One of the unfortunate side effects of a slowing economy is a decline in the amounts companies are willing to spend on advertising, and since the newspaper industry is heavily dependent on advertising revenues, any slowdown in ad spending is never a good thing.

However, even as newspaper information technology budgets are slashed and spending is reigned in, a newspaper IT staff is still left with a problem — the management of excessive loads of content.

There was a time when newspapers were available only in print. Now, with the proliferation of the Internet and personal digital assistants, newspapers are forced to repurpose their assets for multiple venues.

Just like it was then, the responsibility of managing these assets typically falls to one or two people, who are quickly over-burdened with the amount of assets requiring management. This is why they are typically the first to endorse the purchase of a digital asset management system.

What is digital asset management?

Digital asset management is, like most technologies today, relatively new. It emerged way back in 1999, which actually makes it one of the older new technologies. A DAMS essentially allows newspapers to store, retrieve, and reuse the content or assets that are essential to their business.

When it first emerged, only a handful of companies were in the DAM market. Companies like Canto and MediaWay stepped up to capitalize on a new trend. For newspapers that initially invested in DAM, selecting a system was fairly easy. But since newspapers are like any business — there are leaders and there are followers — by the time most newspapers began to seriously explore purchasing a DAMS, markets had soured, ad revenues dried up and the freezing of IT budgets was enforced.

Rest assured, however, that just because budgets are frozen, this doesn’t mean you can’t get a DAMS approved. Having one is key to a newspaper’s success. Because we live in an environment where content is pervasive, the needs and demands placed on newspaper content — remember, it is delivered to print, Web, PDA, etc. — necessitate and demand the adoption of a DAMS.

With the need at hand, and considering both current economic conditions and the DAM market (more than 100 systems available), the only way management will approve the adoption of a DAMS is with a clear explanation and a financial justification as to why a DAMS is needed and what it will provide.

Getting started

Before management can be presented with a system, a detailed search for the correct DAMS must be completed. Don’t choose the same DAMS The New York Times uses just because they’re The New York Times. If you’re The Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel, you need a system for The Orlando Sentinel’s demands.

That may seem like common sense, but sometimes common sense is overlooked. If you conduct your search thoroughly, it will provide you with the explanation and financial justification, which will support your quest for adoption. This path can seem daunting, but it shouldn’t be. The selection of a DAMS is fairly simple if you adhere to these five fundamental steps:

• Organize an evaluation team – No one person can be responsible for the selection and justification of a DAM purchase. A complete evaluation team should include representatives from all areas of the newspaper that will be affected by the technology — IT, editorial, marketing, finance, etc. Each will play a key role in adoption.

• Obtain DAM-affected sales revenues — Advertising and marketing will use the DAMS to assist in their revenue growth. After all, the DAMS will contain all of your digital assets. Since it will support advertising and marketing, there will be a quantifiable revenue increase. If advertising or marketing is unwilling to make the projection, your financial professional can make the revenue estimate.

• Construct a needs assessment — Evaluate the volume of files supported and the time spent managing them, then plan your needs requirements. Examining your workflow and file storage routines will aid in your identification of the aspects you want the DAM system to enhance.

• Examine technologies — Steps 1-3 will eliminate several DAM vendors; it will get the available solutions down to a manageable amount. At this point, you will need to prepare a request for proposal (RFP). After preparing one and sending it to potential vendors, you will sort through those RFPs received, leading to …

• Selecting a system — By this time, the choice of a DAMS should be obvious. Now that you’re able to make a purchase selection, prepare to create a financially sound argument to support it. Management will enter the picture now.

Justifying your investment

Congratulations — you know which DAMS you want. Prepare to fight for its adoption.

As I mentioned, management will re-enter the picture and demand to know why your system should be supported financially. The most common analysis referred to by IT and management is a return-on-investment analysis. Management loves to ask, “What’s the ROI?” They’re used to using ROI to financially support any purchase, like advertising; but for the purchase of a DAMS, or any revenue-enhancing technology, ROI is a flawed analysis. As such, there will be no ROI.

The finance professional on your evaluation team can tell you why an ROI is not available. An ROI involves more then dividing expected revenue by the amount invested, which is what management is expecting. There are alternative cost analyses you should use.

Your financial professional can explain that an ROI involves an analysis of tax consequences from depreciation, cost of funds required for the investment, corporate tax rates, investment tax credits, opportunity costs over time, etc. Not only is it nearly impossible to calculate an ROI on a DAMS, but when justifying revenue-enhancing technology purchases, most companies have abandoned this method.

An ROI on a DAM system is useless, similar to an ROI on a phone system or a sales management system. They’re impossible to calculate. Instead, your financial professional can recommend to management accepting a cost-of-doing-business (CDB) analysis as a replacement for ROI.

Your DAMS will have a tangential impact on newspaper revenue. It’s not as direct as advertising, and as such it shouldn’t be subjected to awkward ROI analyses. A CDB allows you to offer to management the premise that for your newspaper to succeed, an investment in supporting infrastructure — which is what a DAMS really is — must be made.

For any newspaper to successfully operate in the 21st century, a DAMS is a necessity. As such, it can easily be classified as a cost of doing business. Management must be made aware that to compete against the leaders, or if you are the leader and wish to continue in that position, an investment in a DAM system is required.

Final steps

Now that you have selected your system and have successfully justified an investment in it, all that is left is to make the purchase. For this, the only concern is, “How much should I spend?”

Most businesses — newspapers included — have ratio equations to identify how much each dollar of revenue will be allotted for your purchase. Lean on your financial professional one last time, he will be able to tell you how much you have to spend.

This wasn’t the path in 1999. Back then, an advocate could say, “I need a DAMS,” and management would toss money their way. Now, a sound reason, both technological and financial, is imperative for any initiative to be approved. The money is still there, you just need to know how to get it.

Based in Denver, Michael Sweet is vice president of cross-media publishing for DeepBridge Content Solutions, a digital asset management integrator. He can be reached at msweet@deepbridge.com.