| You also must determine how much all this is going to cost. I've never worked with an organization that didn't care about the cost of a marketing project, but I have worked with many that did not have a budgeting process (the projected budget) for publishing or a tracking methodology (the actual cost) to measure these processes. But, believe it or not, the steps we've discussed leading up to the publishing of content cost something, and I encourage you and your organization to attach values to the marketing and publishing cost centers. To do this, you must have some idea of how many times a year you will publish content, in what ways, and what the previous year's cost was so you can budget for this year's costs. Having a good working relationship with your print service providers, web developers, or email partners is vital to the budgeting process. Preplanning will help these service providers give you a more accurate estimate or quote for services. Resources will contribute to the cost of your project, including Photography How you secure the images for your work will contribute greatly to the cost of the project. You can choose to hire a photographer or use a stock photography service. If you use stock photography, be sure to check out Adobe Stock Photography. If you collaborate with a photographer, make sure that you agree upon his services, the color mode and resolution he will supply, and the file format you would like. If the photographer wants to color correct, question this. Will he collaborate with your print service provider or web developer? And just what will he correct for? If both distribution methods are involved, it probably doesn't make sense to pay for this service. Graphic design Perhaps you've commissioned a graphic artist to develop icons for your newsletter/website. If so, you need to figure out what specifications to give her. Is there a color palette she needs to work from, such as one that includes the company spot colors? And which fonts should be used? Will she need to supply the icons for web or print, or both? For more information, see the section "File Standards," later in this chapter. Fonts Do you own the fonts you want to use, or will you purchase new ones for the project? (This is more likely for outside ad agencies than in-house, but see the Adobe OpenType font library at http://studio.adobe.com/us/type/main. jsp for more information.) Web development Costs will mostly involve the cost of time but can also involve the cost of hosting or tracking services as well as making updates to the site or page if you want to refresh the content on a regular basis. If you are capturing data from the site, database development, tracking, and maintenance might be involved as well. Mail Your printed content factors in greatly when budgeting for content distribution. It is important that you have a working knowledge of postal regulations and discounts available depending on how much work you want to put into sorting, bar coding, and delivering your mail. If this is not a function you choose to make available in-house, consider a mailing service. Depending on your quantities, it can save you significant dollars. Additionally, many mailing services now offer to warehouse your customer data and maintain this contact information. (For instance, when a piece of mail or email comes back as undeliverable, the service updates the database to maintain its integrity.) Editorial considerations Some, such as whether the content will come from within, have associated costs. You might hire a writer, technical writer, or translator for your publication. What tool will he use to create copy? Will he spellcheck his content? Do you want him to format the text and, if so, will you supply him with styles that will import correctly into InDesign?
Add the cost of your outside resources, internal resources, your time, marketing's time, and the distribution costs to arrive at a number for approval. You must answer all these questions: What is the message? Who will you send it to? How will you get it there? What's it going to cost? After you know the answers to these, you can decide which production methodology is most effective for both delivery and cost, which leads us to specific production options. |