Taking the Stress out of Budget Planning Season

The holiday season is staring us down. Seeing Thanksgiving tchotchkes in stores already is stressful, but what’s more stressful about this season is budget planning. If, like us, you’re responsible for marketing products and building brands, this tends to be a precarious time of year, as you’re simultaneously carrying out the remainder of your marketing and advertising plans, quantifying the results of the previous nine months’ efforts, and forecasting to establish a realistic, relevant marketing budget for the coming fiscal year. That’s what we’re doing, at least, and we know that most of our partners are, too because we’re helping many of them do so.

Over the last few years, we’ve developed an approach to planning and budgeting that our partners find takes a large amount of stress off their shoulders during planning season. We stake our reputations, our livelihood as food marketing experts, and the success of our and our partners’ brands on the budget recommendations we make.

We know that tough decisions about fund allocation must often be made quickly and that they’re frequently based not just on quantifiable data but also on wisdom and experience.

We know that any number of factors can derail the best-laid budget plan. Your current marketing efforts may be wildly successful, but budget cuts, unfavorable economic conditions, unforeseen sourcing difficulties, shifts in consumer trends, changes in technology, volatility in commodities markets, consolidation, reprioritization, and a variety of other issues beyond your control can force you to squeeze the same (or better) results from half the budget.

We know about the good stressors, too. Successful marketing efforts this year might have earned you an exponentially larger 2014 budget than you’ve ever been tasked with managing, and it’s up to you to allocate everything to the right buckets to keep up the momentum. An exciting proposition for sure, but one that comes with high scrutiny and expectation.

MarketPlace is certainly no stranger to these pressures. In fact, those pressures are the catalyst for our development of a strategic, measurable approach to planning and budgeting, one that ensures that your marketing dollars are intelligently and effectively invested.

We’re not impressed by big ideas if they don’t have a basis in strategy. We’re not willing to recommend anything that would detract from the goals of your brand or the expectations of your consumers and stakeholders. We don’t even accept commission on media; that’s budget better spent on other marketing services to build your brand.

We’re interested in real, long-term business relationships with our clients. Our mission is to grow with our partners, so that means that MarketPlace has significant incentive to use every possible resource at our disposal (media relationships, industry insight, full-service capability, experience, and passion) to market your brand as if it were our own. This commitment serves us well, it serves you well, and it’s one of the primary reasons we’ve thrived as partners in the food, beverage, and ingredients industries. A conversation with MarketPlace today could mean a better brand tomorrow, so contact us. Let’s talk about your budget planning needs. We’re ready to make this season a lot less stressful and next season a lot more profitable!