The cost of running and promoting your website can vary greatly depending on the scope and how much you decide to handle in-house. Often you can save money by doing things yourself or using free tools, but this can be demanding on staff time and, depending on your staff's experience and expertise, can compromise the quality of the outcome. Hiring a consultant will cost more money, but with the right one, the impact on staff will be minimal, the project will be completed in a timely manner, and you will save your self some hard lessons about strategizing and implementation. Of course, you'll have to weigh your own resources to decide the best path for your organization.
To successfully fundraise online you have to take a special interest in your website and overall Internet strategy. Here's an overview of the resources you may require.
Planning/development costs. Integrate your online work with the rest of your organization's strategic plan. From a staff cost perspective, you want to look at what you want to accomplish first, how much money you want to spend overall in your first phase, how you want to manage the project, and which employees will do the work.
In addition to staff, you will have to make budget decisions on what vendors to use for your Internet presence- for designing (or redesigning) and hosting your web site, for example. While it is possible to design your site in-house, most organizations outsource the initial design to a design firm or consultant, then handle the maintenance and updates in-house.
Contracts for building Web sites vary tremendously according to the anticipated size of the site, interactive features, and any special technologies. Be sure to compare bids from multiple vendors, and, depending on the complexity of your site, consider hiring a consultant to help you with the vendor selection process. TechSoup.org has an excellent section on working with consultants.
Hosting your web site and making technology decisions is another cost factor. If you have a very simple site with little technology, your hosting fees can be as low as $20 per month. If you have a more complex site that is database-driven, be prepared to pay between $250 and $1,000 per month or more.
Marketing and promotion. Often a web site launch has two phases - the "soft launch" and the "hard launch." For the soft launch, a site is made "live" without a lot of fanfare and promotion. Often organizations use this time to ensure everything works as expected, work out any kinks, and make final changes to the site. Then, when everything is in tip-top shape, the hard launch begins - a fanfare-filled series of announcements and events that drive traffic to the new site.
A combination of online promotional strategies and traditional public relations techniques is most effective for the hard launch, and the costs can vary based on the scope of the promotion and the degree of outsourcing. At a minimum, your launch should include e-mailing all of your lists and contacting relevant portals and sites. A more aggressive launch would include faxing your press release to known media outlets, developing an online campaign to drive traffic to your site, pitching stories about newsworthy features on your site to specific reporters, holding a public meeting or event to announce the launch, distributing collateral marketing materials and more. A marketing firm or consultant might charge between $2,000 and $25,000 (and up!) to handle the launch, or you could handle the promotion in-house, investing less money but more staff and volunteer time.
Source: Groundspring ITS Topic 7
