With these 5 tips, your people will embrace your new system
Do you recognize this? You are looking for a new DAM system. You did your homework beforehand: you compared different systems, made a pre-selection, invited different suppliers and chose exactly the system that suits your organization. The system is implemented and then you notice that your employees are not using it. How can that be?
When an organization implements a DAM system, a considerable amount of time is generally put into getting the setup right, setting up the system technically and developing the right metadata structures. But then you still have to get the users on board. If your employees don't know what the system is for, how it contributes to their goals and how it works, they will never use it. Bummer. With these five tips, your employees will embrace the new system.
1 Ensure early involvement
It is important to involve the future users in the preliminary phase. Perhaps not all users, but if you can appoint a number of key users who can act as sponsors or ambassadors, that will help enormously. People have difficulty with change. Make sure that your employees do not receive a new system as a bolt from the blue, but take them with you.
2 Make sure there is content
A system is one thing, content is another. That seems like an open door, but your users don't always see that distinction. If they don't find what they're looking for, you can only hope they'll make another attempt a few days later. Therefore, make sure content is present in the system so that there is actually something to find.
3 Use your marketing knowledge and expertise internally
As a marketer, you know how to get people excited about something. Use that knowledge and skill to get your own team excited, too. Before, during and after the launch. Invite users to go to the platform. Approach them proactively and don't sit around waiting for them to come naturally. Use your intranet or other internal communication platforms to promote the new DAM system. Organize an internal roadshow or DAM session with free pizza lunch and make the DAM system a part of your meeting agendas. Well well, we don't have to tell you how to get people on board, right?
4 Offer training, at different levels
Many DAM systems are WYSIWYG - what you see is what you get - but don't expect everyone to be able to use them right away. Make sure there are several training sessions, for administrators, but also for "normal" users and managers. If there are changes in responsibilities, pay attention to that as well. If a newly appointed manager does not know that he or she has to start approving things in the DAM system, the whole process is at a standstill.
5 Repeat, repeat, repeat
Implementing a new system is not a matter of launching it once and you're done. Make sure the system is brought to your attention again and again. Ask your employees what they think of it, whether they have suggestions for improvement. Do an online survey or create a - digital - suggestion box. If you did a great photo shoot and you put the material in the DAM system, tell your people about it. Just like with your customers, after all, you don't tell them once that Dreft is on sale either. You do that over and over again, in ever changing ways. Also internally, make sure your customers are thickly satisfied and your system will be embraced.
Want to know more?
Want to talk further about what a Digital Asset Management system can do for your organization and how to make its use a success? Feel free to contact us for a free on-site demo. We are happy to think along with you.