Branded Media 4: Scope & Assignment
It is quite easy to waste money when producing content, particularly in higher volumes. Instead, maximize the value of your content budget through careful decisions about scope and how work is assigned. This article is the fourth article in the series: A Comprehensive Approach to Branded Media (the first three are An Overview, Vision, and Idea Generation).
Publishing a relatively high volume of valuable, customer-centric media is arguably the best means to build brand identity and loyalty in today’s increasingly crowded online world.
For a successful campaign, all aspects of the cycle should be tightly managed
Less is Not Always More
The web is a crowded place. You need to give your customers a reason to watch and read your content. You’ve already come up with ideas for content they’ll find valuable, so now it’s time to determine the production value for each of the various pieces. As a general rule, you want the smallest production capable of delivering your message. The more unique and valuable the content, the less polished the production needs to be. But, the more you’re trying to differentiate yourself in a crowded space, spending wisely on additional features can make all the difference.
Cost per Hour, per Job, per Fix
Don't be penny-wise and pound-foolish. I find that paying good people what they’re worth while tightly managing the entire process is the most economical approach over the long haul.
Trying to save money by hiring less qualified media professionals can backfire, especially with complex projects and/or specialized tasks. First, they often take longer to finish the job, which adds even more costs if it delays the rest of your team. Or, you could end up with a flawed product, which requires costly fixes later on. Plus, top professionals offer insights that improve your final product.
One note of caution: there’s no guarantee that more expensive means better qualified. One trick for finding good people is to get recommendations from your existing team. The last thing they want is to have to clean up someone else’s mess.
Use Volume and Scheduling to Your Advantage
One differentiating feature among media professionals is preparation. The best are meticulous and thorough in their planning and set up. This is especially true with video and photo production, but also with writing, editing, design. The extra work pays off in the efficiency and quality of the production. This is a great thing, but be sure to maximize the amount of content produced for all that preparation.
Another great way to leverage volume is by scheduling projects to match contractors’ workflow. For example, if you are a small client for a busy, expensive contractor, you can negotiate better terms in a few ways. For example, if the work requires a lot of focus, you could group your projects so they can be tackled together without fits and starts. Or, if the work is relatively simple and you can be flexible on delivery, let them work in the gaps between their bigger clients. They'll appreciate your willingness to fit their work style, which can pay off in unexpected ways.
Once you get to a sufficient volume, you might find that it makes more sense to hire your favorite contractor full time. Many are willing to take a reduced rate for the guaranteed income and benefits. Plus, most creative people have multiple talents and can reduce your need for other contractors.
Speed, Quality, Economy: Pick Two
There’s a rule in media production that if you’re good, you get to pick two of speed, quality, and economy (if you’re not good, you can lose all three). In other words, there’s just no reliable way to produce high quality content in very little time for a bargain. With high volume branded media, quality and economy are so important. This means you need to maintain ample time in your scheduling to implement all these strategies that keep quality high and costs low.
Tips for the Video Cycle
With video production, scope, scale, and crew can vary tremendously, with a corresponding impact on your budget. I have produced professional videos from $500 to $500,000 each. More is not always better, but neither is less. The key is value relative to scope.
A single shoot results in many finished videos
Maximizing output per shoot is essential. You can either film the same subjects for a variety of end products, or film several different subjects in the same shoot. Since most of your output will be short, focused videos, a full day of shooting can result in a dozen published videos down the line.
Think deeply about production value
Production value covers everything from the type, quality and number of cameras to location, lighting, sound, graphics, animation, and special effects. Videos can be created with minimal production value if the content is spot on. Others aren’t even worth making unless you achieve a high quality production. This is where the greatest variation in cost will occur, but there are too many variables to detail.
The main point is to be thoughtful, deliberate, and confident you understand the trade-offs, particularly from your customers’ perspectives. Media professionals are trained to notice details most people wouldn’t see. Don’t waste money pleasing them if your customers can't tell the difference.
Calculate schedule and crew size
This includes dates, availability of crew, and how you staff the project. The quicker the turnaround, the more you’ll struggle to find the right people. You’re also likely to incur additional costs. Save money by giving yourself time for planning and problem solving.
While using internal staff is already a sunk cost, you can often benefit by hiring an outside specialist, particularly for anything unusual. Their expertise can save not just a lot of strife, but money. A shoot that fails for any reason is the most costly shoot of all.
As a general rule, it’s better to have great editing with mediocre footage than mediocre editing with great footage. Use any discretionary funds to get better editor(s) whenever possible. A great producer gets the most out of your entire team, so that is also a worthy spend.
Proper graphics and animation
Don’t skimp on graphics and animations in general as they can add tremendous value on the upside, or detract from the viewing experience when poorly done or missing. I’m a huge fan of using a professional animator to create beautiful, flexible templates that your daily editors can use on their own in a variety of projects.
How to set deadlines and fees
With deadlines, set working milestones that allow feedback at each of the multiple stages of a project. Also, build in a cushion for when things take longer than expected. You cannot be passive here. Creatives always want more time, so you need to maintain a constant dialog about progress and deliverables.
Be clever in how you set fees for the work. Try to align interests as much as possible. Freelancers don’t have a guaranteed income, so they charge a premium for when they’re not working. Negotiate several projects at once, since they’re often happy to reduce their unit cost for the larger volume. I like to pay preditors (producer-editors who handle an entire project start to finish) per published video. The more of their videos you publish, the more they earn. This works especially well with younger preditors who want lots of experience.
Tips for the Article Cycle
Most of the above strategies apply the same to articles, although the variation in cost isn’t nearly as much. Still, your planning and management will determine much of your success.
Work in Series
Seek topics and themes that can be broken into a series. This allows your team to research and organize once for multiple finished articles. It also allows you to emphasize core themes in multiple locations without boring or overwhelming the reader.
Understand Format Options
Match each article to the appropriate end format. Is this a feature, a column, a sidebar? Your readership of short articles (under 500 words) will be dramatically greater than longer articles, but you’re limited in what can be achieved in a short article. Your ratio of short to long articles will depend on your market and topics.
Manage Research
Consider how much research and interviewing a topic, theme or series requires, and then be deliberate in who performs them. If your volume is sufficient, hire someone to work with multiple writers. Or, find an expert writer who has knowledge at their fingertips and doesn’t require the same research time. When you do have to travel a writer, have them address multiple topics each trip.
Invest Visually
Visual support is extremely important for successful articles. Photos, illustrations, charts, and videos greatly enhance the enjoyment of the written word, especially online. Generic images are better than nothing, but they are far inferior to custom work. Seek efficiencies across multiple articles, such as having an illustrator or photographer create a series of related but unique images that can be created once and used widely.
Your goal is engagement. Across the board, more people will read your words if they’re accompanied by pictures. Don’t miss the forest for the trees by neglecting the efficacy of good visual support.
Never by the Word
Be as clever with setting deadlines and fees here as you are on the video side. One unique point is never pay an author or editor by the word. Give them no incentive to bloat their writing. Your articles must be concise. Instead, agree on a price based on the scope of the project. Good writers and editors who can consistently produce compelling articles are hard to find, so they’re worth paying well. Just not by the word.
Conclusion
You want your customers to enjoy your unique and valuable content while controlling your costs. Match the scale, scope and structure of your productions to the needs, opportunities, and traits of your market. The quality of the content is more important than the quality of the production, but less is not always more. Tight management of the production cycle, leveraging volume and seeking economies of scale everywhere keep your quality high with your cost per unit low.
This article is the fourth in a series. See the previous articles: Overview, Vision & Value-Add, and Idea Generation. The next two installments cover the remaining phases of The Production Cycle in detail (Project Management, and Approval & Publishing).