For retailers, DAM can significantly accelerate launching campaigns, delivering product assets, and enabling a consistent brand experience across various channels (such as e-commerce, digital marketing, or in-store touchpoints). Fair enough, but what is taxonomy in business? And why is it, or should it be, an essential part of digital asset management? Read on and find out!
Why a taxonomy is essential for organizing your digital assets
A taxonomy is a structured framework used to organize and categorize groups of digital assets, making it easier to find, manage, and utilize them efficiently. By defining a clear hierarchy and relationships between assets, a well-designed taxonomy enhances searchability and ensures consistency across the organization.
If you are new to the concept of taxonomy, I do recommend learning the basics of what a taxonomy is first, as this article will not cover the fundamentals. For a deeper dive into taxonomies in DAM, Christina Huddart’s insightful articles are a great place to start:
- Organize digital assets like a pro with metadata and taxonomy
- Unleash the hidden power of metadata and taxonomy
In these articles, Christina discusses how implementing metadata and taxonomy structures in DAM can significantly improve the organization, findability, and management of digital assets, leading to more efficient workflows and better content utilization.
Getting started with your taxonomy design
Now that you – hopefully – have a reasonable idea of what a taxonomy is, you can start outlining what your desired taxonomy should look like. There is no one-size-fits-all taxonomy that suits every organization like a glove, as all businesses and brands are different. Therefore, it is very important to design a taxonomy that serves your specific business structures, requirements, and DAM users.
The following steps should set your taxonomy design in motion!
Setting goals for your digital assets taxonomy
When designing a taxonomy, it’s crucial to start by setting clear and achievable goals. You can start by identifying what areas of your existing taxonomy need to be improved. Or, if you are starting from the beginning (e.g. when implementing DAM technology for the first time), it is good to review the main motivators behind your taxonomy.
You can start by trying to find answers to questions such as:
- What are you aiming to accomplish with the taxonomy?
- Will you focus on improving searchability, enhancing asset management efficiency, or ensuring consistency across digital assets?
- How large of a taxonomy does your specific business need?
- What is the width? In other words; how many main categories do you need?
- And what is the depth? How many subcategories will each of the main categories require?
It is good to try to find the balance between your taxonomy's width and depth, as too narrow or shallow implementations may affect usability and searchability. In turn, taxonomies that are too wide and deep may be cumbersome to maintain and drill into when using the DAM system.
These questions will work as a guide to developing your taxonomy design and help measuring the efficiency of the taxonomy, once implemented.
Research the company’s structures, business units, and related technologies
To understand your company’s specific taxonomical needs, you first need to understand the structure and requirements of the company. Luckily, you rarely need to do this from scratch. It’s very likely that there already are technologies, practices, and information in place that can help you point out the relevant categorization for your digital asset management.
So, conduct thorough research into your company’s industries, organizational structures, business units, and neighboring technologies to the DAM, including their respective metadata models and taxonomies. As an example, create a catalogue of all the industries (if there are multiple), business units, and brands which assets will be stored and managed in your DAM. Creating this list will not just help you create your taxonomy, but might also give you clues to more hidden teams and processes that might be good to consider when designing your taxonomy.
Also, make sure to find out what relevant technologies will be living in the ecosystem with your DAM. Likely, there’s a PIM system which will provide your DAM with product information, and in turn utilize the product’s assets from your DAM. Align these two, so that DAM utilizes relevant product categories & structures from the PIM. This will be most easily achieved through building an integration between the two, so you won’t have to update schemas manually.
Hold on! Don’t restrict yourself to only one neighboring system! Dig deeper to make sure you’ve unhidden all the important ones! As an example, a CMS might be a good source of information for you as well. With a bit of luck, you will be able to find similarities between different systems and structures relating to each other, which you then can harmonize in your DAM.
Understanding the existing frameworks and categories will provide you with a comprehensive overview of your organization’s structures. This very important step ensures that the new taxonomy aligns with current practices and integrates seamlessly with existing systems.
Involve your stakeholders!
Remember the list of business units? You can use that to locate and conduct interviews with different stakeholders, to understand what the most relevant requirements for their processes and structures are. For instance, how does marketing operations categorize their content? Or the communications department? And what about HR? Or maybe there are specific needs from different publishing channels that you need to consider?
Involve the subject matter experts from various departments in the development of the taxonomy. Collaboration across departments helps to create a robust and user-friendly taxonomy that reflects the distinct requirements of the organization.
Determine the relevant categories
When designing a taxonomy, start by identifying the main categories that are most relevant to your business. When in retail, this will most likely include products, product hierarchies, product brands, a company’s own brands, and other high-level classifications that reflect the core aspects of the company’s inventory. Also, as discussed earlier, don’t forget other key organizations and processes that will be utilizing the DAM system – classifications catering to their specific needs should be set as well.
To further improve the organization of your digital assets, develop subcategories under each main category. For example, within a high-level product category (e.g. Apparel), you might include subcategories which further specify which type of product line or group of products is being classified (e.g. Children’s apparel >> Boys’ apparel >> Boys' apparel, ages 1-4).
The same goes for any group or category: each should be specific enough so that users can reliably narrow down the path to match what they are looking for. You do not need to drill down to item level, as the metadata of your assets should be informative enough to tell users which asset represents which item.
Sample taxonomy for the apparel category - click on the image to enlarge it
When categorizing other asset types, such as marketing or brand assets, the hierarchy might look different. For marketing assets, an example hierarchy could be “Marketing” (as the main category), which we can then refine using a subcategorization, like this: Marketing campaigns >> Seasonal marketing campaigns >> Christmas marketing campaigns.
The additional layers of subcategories allow for more precise categorization and retrieval of assets, ensuring that users can find exactly what they need, with minimal effort. Establishing these main categories helps create a clear and intuitive structure, making it easier for users to navigate and locate assets in your DAM.
Make sure the metadata schema supports the taxonomy
In the world of digital asset management, there’s a guiding principle that goes something like this: ‘Metadata is the backbone of your DAM’. I did not invent it, unfortunately, but I use it time and time again, as it truly explains the value and power of a carefully structured metadata schema. A well-thought-out and aligned metadata schema is essential to support your taxonomy’s effectiveness and quality.
Ensure that your metadata further refines the information about the assets and asset types that your taxonomy classifies. For a product asset, it’s vital to include key attributes ( e.g. product name, category, brand, SKU, description, and usage rights and restrictions, among others). Again, there’s not one right answer here – it is up to you to define what is relevant information for both people and integrated technologies that are searching your DAM for assets.
Adapt taxonomy design to match changing business needs
Ok, you have given it your first go, your taxonomy is ready and has been implemented. What happens then? Well, there’s another ‘guiding principle’ about taxonomies and metadata schemas – ‘Your taxonomy is never finished’ – that sounds somewhat demotivating, but take it for what it is: a reminder that the taxonomy is an ever-evolving mechanism. Because your business is dynamic, grows, and changes throughout time, your taxonomy should be flexible enough to adapt to these changes.
So, it is good to always be aware of shifts in your company’s structures, market trends, preferences, and internal processes. Whenever significant changes occur, such as the introduction of new product lines, new areas of business, or newly set-up organizations – update the taxonomy accordingly. This adaptability ensures that your DAM system remains current and aligns well with your business goals. Most importantly, your taxonomy will continue to provide value this way. To make sure you will keep it fresh, schedule periodic reviews to assess the relevance and accuracy of your taxonomy design, making updates as needed to reflect the current state of your assets and business operations.
Monitor and measure
It is considered good practice to monitor and measure the effectiveness of your taxonomy. Collecting this information is crucial for continuous improvement and fine-tuning. You can implement different metrics and analytics to track how well the taxonomy supports asset retrieval and management. Gather feedback from users to identify any pain points or areas for enhancement. By analyzing this data, you can make informed decisions on where to refine the taxonomy, and ensure it meets the structures of your organization and the needs of your users.
Conclusion
In summary, designing and refining a taxonomy involves several best practices that ensure its effectiveness and relevance. Start by setting clear goals for the taxonomy and conducting thorough research into your company’s structures, business units, and related technologies. Involve subject matter experts from various departments to develop a comprehensive and user-friendly taxonomy.
When creating the taxonomy, determine the main categories relevant to retail and e-commerce, create subcategories to further organize assets, and ensure that the metadata schema supports the taxonomy. Also, regularly review and update the taxonomy, monitor and measure its effectiveness, and adapt it when and where necessary to match changing business needs.
A well-built taxonomy is crucial for any retailer, as it enhances the organization, searchability, and management of the company’s digital assets. It ensures consistency across the organization and supports efficient asset retrieval, ultimately contributing to streamlined, more efficient operations.
By following these best practices, it is possible to create a robust taxonomy that evolves with your business and continues to provide value time after time.
Good luck with your taxonomy design journey – and remember to trust and enjoy the process!