Marketing Budget for P and G - Coursework Example

Budgeting for a Marketing Plan Budgeting for a Marketing Plan A marketing plan is a blueprint of the marketing strategies that a business will put in place to ensure the success either of a new product launch or to augment the success of an existing business (Hamilton & Webster, 2012). One of the most important components of a marketing plan is a marketing budget as it determines the ability of the marketing plan to be made to reality influences the ability of the marketing strategies to bring forth the results expected by the marketing managers. The aim of this part is to develop a marketing budget, critically analyze the marketing and advertising budget, and detail the importance of monitoring and control for the success of a marketing plan with close relation to the pitch. Critical analysis of the marketing budget in the marketing plan Marketing budget for P&G in the Aussie Shampoo Nigeria launch Marketing expenses Budget July August Advertising $ 20,000 $ 24,000 Website $ 7,000 $ 7,000 Promotions $ 5,000 $ 5,000 Public Relations $ 1,000 $ 1,000 Service $ 500 $ 1,000 Other $ 1,000 $ 1,000 Total $ 34,500 $ 39,000 The decisions made in the marketing plan budget were aimed at ensuring the spending is in synchrony with the strategy of the Aussie Shampoo launch in terms of sales and marketing activities. The prioritize given in terms of high and low spending for high spending to be made to facets that will result in high market acquisition, increased sales and revenue generation from the Nigerian market including advertising, use of websites mainly social sites and the Procter and Gamble website (Armstrong, 2002). The main social sites used will include facebook, twitter, instragram, and the Procter and Gamble website for advertising information relation to the Nigerian target population. The percentage of sales of the spending for marketing expenses is at 5% for July and 7%, this evidences the low percentage impact of spending on the performance of the Shampoo business and if the projection of the sales is accurate it results in augmented benefits for the firm. The main ways these projections have been made are based on the industry trends and performance of the industry and the competitors in the Nigerian market. The budgets are realistic and achievable owing to the demographic characteristics and abilities of the Nigerian market as determined in the PESTLE analysis in the marketing plan. A marketing budget plans a number of benefits in a marketing plan including giving the marketing manager an ability to control the expenses and forecast revenues in the formulation and performance of a marketing plan. The other benefits of a marketing budget are assisting in coordination of marketing activities and aids in keeping the efforts on target as well as acting as a control measure to ensure modifications ensure the aims of the marketing plan are met. A marketing budget also aids in establishment of performance standards that are communicated to the implementers for effectiveness and success of marketing plan. Promotions are the other measure to which the market budget is aimed and is a substantial amount of the marketing budget. The reason for this is due to the need to ensure there is a bargaining chip with the population against the competition owing to the high prices the Aussie shampoo sales in relation to the opposition. There is a need for the Aussie shampoo to have high promotions than the competition as a means to compensate for the high prices. There is a very high ability for the target market to accept high prices as long as they receive promotions as compensation explaining the decision to have high amount of marketing budget for promotions. Critical analysis of the advertising budget within the pitch There is a need to make a breakdown of the advertising expenses budget to allow for critical analysis of the advertising budget through the enumeration of the contents of the advertising budget. The main advertising budget contents for Aussie Shampoo are television and radio advert, personal selling, direct marketing, and social sites as the avenues through which the marketing managers will use to ensure the aims of amassing market share, augmented revenue and sales, and a foothold in the Nigerian shampoo market. Advertising expenses breakdown Expense Month July August TV & Radio advert $ 9,000 $ 9,000 Personal Selling $ 2,000 $ 4,000 Direct Marketing $ 5,000 $ 5,000 Social Sites $ 4,000 $ 6,000 Total $ 20,000 $ 24,000 TV $ radio advert will receive almost fifty percent of the advertising expenditure and this decision has been made to allow information to reach a high percentage of the target market. This is in relation to the demographic and segmentation information of the target market and the realization that many of the people in the target market have access to radio and television and use it often. Since there is a need for direct contact and sales for the people to use and reuse Aussie shampoo due to the need for convincing the users. This has led to the need for the allocation of the second highest advertising expenditure on direct marketing to allow the shampoo dispensed to the users and gain a high amount of repeat customers. Social sites including facebook, instagram, and twitter receive the next higher amount of advertising expenses in the advertising budget and this is due to the high amount of people in the target population. The target population uses the social sites more often as a means of communication and in the access of new information making it a possible communication method for the target market. This will ensure the group gets the information on the Aussie shampoo, promotional benefits, and the benefits of the Aussie shampoo in comparison to that of the competitors. The overall advertising expenditure is aimed at ensuring the introduction of Aussie shampoo in the Nigerian market receives maximum airplay and information flow for the market on the importance of the shampoo and its advantage over the competitors. The main aims of the advertising budget are ensuring profitability of the Aussie shampoo, the advertising is a small percentage of the sales made from the Aussie shampoo, and having a goal of increasing the sales with time but the advertising expenses have to be a small percentage. Critical analysis of the importance of control and monitoring within the pitch There is a need for the realization and understanding of the monitoring and evaluation since it has a high impact on the ability of the marketing plan to achieve the predetermined plans. Control and monitoring is very important because it results in the ability of the marketing plan managers to manage the businesses for making informed decisions for management purposes. This allows the marketing plan managers to check on the variance in the actual performance of the business in the market and the forecast plans in terms of revenues and expenses. This allows the management to take informed decisions for the management of the marketing plans and actual activities for the increased development of the business (Blythe, 2012). Control and marketing is done through customer feedback using surveys and polls. This is done through online polls on the internet and through direct tests with the customers allowing for feedback to be analyzed. Feedback allows the management to know which of the products are doing well and the ones that have to be changed or removed from the market. This will enable the company to make changes on the products on the market to avoid the company making losses in a short time. Monitoring and controls allows the marketing managers to ensure that there is a close synchronization of the marketing budget with the objectives of the Aussie shampoo business. This allows for the objectives of the marketing department to be realistic and attainable and allows the marketing team to ensure that realistic follow-throughs are in place for the success of the operation. Monitoring and control also allows the marketing team to ensure that a high amount of budget put on a particular item in the budget list is justified. This allows Aussie shampoo business managers to understand and justify the importance of the high expenditure on advertising expenditure and know that it is justified in the circumstances where the business is a startup. The decision to commit high percentage of budget expenditure on the advertising is reached based on substantial research on the new area of the introduction of the Aussie shampoo. The other benefit for having control and monitoring is that it allows for the marketing team References V. MacDonald. "The Hair Care Market." Happi, vol. 39.12, pp. 64-78, 2002. Tai, L. (2000). “Formulating Detergents and Personal Care Products: A Guide to Product Development.” Illinois: AOCS Press. Armstrong, G., 2002. Global Marketing Management. New Jersey: Pearson. Blythe, J., 2012. Strategic Marketing. London: Kogan page. Devashish, D., 2011. Tourism Marketing. Stamford: Cengage Learning. Panda, T., 2009. Marketing Management. New York: McGraw-Hill. Proctor, T., 2014. Strategic Marketing. New York: Springer. Hamilton, L., and Webster, P., 2012. The International Business Environment. London: Oxford University Press. Read More