Mobile Magic: The Saatchi and Saatchi Guide to Mobile Marketing and Design

Chapter 8: How to Budget

There aren’t a lot of people or even companies on the planet who can afford to take an idea from conception to reality without regard to cost. In fact, those people probably don’t need to read this book. For the rest of us, everything has a budget. Mobile is no different, but there are some quirks to budgeting for mobile of which you may not be aware, including some great cost-cutting tools and tricks, but also some relatively hidden and sometimes surprising obligations. The key thought is that in almost all cases you will need to spend against a multiple-year plan. This chapter will help guide you with the ins and outs of budgeting for mobile marketing.

The Two Components of a Mobile Budget

There are two things to consider when planning a mobile budget: the campaign’s creation and the campaign’s maintenance. The first is fairly straightforward: costs for creation. That includes the staff, designing and constructing mobile-optimized websites and/or mobile application, creating and producing your other promotional materials, and everything else that pertains to getting it made and getting it out there.

See Chapters 9 through 11 for more on creation and your role as a marketer in the creative process.

Once you’re done budgeting the creation stage, you have ...