Every organization with digital assets needs a DAM, but that DAM becomes even more valuable to everyone who uses it as soon as the organization shares assets across departments and throughout the organization.
How are you measuring the progress of your DAM?