There are a lot of moving
parts to any marketing campaign. The printing and mailing (or, if you are
incorporating digital channels, text or email blasts) is only the last link in
the chain. To ensure that the final deadline is met, you have to work backwards
to ensure that each individual component is on schedule.
How
do you stay on track? At the start of every project, ask yourself the following
questions:
- What is the final deadline you are
trying to meet?
- Who is writing the copy and how long
will it take?
- Are you using stock images or creating
the artwork yourself? Who is making those decisions and how long will that
take?
- Who will be doing the design and layout?
What is the time budget for that?
- How long will it take to print, finish,
and mail the piece?
- How many approvals do you need? How much
additional time to you need to add for those?
The
first answer provides your end date. Once you have that, you can work backwards
to determine your start date. Pad each time estimate by a factor of 1.5 to 3
times depending on your confidence in the numbers.
Once
the project is complete, look back at how well you stuck to the timeline. Did
you stay on schedule? If not, where did you get bogged down? What needs to be
adjusted to create a more accurate time estimate next time?
Don’t
beat yourself up for making mistakes. Along the way, you learned something,
such as when your creative staff says, “It takes us one day to turn around the
proof of concept,” they meant two days, or that you forgot to take into account
transportation time when you made your project plan.
Staying
on schedule takes practice . . . and smart planning. If you’re new to the
process, don’t go it alone. We have tons of experience in project planning. Just
ask!
Please give us a call at 440-946-0606Or visit our website here for more information.
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