Things to consider when selecting a DAM.

Can a DAM (Digital Asset Management system) save you money?
In our experience, the answer to this question is an overwhelming yes. There are many different ways that it can happen, and you can use the ROI calculator

What assets do you currently have? Are they already digitized? Are they still in hard copy?

You’ll need a good understanding of what you have before you can determine the system that will best suit your needs. If you have already digitized much of your collection, what file formats do you have? Are they mostly Acrobat files, JPEGS, TIFFS or other photograph formats, Office documents, PDF’s, graphics formats, video or audio? Are those file formats current, or will they need to be converted into something that will be useful into the future? How much data do you have? Can you estimate how much data you will be adding (typically per year) as you move forward?

If your assets are still in some form of hard copy, then you have a number of different questions to ask. The most basic is, of course, what do you need to do to get them into digital formats? The answer is technically (if maybe not logistically) easy if you primarily have photos and negatives. It gets more complicated when you have objects that include text that you may need to OCR. What metadata (data about the objects) do you need to keep with those objects, and what is the best way to achieve that?

You want to make sure that whatever system you select “knows” how to extract the most metadata automatically from your collection of assets. The more metadata that you extract automatically, the more you will be able to find things without excess human labor.

Download our whitepaper to learn more about what you need to know when selecting a DAM.