budget

Examples of budget in the following topics:

• Determining a Budget

  • Marketers tend to use several techniques to determine an advertising budget.
  • Ratio-to-sales - The amount budgeted is based on some portion of past or forecasted sales.
  • Competitive comparisons - The budget is based on the amount spent by major competitors.
  • Experimental approach - The budget is based on test market results.
  • Explain the information needed and techniques used to determine an advertising budget

• Determining a Budget

  • Marketing budgets aid in the planning of operations by forcing managers to prioritize activities and consider how conditions may change.
  • The essential purposes of budgeting include:
  • Marketing plans are resource driven and they affect the budget.
  • Therefore, two big budgeting decisions should be resolved up front:
  • Explain how the components of IMC influence the allocation of funds for a marketing budget

• Funds Available Relative to Costs

  • Marketing departments need to look at what types of advertising are available that will keep them within budget.
  • No company has an unlimited promotional budget.
  • Marketing departments need to look at what types of advertising are available that will keep them within budget.
  • This strategy will help marketing departments efficiently use their promotional budget.
  • Different forms of advertising charge different rates and can impact the promotional mix budget.

• Defining the Marketing Objectives

  • Watkis' article argues that most marketers start with the budget and foolishly take that for a marketing plan while the right approach is actually quite different.
  • Create a profit and loss projection with a detailed marketing budget showing the allocation of resources.
  • This is where the budget finally comes into play.
  • The methodology of "objective -> action -> budget" is logical, but why is it that so many marketers keep insisting on coming up with the budget before actually putting a plan in place?
  • The "let's copy last year's budget" mentality is prevalent in many organizations because it is the easy way out of a not so glamorous function.

• Creating a Marketing Mix

  • Decide which ones are the most efficient considering your goals and your budget.
  • When looking at your goals and budget, remember that your decisions will also be based on where your product is in the product life cycle.
  • Once you have created your customer profile and determined your goals and budget, you'll be able to make tactical decisions that will reach your customers throughout the entire life cycle of the product.
  • In other words, it must reaches your customer and motivates them to buy, while at the same time stays within your budget.
  • To create a viable marketing mix, a company must first know its customer, goals, and budget.

• Creating a Media Plan

  • The standard media plan covers four stages: stating media objectives, evaluating media, selecting and implementing choices, and determining the budget.
  • The standard media plan covers four stages: (a) stating media objectives; (b) evaluating media; (c) selecting and implementing media choices; and (d) determining the media budget.
  • The media planner must make media mix decisions and timing directions, both of which are restricted by the available budget.
  • The media budget is a subset of the advertising budget, and the same methods used to create advertising budget will be used to create the media budget.

• Setting Goals

  • In addition to considering recent market, consumer and technological shifts, brands must assess their marketing budget and target audience when setting IMC goals.
  • An IMC strategy with a budget of $2 million will be radically different in size, scope and reach than a marketing budget of only $2,000.
  • Thus, smaller businesses with tiny IMC budgets may rely heavily on social media advertising and word-of-mouth networks to increase brand presence and generate new leads, rather than more expensive television and billboard advertising.
  • Despite varying budgets, product features and benefits, and consumer behaviors, organizations typically set and work towards the following goals when implementing IMC strategies:

• The Importance of Evaluating Marketing Performance

  • Ideally, marketing performance measurement should be a logical extension of the planning and budgeting exercise that happens before a company's fiscal year.
  • This is particularly important since companies are prone to reduce marketing budgets during economic downturns, downsizing, and mergers.
  • Evaluating marketing performance helps companies plan and budget for the following fiscal year.

• Introduction to Integrated Marketing Communications

  • Today, corporate marketing budgets are allocated toward trade promotions, consumer promotions, branding, public relations, and advertising.
  • The allocation of communication budgets away from mass media and traditional advertising has raised the importance of IMC importance for effective marketing.
  • This is especially useful for small- or mid-sized firms with limited staff and marketing budgets.

• Conclude with Action Plan

  • It includes developing the content; describing the product or services and special features, creating a marketing budget that includes advertising and promotional needs, describing the business-its location any advantages or disadvantages it may have, the staffing developin a pricing strategy, forecasting the company's financial future and defining the market segment as well as the competition
  • Financial Forecast-assumptions, budgets, use of funds, monthly pro-forma, contribution margin analysis, break even analysis, prediction of future scenarios with corresponding action plan