An annual budget is built to survive a bad quarter, not to look good in January. That criterion, and not the amount, decides its shape.
How the year splits up
Not into twelve equal parts.
The first quarter serves to produce what will run later: the evergreen videos, the tutorials, the answers to objections. The second tests and renews. The third prepares the end of year and shoots before the creators are booked. The fourth spends on distribution what the first three manufactured.
The rule is simple: shoot when it is quiet, run when people buy.
The lines the budget must contain
Six, and they are counted separately.
The production of the videos. The usage rights, by duration and by channel. Paid distribution, which is not production. The variants and the subtitles. A reserve to redo a failed video. And the internal time, that of the brief, the approval and the measurement.
The last line comes from no invoice, and it is often the dearest.
The line almost everybody forgets
The renewal of what is already running.
Every year, some of your best videos reach the end of their licence, and the question arises at the worst moment: they work, so stopping them costs, and extending them is negotiated while the creator knows they work.
Put that line in from the first order, with a date. It is the only way not to have it imposed on you.
How much to set aside against turnover
The right question is not a percentage.
Count according to what your distribution consumes: if your campaigns wear out their hooks in six weeks, your production budget has to produce at that rate, otherwise you are paying for distribution with no fresh material.
A media budget with no production budget produces exactly the effect of a car with no fuel.
What must stay flexible
A third, no more.
Keep an unallocated share for opportunities: a product taking off, a season starting early, a creator who delivers well and has to be booked. A budget entirely planned in January is a budget that will be able to do nothing with an event in March.
How to defend it internally
With three figures, not with a plan.
The cost per usable video, not per delivered video. The number of variants drawn from one shoot. And the length of time a video stays effective in distribution.
Those three figures turn a spend into a production tool, and it is the only conversation that protects a budget.
How an annual envelope divides up
| The line | Its indicative share | What it funds |
|---|---|---|
| Regular production | About half | The monthly video flow |
| Peak moments | About a third | Dated campaigns |
| The testing reserve | The remainder | Formats and creators to try |
What the budget must plan for beyond the shoot
Usage rights. A video run as advertising for six months costs more than one published once, and a budget that forgets this ends up buying rights mid-campaign.
What to measure when deciding next year
Cost per video actually published, not per video produced. An order of ten videos of which only three are used costs three times the stated price, and that calculation changes decisions.
What happens when it is cut
Nothing, for six weeks.
That is what makes the cut so easy to decide and so costly afterwards: the effect only shows in the following quarter, when campaigns are running on old videos and the acquisition cost rises for no apparent reason.
