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Marketing Plan

Aim of Marketing Plan is not only to attract and keep a steady


group of loyal customers, but also to expand your customer base by identifying and attracting, new customers and to reduce risks by anticipating market shifts that can affect your bottom line. Marketing Plan should include all 4 Ps of Marketing

Marketing Plan
Describe Your Target Market Identify Your Competition Describe Your Product Develop A Marketing Budget
For your advertising and promotional plan For costs allocated for advertising and promotions For advertising and promotional materials For a list of advertising media to be used

Describe Location (Place)


Develop Pricing Strategy Develop an Effective Promotional Strategy

Marketing Budget
An estimated projection of costs required to promote a business

products or services. A marketing budget will typically include all promotional costs, including marketing communications like website development, advertising and public relations as well as costs of employing marketing staff and utilizing office space. Marketing budget is a listing of all the expenses planned for marketing A marketing budget should include expenses for marketing personnel, marketing training, marketing consultants, market research, market development and promotion.

Before making Budget important points to consider


Who are the customers youre trying to reach through advertising and marketing? What stage of business are you in? Do you need to attract new customers, or create a strong brand that keeps the old ones coming back? What are your objectives? How often do you need to reach your audience? What do you think is the most compelling way to reach them? Through what medium? How much do you think your competitors are spending on marketing? How much have you spent in the past, and did you get results? How much can you realistically spend?

Budget Preparation Methods


Percentage of salesindustry averages: compare

with own averages


Task method: looks at objectives + costs of tasks

(marketing tools) required to succeed


Competitive method: compare your marketing

budget to leading competitors


Zero-base method: no expenditure justified just

because it was last year

Steps for Calculation of Marketing Budget


Step 1 Create a list of the different segments of your marketing efforts. Include research, testing, creative production, communications and tracking. Step 2 Estimate the costs involved in gathering market research. Market research includes efforts such as developing a customer profile and examining your competitors. Include administering surveys, buying research studies and hiring a consultant. Step 3 Estimate the costs of testing different marketing strategies. Include product giveaways, focus groups, creating different versions of your product, selling new items in limited locations and follow-up surveys.

Step 4 Estimate the costs of a communications campaign. Include the costs of creative design for packaging, ads, websites and other collateral materials. Calculate the costs for your desired media buys, such as print ads, website banners and TV and radio commercials. Include expenses for direct mail, trade shows, public relations, contests, promotions and the cost of building and maintaining a website. Step 5 Estimate the costs of tracking and monitoring your communications efforts. This might include the purchase of a website statistics package, visiting retailers who sell your product or conducting customer mail or telephone surveys. Step 6 Add up the total estimated costs. Determine whether you can afford the total price of your marketing plan. If not, review each category to see where you can cut back. Step 7 Create a spending formula that ties your marketing budget to a percentage of sales. If your marketing plan is working, then the more you sell with it, the more you should consider spending on your marketing efforts. If your sales drop, a spending plan tied to sales will put in a place a brake that will alert you to reexamine each aspect of your marketing plan

Promotion Budget
A specified amount of money set aside to promote a
business' or organization's products or beliefs. Promotional budgets are created to anticipate the essential costs associated with growing a business or maintaining a brand name. The budget is often set according to a percentage of sales or profits in order to maintain the intended growth rate.

Promotional Budget
Promotional budget is the part of the overall marketing

efforts devoted specifically to promotion


A promotion budget should include those expenses for

promotional activities such as advertisements, brochures, direct mailings, samples, trades shows, displays and sponsorships.
A promotional budget can be prepared by allocating a certain

amount of expected sales to promotion activities or by


planning certain promotion activities and allocating expenses for them.

Promotional Budget
A promotion budget should be developed at the beginning of

the year. For the existing business, a good place to start is using the past years expenses. Additional promotional costs can then be included based on any new promotional strategies that are to be implemented in the upcoming year. Historically, firms have indicated spending around 5 percent (anywhere between 1 and 10 percent) of annual gross revenues on promotional activities. So, a business projecting to generate Rs.100,000 in gross revenues may plan to invest Rs.5,000 in promotional activities. An example of a promotional budget prepared as 5 percent of expected revenue is presented in Table #1. This method seems to work well for existing businesses with good information on expected sales.

Table #1 - - Promotional Budget as a Percent of Estimated Sales Expected Gross Revenue Percent of Gross Revenue for Promotion TOTAL DOLLARS ALLOCATED TO PROMOTION Promotional Activities Rs. 100,000 5% Rs. 5,000 Cost Balance Rs. Rs.

Newspaper Advertisements
Food Magazine Advertisement Brochures Sampling Postage

1500 3500
500 500 300 3000 2500 1200

1000 1500

Sponsorships
Trade Show Displays Business Cards TOTAL PROMOTIONAL EXPENDITURES/BALANCE

300
800 100

900
100 0

5000 0

Promotional Budget
However, for a new or expanding business, sales and revenue

projections may not be readily available and reliable. Therefore, promotion costs may have to be estimated based on the upcoming years overall financial forecasts and marketing plans. The relation between amount spent on promotion and the sales generated from promotion should be understood. If there is no direct relation between promotion expenditures and sales, the promotion techniques should be carefully analyse. Promotion plans and budgets should not be carved in stone but should be used as a guide and should be modified according to the marketing needs of the business during the year. An example promotional budget for a business with specific promotional plans (not constrained by a certain level of revenue) is presented in Table #2.

Table #2 - - Promotional Budget for Planned Activities Expected Gross Revenue Rs.100,000 Percent of Gross Revenue for Promotion 5% TOTAL DOLLARS ALLOCATED TO PROMOTION Rs.5,000 Expected Promotional Activities Cost Sales (units) Newspaper Advertisements 1500 10000 Food Magazine Advertisement 500 8000 Brochures 500 2000 Sampling 1000 15000 Postage 300 1000 Sponsorships 300 5000 Trade Show Displays 800 10000 Business Cards 100 1000 TOTAL PROMOTIONAL EXPENDITURES/SALES (units) 5000 52000

Market research
The systematic gathering , recording and analysing of data about

problem relating to marketing of goods and services


Systematic problem analysis, model building and fact finding for

the purpose of improved decision making & control in marketing of goods and services
Marketing research relating to the specific aspect of marketing

mix management of a particular marketing organisation

About Market Research


Market Research is a well organized activity

If full fledged market research department is set up with management

graduates the result of market research would academically very sound but mostly divergent from reality as they dont have the knowledge of the market
If it is done by sales staff then they are not able to devote much time

and attention
A judicious blend of internal and external exercise could provide the

write answer

Functions Of Marketing Research


1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Long and short-range sales forecasting Customer buying behaviour Competitors activities research Product testing and new product acceptance Packaging performance analysis

Brand image evaluation


Sales and distribution channel analysis Advertising and promotional effectiveness studies

Steps And Methodology In Marketing Research


Define the problem Data collection Obtaining the relevant facts Analysis and interpreting the facts with reference to the problem Preparation of research report

Cost of Market research


The cost of market research can vary wide from thousands to many millions

spent by multinationals on major consumer brands. It is relatively easy to assess the cost of market research and the procedure to follow is:
1.

Scope out the activities that you think will be needed (e.g. 1000 telephone
calls, 200 face to face interviews etc.) assess the amount of time input that this requires

2.

Identify the daily cost of either your own staff or employing people of the right caliber to do the work

3.

Add in the preparation time for questionnaires and the time to analyse and write up the reports.

Cost benefit Evaluation of market research


Investment in market research is expected to produce additional revenue or

reduce cost in much the same way as a new piece of equipment


There are no widely accepted procedures for evaluating the returns nor is there

any standard set of criteria for economic feasibility of project


A cost benefit analysis finds, quantifies, and adds all the positive factors. These

are the benefits. Then it identifies, quantifies, and subtracts all the negatives, the costs. The difference between the two indicates whether the planned action is advisable. The real trick to doing a cost benefit analysis well is making sure you include all the costs and all the benefits and properly quantify them

Cost Benefit Evaluation Of Market Research


P.L.Days in his paper optimising Marketing research through Cost benefit

analysis has outline the main features of such analysis


1. 2. 3.

Review objectives that are being sought Establish criteria for the use in evaluating the alternatives Identify relevant alternatives with reference to particular assessment of

economic costs and benefits or gain associated with it


4. 5. 6. 7.

Recognise time pattern of benefits and costs Recognise uncertainty. Decide alternative strategy and outcomes . Apply profitability criteria and come to the decision of better strategy Develop a model to suit the analysis with the built in probabilities to take care of uncertainties

Factors Responsible For Budget Size


Cost of market research information are acquisition and operating costs while its

value is utility in terms of profitability, market share etc.


1. 2.

The selling ability of the marketing research head Amount needed to meet or beat the typical level of expenditure incurred by competitors

3. 4.

The amount that the company can afford to spend Budget based on fixed percentage of the total marketing cost budget Research is used most efficiently if its budget is regarded as an investment rather than an expense

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