• To determine how much a company should spend on advertising a new business category or product.

• To identify three case study examples of companies that have organized forums to connect people as part of their corporate social responsibility objectives.

Marketing Spend on New Business Category

• Several factors should be considered when determining how much to spend on pushing a new business segment or product. Such factors include the age of the business, its size, consumer buying behavior, market competitiveness, and overall company margins.

• The Small Business Administration (SBA) office encourages small businesses with revenues less than $5 million to allocate 7-8 percent of their revenues to marketing. The article went on to state that in actual practice, many businesses allocate between 3-5 percent of annual revenue to start-up marketing or launching new products.

• In a recent study by Deloitte which focused primarily on established companies and their chief marketing officers, well-established companies typically spend between 7.7% of their total marketing budget on introducing new products. Also, 67% of companies surveyed stated that they make use of social media when introducing new products.
• According to Inc.com, businesses should be willing to spend about 7.7% of gross revenue on marketing.

Summary Of Our Early Findings Relevant To The Goals

• In our initial hour of research, we were able to determine the recommended and actual marketing spend on launching new product categories in both small and established firms.

• Due to time constraints, we were unable to identify case studies of companies that have organized forums to connect people as part of their corporate social responsibility objectives.