Slicing up your project budget
Most communication projects follow a logical progression:
- Ideation / concept development
- Design / production
- Manufacturing / printing
You can generally tell where one of these phases ends and another begins. So it’s easy to fall into thinking that the three stages are independent and separable. It’s also common to think of each stage as having its own budget -- $X for design, $Y for imagery, $Z for printing.
A better idea is to keep your budget whole. Or, if it’s been divided up by someone in the accounting department, reunite it into a single budget to cover all the phases of the project. Then tap your communications team for their best thinking on how to distribute the dollars for the best result.
That may seem a little odd. Work with the creative team on portioning the budget? Come on. Don’t creative folks skip math in college?
Your communications team may not know pi from pie, but they’re experts in helping you invest your budget to get the best results. They may be able to save money on one phase and apply it to another where it’s more crucial to your particular project.
For example, sometimes it makes sense to spend a little less of the budget on design to free up money for higher quality printing. In other cases, it’s wiser to spend a larger portion on imagery or photography. But if available dollars have been rigidly earmarked ahead of time, the communicator or designer doesn’t have that flexibility, and the final product may suffer.
A communications project is like building a house. You wouldn’t hire an architect and give him specific budgets for the plumbing, windows, bricks and lumber. You would share your overall vision with the architect and tell him how much you want to spend on the house. Then you would trust him to use his expertise to design the house you want at a price you can afford.
Communicators, like architects, aren’t just creative geniuses. They also have practical knowledge of production processes and costs. When they know your objectives and your budget, they can help you find the best, most cost-effective way to meet your goals.
So keep an open mind about how your project budget is distributed. Trust your communication partner to evaluate the options, weigh the costs, and choose the best route – and the best distribution of funds – based on your goals.
This kind of collaboration just might yield some new ideas to strengthen your marketing program in ways you never imagined.
