Ask not what your platform can do for you, but what you can do for your platform
When a brand’s digital media (images, videos, logos, PDFs) is in a variety of locations, there exists a ceiling on how fast or effective a marketing team can be. Moving from that fragmented state of operations to a more streamlined system is easy, but requires more than just signing up for a new program. It’s a shift in team mentality and carries with it some basic requirements.
Usually, when an organization is adopting a new content management technology, the decision makers are focused on what they require in a platform: easy to use, cloud-based, secure, etc... It’s why tech companies put so much time and thought into their features pages as well as their product videos. The buyer seeks something, and it’s the platform’s job to convince the buyer it has what he or she is seeking.
But how about what the system requires of the team, as in the necessary changes that will need to be embraced in order to make the new system work? This is for the marketers who know they need to streamline their content processes, and are wondering how to make the whole transition go smoothly.
The following are not requirements for teams using the Bynder portal specifically, but basic requirements for any team looking to make their content more central and accessible, and therefore empower more team members to be better at their jobs.
Keeping these 5 requirements in mind will go along way in getting your team on the same page as you try to adopt a more streamlined process.
- Team-wide Buy In
- Proper Permissions and Sharing
- Relinquishing Control to Empower More People
- Drilling Down on Taxonomy
- Investing in Improvement
1. Team-Wide Buy In
Everyone needs to commit to the process. Otherwise, content will eventually be just as fragmented as before. The minute people start giving up on the process and revert to their old ways, that’s when you start inviting the same old problems back into your office. Finding an easy-to-use system is the most sure-fire way to encourage a high adoption rate. Last week, Bynder Library Sciences expert Emily Kolvitz wrote that “You Don’t Need to Be Bribed to Use Great DAM Systems”, arguing that the only thing a manager should do is find the most intuitive platform and introduce it to his/her team. After that, you can enforce rewards for participation, or consequences for non-participation, but the battle may already be lost. But bribery is still always an option.
2. Proper Permissions & Access
People within the organization as well as outside need to have the right access to content. That requires sharing, onboarding, and proper governance by someone on your team to oversee everything. There is a balance to be established between opening up access to content and still maintaining proper permissions. Your summer interns don’t need the ability to download upcoming product photos that haven't hit the market yet, but they may need access to promotional event collateral. The key is to have a system that lets you configure accordingly.
This becomes even more important as the reach of your content extends beyond your company to agencies and content partners. In 2016, rare is the brand that keeps 100% of its content and operations under one roof.
Sometimes, partners or agencies are slow to adopt the system, but when there’s strong commitment to it in-house, it has a ripple effect where eventually other parties realize it’s in their best interest to get on board.
3. Relinquishing Control to Empower More People
Everyone wants their team to get better, but no one likes feeling like their responsibilities are slipping away. It’s crucial, then, that certain team members are okay relinquishing control so that more people are empowered. It’s a scary thought for some people who are used to being the “gatekeepers” of certain content, media, or information. There’s already a fear that half of marketing jobs will eventually be replaced by machine intelligence in the future. Part of the team-wide buy in mentioned in # 1 is reassuring people that centralizing content is in everyone’s best interests and isn’t taking anyone’s job.
Designers or brand managers may feel like they have less power or control over the content, but what they need to realize is that work is getting taken off their plate, giving them more time to focus on new creative and strategy.
4. Drilling Down on Taxonomy
Having all your assets in one place is great...as long as it’s done systematically. Taxonomy is a scheme of classification, or an organizational naming system, through which it is easy to search for or browse through your digital assets.
Teams don’t need to become taxonomy experts overnight (that’s why we have them on staff), but teams do need to embrace the idea of taxonomy in a new way. They’re the everyday end users who will need to filter and search quickly in order to make good on the promise of making the process more efficient. It’s imperative to start thinking about the categorization of all content, in a way that accounts not only for your brand’s present, but its future.
5. Investing in Improvement
Embracing centralized content is an investment. If it were free and easy, then every brand would be doing it. This investment could take the form of a new hire to be that digital asset manager or brand manager. It could take the form of investing in a more robust technology to streamline the process. Oftentimes, when organizations fully commit, it’s actually an investment in both.
Every organization will have different challenges in their journey to making content management central and streamlined. For example, an e-commerce brand will need its content integrated with other applications in a way that B2B SaaS companies never have to worry about. But being aware of the commitment, investment, and attitudes outlined in these 5 requirements will make it that much easier to get your centralized content portal up and running.
