he design team that created your ad has really knocked itself out, took it to the hoop and made the CEO squeal with delight ... in short, the ad is ready to motivate your target audience and increase your revenues. However, your job is not quite finished yet.

There are a few things to check before you drop a disk containing the ad into an express courier envelope and take it to the local mail center with a smile of satisfaction as wide as the equator. When that envelope arrives at its destination the next day, will a publication find a disk with some cryptic scribble in permanent marker on it from an unknown company to an unspecified recipient?

Receipt of a mystery disk will delay the delivery for hours, maybe days. A worst-case scenario could have the mailroom refusing the shipment and sending it back, or adding your envelope to the trouble stack where it might never be seen again. All your hard work could go down the tubes because there was no paperwork enclosed with your package.

First and foremost, find out the deadlines and production schedule of the publication to which you are sending an ad. Most provide a media kit to advertisers to refer to for specs, print and online rates, publication dates and even reader demographics. If you can't find it, check the publication's Web site or call your sales representative. It's better to bug a few people now than to throw a wrench in the process when it's deadline time.

A completed insertion order is also very important for a variety of reasons and should not be neglected. It tells the publication:

• Your contact information
• The name of the company you or your agency represents
• The name or number of the ad reference
• When the ad is scheduled to appear

Another extremely important part of the process is providing a printed copy of the ad to show how it is supposed to look in print. This is referred to as a composite, mechanical or proof. The composite should be as close to an accurate a representation of the ad as possible; the publication will appreciate this so they don't have to guess. Shades of gray and tricky size differences are very difficult to approximate, and if problems arise with the ad at production time, you could be held accountable for the mistake.

When submitting color artwork containing specific company colors that must be matched dead-on (for example, for a company logo), provide a color-match proof. Locate a service bureau or pre-press specialist in the Yellow Pages of your phone book. These companies can generate a high resolution, true-to-color output (often called an IRIS or Veloprint) of your design from your disk on their specialized equipment, which the publication's layout department can use to verify accuracy.

Last but not least, label the disk with your company's name, a reference to the ad and anything else that will help the layout department match the disk to the ad and company. If the disk gets separated from the ad folder and all it says on it is something to the effect of "ZZY102503.jpg," this might cause confusion and delays.

Publications require paperwork for ads for a number of reasons: to help the production processes go smoothly and to help keep the production team organized-yours is not the only ad that will appear in an issue. Insertion orders reinforce the stated terms of the legally binding ad contracts. A file folder holding all the necessary paperwork, from signed contracts to insertion orders and composites, benefits both parties involved in case a dispute arises.

Next in the series: What to do if problems occur and how to craft an effective follow up ad