Marketing is the force that drives a business. The more a business spends on marketing, the more business is generated for it. However, it is never good to have too much of a good thing. If too much capital is spent on marketing the return of investment might diminish. This should be kept in mind while planning Quarterly Marketing Budget.
The idea of a Quarterly Marketing Budget is to see that a business does not spend more on the marketing than on the business itself. In a Quarterly Marketing Budget, include all the expenses related to marketing. The cost of marketing your business or a particular product should be included in a Quarterly Marketing Budget. All these values should be for a quarter. This will give you a fair picture about where expenses need to be cut down or which areas should be focused on more.
How to Plan Quarterly Marketing Budget
Assess the amount of business that any given method of advertising generates. This review done in tandem with the Quarterly Marketing Budget will enable you to analyze the effectiveness of any particular marketing strategy. This in turn will help to improve the marketing strategy in question and its effectiveness. The most successful and effective marketing strategy can enhance profits for the business. Every dollar spent on a particular marketing strategy should yield returns. A Quarterly Marketing Budget will help you reach this point.
A Quarterly Marketing Budget should include advertising, sales promotion, G&A, HR development, sales force, and market research. Print media, radio adverts, television adverts, direct mail, Point of Purchase or POP, and Co-op should all come under advertising. List all these expenses for the first quarter. Then add the expenses and you get the total for advertising.
Sales promotions include trade shows, sales force promotion, and other expenses. G&A includes clerical, managerial, telephone, travel, supplies, and other such expenses. Videos, workshops, tuitions or seminars comprise HR development. Sales force includes motivational programs, recruiting, salaries and benefits, telephone, training, and other expenses. Market research includes salaries and benefits, supplies, and telephone.
Download Quarterly Marketing Budget Template
Quarterly Marketing Budget Worksheet Template
Once you have calculated the total for each of these categories, you can calculate the grand total by adding all the totals for all these categories. Alongside the totals, tabulate the percentage of expenses. Then you will get a fair idea about how much you are spending on which category. This will help you to either cut down or ameliorate the spending on any particular category. That is the point of a Quarterly Marketing Budget.
There are many templates available online for creating a Quarterly Marketing Budget. You can use these for your business or for personal purposes. Business uses the Quarterly Marketing Budget to plan ahead. Getting a fair picture of expenditure on marketing for a particular quarter helps in calculating how much needs to be spent or cut down in the next quarter. In all events, a marketing budget cannot exceed the actual budget of the business. If the business brings in a particular sum of money, the marketing budget can only be a part of it.
