Section 2: Marketing Budget (MS Excel worksheets template)

Section 2 uses the Business Plan Financials MS Excel template (see: Required Course Files in Week 1). Use the Business Plan Financials Guide (see: Required Course Files in Week 1) to support your development of the marketing budget.

1. Complete the Marketing Budget worksheet for your company.

Note: Complete the Setup tab first based on the instructions located in the Business Plan Financials Guide (document you also downloaded from PlanningShop). Only the setup tab and marketing tab should be completed for this assignment.

• Hints: The goal of the marketing budget is to help you determine how much it will cost you to reach your market and achieve your sales goals.
• Hints: When filling out the Marketing Budget worksheet in the Excel spreadsheet, do the following:
  • Begin in the current year and complete a marketing budget for the first year of your business. The information you enter in the marketing budget spreadsheet will flow through to your Income Statement in the Business Plan Financials.
  • Leave the number at zero (0) for any marketing vehicles you do not intend to use.
  • Remember that all marketing activities involve costs. If social media represents a significant portion of your marketing, assume you will incur costs of advertising and these should be reflected on your budget. Even if a social media site charges nothing to use it, you will need to use company resources to manage the site, pay someone to execute your social media marketing campaigns, and most likely pay for ads on that site.
  • Do not leave the Marketing Budget blank assuming you will not have any marketing costs.
  • Do not complete all the rows; only fill in the costs for the marketing vehicles you will actually use. These must match the content you describe in Question 4 Word portion of this assignment.

The specific course learning outcome associated with this assignment is:

• Create a marketing plan that identifies a target market, market competition, a company message, and marketing vehicles for a company.