Interview with Kristina Huddart - DAM consultant, specialist and speaker

I totally agree with you on this. It has no limits. People from any type of organization - in design teams, in marketing - can benefit from DAM. What are some of the common use cases you see when businesses are looking to implement DAM?

Some companies are just initially getting into DAM - or what we call DAM 1.0. That's usually when they need a space to manage all of their assets in one place. So kind of like a media library where all of their images, audio, video marketing, and sales assets, all of that can live in one place.

And then from there, it usually expands into brand management. So a lot of companies will use DAM to manage brand consistency and serve their brand assets to partners and collaborators. So those are the more basic use cases for a DAM.

Then we get into some of the more advanced use cases. Companies who want to start delivering omnichannel experiences to customers, who are going to launch to e-commerce next year... Or who need a way to distribute content to distributors or resellers. Or who might be expanding into new markets or thinking about personalizing their content at scale. That's where a DAM really comes into play.

So there's all sorts of different use cases. And the exciting thing about DAM is that it's always expanding. There are always new content problems or pain points that are coming up in organizations - like ‘How do we manage all of these videos that we're creating now?’ - and DAM is there as this amazing tool that can help with all sorts of different problems.

Yes, I agree with you. That's the fabulous thing about DAM. And it is a central system that, if you integrate it with the rest of your tools, becomes an essential part of that whole martech stack… So why do companies start exploring their digital asset management options, in your experience?

It's usually triggered by some sort of pain point or recognizing the need for digital transformation.

It's about making a lot of the manual processes that all of us do day-to-day - whether it be finding assets, or creating assets, or delivering those assets to our customers in an efficient way - and making all of those processes digital. It's as simple as that.

Companies always have to strike a balance. How many resources do we have? How much budget is there? How much headcount is there? And that's where companies look to technology - like digital asset management platforms - to help to scale.

You work with businesses of all sizes - from small startups to multinationals. Are there any challenges specific to enterprise-scale businesses?

I think the most challenging elements of working with really big companies - at least 20,000 users of the system around the globe - is getting everyone to work in the same way and to adopt this new tool.

But it’s also the huge volumes of data - that's also a real challenge. I support companies with data management, data cleansing and migrations.

It's something I like to start planning with companies as early as possible, even before the DAM is implemented. How are we going to get assets into the system? What’s our main priority?

And also setting up the metadata and taxonomy structure, then applying that to the data before it's migrated. It’s about starting out with clean data and a clear structure - and maintaining good practice from there.

Yes, that’s a crucial step. Many companies underestimate the magnitude of that exercise, which correlates with the number of files they have. Even if they only have a couple of thousand, it takes time to see what’s usable and what’s not. What else would you say that is an unskippable step for selecting and implementing a DAM solution?

When a company starts to consider implementing a DAM, there's a whole checklist of things to do. But if I had to choose one unskippable step, I would say that it's the business case.

You need to ensure that the documentation from the initial decision-making is fully recorded, so that you can always go back to it. Why are we doing this? How much are we going to invest in it? What are the alternatives? What are the consequences to the company if we do nothing? What are our objectives and KPIs?

These are really interesting considerations and help you to understand why a particular DAM was selected, why the metadata was set up in a particular way, whether the DAM is delivering what you wanted it to…

Any final tips?

My ultimate advice is that DAM isn’t a project, it’s a programme of work. You need to consider the technology, people, process and data. Also the importance of effective change management - and sustaining change after initial implementation, getting your users to really adopt and love this new system, to make sure people don’t slip back into their old ways of working.

And finally, the importance of doing an annual health check on your DAM. To understand what’s working and what’s not - so you can improve and iterate as you go along. How’s the tech? How are people adopting it? Do you still have a vocal champion in the business? Are you still aligned with business objectives? Are new processes working, and could they be streamlined? Look at the data too - it’s an ongoing process, and that responsibility never ends.

They’re some great closing points, thank you, Kristina. We’re delighted to say you’ll be joining us regularly in the future as a guest blogger, sharing more of your insights into DAM - so that’s something to look forward to. Thank you again for joining us.