Marketing Focus – Setting Marketing Budgets

How much should you spend on marketing to be profitable? This is a difficult question, especially when business is down, but there are a number of established methods for setting your budgets which we will explain here to help you figure out the right amount to spend.

1. Matching competitors’ spend to gain market share
By monitoring competitors’ activity we can estimate how much they are spending and go head to head to gain market share. However, it is difficult to accurately estimate the figures and if you are competing against the market leader you will not be able to match their spend.

2. Percentage of sales
Allocating a set percentage of the profit to promotion and then dividing this budget between the different marketing functions is a straight forward method to put a figure against the marketing function, without damaging profitability. However, effective marketing has the power to increase the profitability of a company and when business is declining, that is the time to invest heavily in marketing, but this method encourages cuts at this crucial time.

3. Objective and task method
This involves determining the marketing communications objectives, the tasks necessary to achieve these objectives, and calculating the cost of each element to enable us to fulfill our objectives most effectively. This allocates the appropriate budget to the task required, but don’t get carried away - set realistic objectives for an affordable budget.

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If you would like Shaw Marketing Services to help you with your marketing budgets call now on 952 903 154 to arrange a meeting.

Urbytus are specialists in solving communities’ problems using smart online technology such as community websites. They are often asked the same questions and see the same problems crop up across the different communities using their web solutions, so they have decided to organise the Costa del Sol’s first Community Presidents’ Forum at the end of this month.

This informative and free event will take place at the Don Carlos Hotel in Elviria on 30th May from 16.30. It will bring together experts from different sectors to discuss the important issues of; community debts, the data protection act and video surveillance and technology for communities. Presidents will be able to ask questions and get practical, legal and technical solutions to their problems. At the end of the talks there will be cheese & wine and an opportunity to mix, and exchange ideas.

Presidents and committee members are invited to join the discussion! Registration for the forum is free of charge via their website. Any service providers to communities who are interested in taking part in the event should contact nigel@urbytus.es, for more information visit www.urbytus.es

Spanish Healthcare Maze

Many people are looking at saving money and wondering if they could do without private medical cover but worried how they would cope using the Spanish Healthcare system. I have had excellent experiences with the GPs and hospitals both with chronic conditions, child birth and also with my son’s health, however language and cultural barriers can be tricky and if you feel stuck with a practitioner who you don’t feel is giving you the right information or care, what do you do?

There’s a great blog written by Cecilia Tacchi, a native Spanish speaker with a medical background who has fought the system and won and wants to help other people do the same. She advises that every patient has the right to a second opinion for a serious condition without needing to seek private medical help. She also explains the process of requesting to change doctors if you don’t feel that their care is sufficient – it’s actually simple when you know how. Check out her blog here and arm yourself with information to get the best care

Cecilia is a patient advocate, which means that she will represent you in medical situations, advise you and fight your corner with doctors, administrators or even insurance companies.

For further information click here or call 951 948 034