Today's culture of constant communication offers tremendous opportunities, and challenges, for churches and religious organizations of all sizes. The explosion of the digital culture allows a greater range of ministry communication products through a tremendous variety of delivery channels, but keeping on top of the ever-shifting technologies and trends is essential for any organization hoping to reach as many people as possible with a medium of their choice. 

There are two aspects crucial to a successful communications strategy. The first is the ability to archive, search, and retrieve any content produced and offered by the organization – usually referred to as a "Digital Asset Management" solution.

The second is addressing the variety of audiences requiring an organization to offer its content through various media and delivery options. Today's media consumer wants their content for a variety of platforms, including DVDs, CDs, podcasts, download to burn, and streaming.  Deliveries range from discs and booklets sent via physical mail to digital "On-Demand" delivery technologies of documents, videos, and pictures. 

Digital Asset Management
A comprehensive Digital Asset Management strategy is required to realize the full potential of any organization's communications content. Benefits include:

* Reduced costs by avoiding the need to recreate media resources and projects because they have been forgotten or can't be found

* Increased efficiencies resulting from the superior speed and accuracy of a digital search compared to manual search of a physical archive

* Reduced asset degradation through reliable and secure digital preservation of media assets

* Improved knowledge of what is in your library, by more people, from any location

These benefits are accomplished by archiving, searching, and retrieving.

1. Archiving
With physical media, most churches are forced by space and expense to make decisions about what content to keep in their libraries. Digital Asset Management solutions have the ability to convert this content to digital files stored on a server. This allows organizations to reduce storage space, keep content longer, and protect content from degrading.

2. Searching
Whether you are providing religious education tools, access to a library of past church services, or spiritual support materials, a Digital Asset Management solution provides end users with Web portals specific to their needs and search capabilities to help them find the most valuable content. 

Imagine a 3rd grade Sunday school teacher needing an effective curriculum to explain the importance of Easter. With Digital Asset Management, they can go to a Web site, find the content portal for 3rd grade Sunday school, and perform a Google-like search, using specific key words for the lesson plan they are developing. The system returns a list of all related materials, including short summaries of the content. In the case of video and audio assets, many solutions offer online streaming to see and/or hear the content prior to ordering. In addition, it advises what types of media are available for delivering the material.

3. Retrieving
Now that an end user knows what they want to order, they can choose the best delivery options: CDs, DVDs, print, or downloads.  Our 3rd Grade Sunday school teacher is now ordering a DVD of the Easter story that they are confident delivers the message they are hoping to achieve and selecting a lesson book they have previewed online that supports the video. All of this can now be done within hours from the comfort of a home or office.

On-Demand Delivery
Of course, providing flexible customer choice presents challenges for any church's distribution system. Each additional message represents another product, more inventory, and more potential investment. Bloated warehouses around the country tell the story of resources diverted from the spreading the word to dealing with logistics. 

Out of this environment grew DVD manufacturing on demand (MOD). With DVD on Demand, there is no need for a warehouse. Digital copies of content reside on servers, waiting for orders to come. There is no physical inventory investment, because there is no inventory – ever.

Once an order is placed, content, label art, and packaging instructions move automatically from server to robotic machines in minutes. The machines burn the DVD, apply full-color art, print packing wraps, and apply a recipient-specific bar code to each item. 

Fulfillment operators scan the barcodes, assemble and package the products (according to the computer-generated instructions), and attach on-demand printed shipping labels. In the time it takes the average fulfillment house to pull a product from the shelf, DVD on-demand companies now make and ship a product from scratch.

Faith-based organizations large and small now use DVD on Demand to profitably increase their content libraries without increasing inventory – driving greater repeat Web visits and improved repeat requests.

Customer-Controlled Content
On-demand technology also enables users to create custom CDs and DVDs, meaning organizations no longer need to predict what their customers want. Instead, users are allowed to select content segments they want (defined by the organization) and combine them from a variety of sources onto the same CD or DVD.  The economics improve, along with customer impact.

Imagine offering personalized motivation, topic-specific training material, and tailored spiritual messages. Then imagine that personalized message produced and shipped faster than most fulfillment operations can process a physical order. This game-changing capability is possible with DVD on Demand.

Delivery Platforms
In addition to on-demand manufacturing, an effective distribution and fulfillment solution also provides online delivery options, including download to burn, podcasts, and streaming media.  Storing content on a server gives religious organizations the ability to offer these options as well.

The promise of digital technologies is now a reality. Communication is the core element of any faith-based organization's mission, and the tools we reviewed allow the right message to reach the right audience at the right time.

Doug Olzenak is president of Allied Vaughn, a leader in media management services for the faith-based market for more than 45 years, www.alliedvaughn.com.