How can I determine my marketing collateral budget?

Decide on the collateral that are essential for your company and base your budget on the cost of creating and printing them.

While there is no hard and fast rule on the size of the budget you should allocate for your marketing collateral, a good way to start is to decide on the must-haves for your business. The types of collateral can vary, depending on the nature of your business but items such as business cards, letterheads and thank you cards are some basic essentials. As your business grows, you can move on to invest in other collateral such as fact sheets and presentation folders.

Once you have decided on the collateral you need, estimate your budget based on quotations from designers and printers. You should get quotations from at least 3 or 4 printers for price and quality comparison. Ask to see samples brochures, they have done or a selection of materials to help you select weight of card and paper stock, whether it is single or double-sided printing and also the number of colours to be printed. If you consolidate your print jobs you can get printers to offer a better package price.

Tip

Useful sites for templates or print services

Avery (with interactive program for you to visualise your collateral)