wasted money on cures forgot how to fix myself they say that time is free then why is so precious oh I'll save memories in my head like poo on world me remind you to look ahead running [Music] L lately I've lost my track lost my track I've saved the deepest Seas deep hoping I find something something to bring back better times oh I'll save memories and my head like Polaroid on world they you to look ahead CU time is running out running out time is running out is running out time is running out time is running out time is running out time is running time is running [Music] out time is running [Music] what if my best days are over they can't be [Music] over they can't be [Music] over time is running out what if my best things are over they keep me over [Music] the time is [Music] running time [Music] run evening everyone Jim here Welcome to our fourth session on btec business unit 2 ahead of the start of the next unit 2 exams part A starts tomorrow afternoon welcome if you're joining us live just looking at the numbers hundreds joining us live for this session uh strong numbers over the last uh few days apart from the weekend when I was poly and uh well if you're joining us live welcome if you're watching on catch up tomorrow morning hopefully you'll find this session useful as well um as always a huge thanks to Karen and the team who are helping out on the live chat with some fantastic advice so if you got any questions or comments in the live chat firstly keep them related to unit 2 and secondly have a look at the answers that com in from Karen and the team I'll try and pick up some of the questions as well as we go lots of people here today and lots of people a little bit anxious uh perhaps a little bit nervous about tomorrow so please please please in the live chat don't make things worse uh let's keep let's stay focused on unit two just for the next 35 to 40 minutes or so well we mentioned that we've already done three of live streams and uh We've covered five the marketing mix 20 marks before that we looked at the research pack and the uh the justification where we looked at SWAT analysis product life cycle that kind of stuff today we'd finish off with what we're not doing is we're not looking at sorry yesterday we also looked at aims and objectives didn't we af2 we're not looking at presentation marks because as you'll see in a minute it's really easy to get seven or eight out of eight for presentation for in each of Activity one and Activity 2 today we're just going to focus on af6 which is the budget and af7 which is the sort of time scale timetable uh for in in in activity two and uh just to uh have a quick look to finish off our analysis as to how students have done in recent sittings you may be familiar with this table from previous sessions um af6 there and af7 highlighted in yellow and you can see that out of the eight marks on offer for the budget the marketing budget students are getting an average of 2.6 so it's one of the worst performing assessment focuses perhaps because students are running out of time uh which is definitely the case for some students but also because they're not giving enough detail uh to the the budget section uh so we'll go through that in this session and the time scale there's four marks going most students get one or two well not many get four two or three is the is the average therefore the average is just short of two there so 1.8 so uh with that in mind don't forget we've been working our way through in these last few sessions a mini case practice assessment on a business called slide and seek so we'll use that for the next 20 minutes or so and we've had a look through that the research pack we've had a look through how to apply the research how to consider the key themes reliability validity we've looked at aims and objectives and yesterday we had a look at the marketing mix So today we're going to have a think a bit more closely about the budget just a quick note that uh when it comes to those two sides of A4 notes there are three things that you're not allowed to do everything else is fine one is a pre-prepared marketing plan which would be quite difficult because you don't find out about the business until you go into Part B but also you can't take in with you any kind of pre-prepared budget or uh timeline and I guess there must be some students still out there who who think I can take in a cheeky Gant chart or cheeky um budget and copy and paste that in simply not allowed so just a word of a word of caution don't think you can get away with it because you will not be allowed to take those notes in if they contain any kind of budget or timeline everything else is fine isn't it so let's just have a quick think about what is this budget a number of people in the live chat have been saying well I'm not quite sure what this budget is about well don't forget in Part B you'll be told what the marketing budget is and basically what it is it's a it's it's an amount they're going to spend over a particular period on promotion using a selection of different media and that's up to you to decide what media to spend it on so You' be given the budget let's say it's £25,000 I mean in previous papers it's been 10,000 £1 180,000 with our slide and seat casity we've gone with £25,000 and what the examiner wants you to do is to give him or her some detail as to what you're going to spend it on and why that's basically it what are you going to spend it on but of course you're not just going to spend it because it's there to be spent it needs to be spent with a purpose and the purpose of the budget should be to use different m marketing or promotional media to help achieve the aim of the business and therefore to help achieve the objectives of the business which you set yourself so the key is to link your budget to the aims and objectives but not just to say we'll spend 10,000 in advertising you need to break it down so detail is really important for the budget so break it down into maybe some calculations maybe some wider costs so I've got a couple of examples to show you by what what we mean by that now also don't forget that with promotion and the budget uh we were looking at the marketing mix yesterday if you want to and I think it's not a bad idea you can deal with the promotion part of the seven PS as part of your budget so you don't have to repeat it all so if you want to do promotion within af5 the marketing mix that's fine good place to do it but if you decide no I I prefer to leave my two or three paragraphs about my promotional strategy to the budget section that is fine as well as long as it's in there somewhere that part of the the marketing mix will be rewarded so you don't repeat it no need to repeat it so let's just have a quick reminder of what we set yesterday to remember the aim of the business we're given this is to significantly increase Revenue in the next 12 months and we set ourselves three objectives uh objective one to achieve we decided to choose one of the two options if you remember the two options were launch a loyalty scheme for the soft play Park or use mum influences to promote the soft play center we decided to go for the Loyalty scheme so objective one was to achieve a thousand loyalty scheme members within 12 months a new scheme objective two was to increase the number of visits to the uh to the center almost doubling them actually just over doubling them within 12 months that's quite tough and objective three not only to get more people through the door but also to get them to spend more increasing from the current rate of £7 29 each to10 so our objectives not only do they underpin our marketing mix but they are really important when it comes to explaining what your promotional strategy is going to be and how you're going to spend your budget so the aims and objectives is like the glue that holds everything together isn't it consistently constantly refer back to them the whole time so what do you think over to you whilst I just take a quick sip of Benin once again and some water what how would you spend that budget have you got any thoughts I'll leave it open for maybe 30 seconds or so in the live chat have you had some thoughts as to how you would spend that 25,000 budget if you were in charge of slide and seek and you had the aim of increasing sales what do you think I'll keep an eye on the live chat for a bit confused oxygen is back some some great contributions yesterday and the first thing that confus would do is leave at least two2 and a half th000 in a contingency fund which is a good strategy um the basic for those of you not come across this before the contingency fund or like a a buffer is just keeping something back in case you need to do something maybe a last minute promotion or a last minute advertising or leaflet campaign to achieve your aims so definitely yeah I'll take that uh let's pick up what what we' got here we got lots of contribution coming in advertising such as email marketing social media and remarketing yeah remarketing which I've covered in previous videos which is a genius idea the basic idea of remarketing is you run an email campaign and then things like Instagram and Tik Tok and Facebook know who's responded to it and that creates an audience that you can then remarket to and often that leads to more successful promotion so I'll take that uh number of people including Zar here have said School marketing uh so we know it's a soft play center we know that primary schools in particular and nurseries perhaps Also may be a likely source of both of parents as well as potential School groups so you would probably have a a big chunk of your budget around promoting direct to schools maybe to encourage schools to visit whilst it's quieter during weekday love that don't forget the good old influencer mums uh or the mum influences mum fluences is that the word it was in the it was in the casid um mums with influence yeah you no reason why you couldn't do that what else have we got here um Henry's going all in for spending some of the budget maybe you probably spend quite a lot of the 25,000 on endorsed celebrities as opposed to unendorsed celebrities I guess which I suppose is linked to u to mum influences celebrity endorsements looks like it's it's taking uh pride of place quite L Helen's gone for advertising a physically and online so it's a good idea so advertising physically would be things like billboard advertising wouldn't it or it could be posters or some other kind of physical display sponsorship is definitely an option isn't it you you definitely think about maybe a sponsorship deal perhaps uh sponsoring two or three local netball teams or some Junior sports teams or something maybe sponsoring the gymnastics club or something that is a relevant target audience lots of those kind of clubs in the leads area as you might expect that would be a great great idea thanks for those here's what I went with what do you think to these now obviously I have not taken take taken in confused Oxygen's 2 and half th000 contingency I've said we're going to spend it all and I thought to myself well I've got my objectives um we're going to choose the Loyalty scheme one of the things we need to do is launch the scheme so I thought right let's put let's put one part of my budget to launching the scheme 5,000 and I'll show you the detail that goes with that then I thought wouldn't it be cool if we had a membership app a loyalty membership app just a simple one that you know on your smartphone see what the latest deals are uh make your bookings redeem your loyalty points or whatever it is but maybe an app and giving members uh benefits from having an app and then I thought well we know that as part of our marketing mix in our product we were talking about new parties new themed activities um in other words broadening the range of product so I thought we need something in there for that so the key is just to remember that whatever you've decided you're going to do in your marketing mix it might be a new product it could be a new method of of distribution Place whatever it is try to make sure you've got something in your budget that helps pay for it otherwise there's no it's not going to be successful is it so I thought we'd go for maybe some uh some promotion of these new themed parties so that's how I would spend excuse me the $25 ,000 of my budget now is there is there a right answer in the exam no is the examiner remotely interested in what you decide to spend the money on no what they do want you to do though is to be realistic and to come up with a budget that has detail and considers wider costs and also a budget that is linked to your objectives if you do that that's all that's required to get to sort of six seven eight out of eight um good stuff so now I've mentioned already that in your uh 7ps you could just write a section on promotion or you could just write a line that says promotion is dealt with in the budget and time scale so it doesn't really matter way you do it but you do need to explain what your promotional strategy is going to be as part of your marketing mix so here's my example have a read through this hopefully it's okay on the screen I'll just pick out one or two um features of this the first thing to say is you might look at this and say it's quite detailed absolutely it is we know that we need to spend an hour on the marketing mix therefore I'd be looking to spend at least 10 minutes writing about what my promotional strategy is going to be it's important detail is important so all I said here is excuse me the promotional strategy will support all three objectives and we split it into three a loyalty scheme launch which aims to convert existing customers and firsttime visitors into scheme members we'll use things like popup banners a two-day launch party event to create some excitement and then consistently promote the Loyalty scheme that's all you need to say because then the costs will come when you see the budget so there's a bit of detail about how and why I'm going to spend that £5,000 but there's more is I said oh we want we want to launch an app so £10,000 will be spent developing and launching a simple app why because we want want to encourage more frequent visitors and we want to uh improve the user experience so the app will have things like you know digital card uh push notifications Payment Processing that kind of stuff a really simple thing that will hopefully help people become a little bit more loyal to slide and- seek and then lastly another £10,000 on our new products why because we've said in our marketing mix we're going to launch some new products some new parties some new activities some new themed rooms some un sensory experiences and all I say is I'm going to use targeted social media Google ads targeted main parents to try to encourage people to come and give them a try and that's it I think that would be enough for the promotion I've set the promotional uh scene and then what happens with the budget I just then need to tell the examiner how I'm going to spend my 25,000 in other words what have I assumed not just one big number but some some different costs now so the question coming in from Andrew is uh which what that's speci on the screen here so are these not meant to be from the research of media selection yes they are so we'll go on to the budget Andrew so you're given some possible media selection in in part A tomorrow now you don't have to use any of that if you don't want to you can use your own there's no requirement to use the stuff that you get given in part A but what that's really useful for is the costs and the assumptions but I think you before you just list all the costs out you need to have two or three sentences that explain what you're trying to do with your promotions so hopefully that explains that so uh let's go have a look now I'll just go through a couple of these see what you think launch the membership scheme what are we going to spend now I don't think you need quite as much as this but I just wanted to put I just wanted to show you an example of of the of the level of detail that the examiner would really want in particular two things why costs and calculations if you can include wider costs and some calculations in your budget that's going to get you further up the mark scheme so for example rather than just saying £1,500 for display promotion give them a little bit of detail so and it doesn't really matter what you say as long as it's something so I've said six popup or standup banners you know the kind of things you've seen as maybe at school and college in reception those little roll of things that you pull up six of those that's 900 quid okay reception uh a big display maybe like a little curved display excuse me promoting the Loyalty scheme and then don't forget wider costs so it's one thing getting a popup Banner but you also need to design the graphics that go on it so assume let's say 600 to get a designer to come up with some different graphics for the for those displays and that is ,500 but it's got a couple of calculations in it and it's got a bit of wider costs let's just have a look down at the bottom one here the launch weekend 200100 so we're going to launch the uh the Loyalty scheme at the start of the 12 months and we're going to have a fun weekend well it looks fun we've got uh four days worth probably two entertainers for each of the days four days worth of entertainers I know face painters uh hair curlers whatever ever it is that entertainers do at the launch of a soft play weekend so there's a little calculation four lots of £50 per entertainment Entertainer if you're going to launch a weekend you don't want a couple of people on B the desk you want all your stuff in don't you you want it to look really well staffed and busy lots of people to uh to chat to with their name badges on so extra stuff extra hours maybe another 40 hours and also including National Insurance contribution and then also what about some prizes and some merch some merchandise so there's some wider costs aren't you're not just going to roll up and say thanks for coming some prizes maybe some party bags I don't know I don't know what it is but the idea of the launch weekend is one part of the budget but all I'm saying is if you've got time try to squeeze in some extra detail a little some wider costs yep excuse me you might not think it matters but it really does it really does adding in those those wider costs what do you think to that one that £5,000 there what do you think yit is asking are you meant to make up the prices of each item yeah you can you can make it up there's no uh obviously you're given some media excuse me which you could use um but you can make it up as long as it's as long as it's realistic and sensible that's all you need uh okay Allah says where is he getting all of these from well it's made them up it's made them up I mean I know what a stand up Banner costs and I know how much it costs to uh to hire an Entertainer um so there we go but I don't know whether those numbers are right or not it doesn't really matter whether the numbers are right as long as they're sensible that's all that matters let's have a look at another one what about um I'll go on from the you can download this from the uh I'll put the link let's go on to the next one what about if you were promoting themed parties here you've got £10,000 pounds to spend well over to you whilst I just take another sip of Balin what would you spend on your educational parties and themed parties £10,000 to spend on this what do you think how would you spend £10,000 so we've got here's here's the story we've got some new themed parties Super Heroes princesses with our new digital displays we've got our new sen and sensory rooms we've got got a new toddler area what do you think what are we going to spend that on what do we think any ideas so we know what the product is it's new theme parties but how are we going to promote that what kind of things do you think we might use yes so confused oxygen is has been inspired by my idea of the launch party for the loyalty game well why not run a launch event or a competition uh you know win win three places on a special event that launches the I don't know the superheroes themed party come and experience it win 10 places for you and your friends so you can run a competition uh obviously I've run run a video on how to run a competition it's a great way of doing it so why not it's great idea love that uh let's have a look what else we've got here lots of stuff coming into the live chat oh love this I love this from uh yigit so don't forget we were talking weren't we about wider costs so if we run a a launch event or an event to promote the new themed parties come and experience what it's like to be at a superheroes party we're going to The Wider costs are going to be the costumes maybe some uh some actors actresses maybe some something else something else that helps helps sell the sizzle on uh that particular that particular new themed party uh yeah Sarah's gone for a promotional uh a moving video presuming that's a video with people moving rather than a video that makes you very emotional that kind of moving video but yeah promotional video absolutely why not you know you got to be careful producing videos of of children's parties and all that kind of stuff but there's all sorts of ways of making it a really exciting enticing uh thing to uh to promote and they're not cheap to make uh if you if you do them professional anyway but um definitely well worth doing lots of people coming with other ideas leaflets yeah distribution posters uh Billboards uh chop chain has also gone for the competition I love the competition such a great way of of of putting it into the marketing campaign what else we got here promotional videos uh yeah loads of stuff here here's what I went with so thank you for putting your ideas into the live some great ones in there I think something like this would be a classic digital and print campaign so I might I wouldn't have all of the stuff on the left hand side there but I would have something that is digital marketing I've said digital marketing £6,000 So Paid social media ads 2 half th000 now don't just put two and a half thousand say well what who are you going to Target so this is what we mean by detail and extra stuff so don't just say digital advertising 225,000 say well who are you going to Target in this case we're going to Target parents because parents are a bit older more lik to be on Facebook and and the gram the maybe Tik Tok uh you can Geo Target it so within maybe 15 miles of leads uh how long would you run the campaign for you'd probably run a basic campaign for the whole 12 months but then you might run a remarketing campaign to those who respond uh Google search ads okay rather than just saying Google search ads 2000 what are you going to focus on kids parties children's activities in other words just mention to the examiner some of the keywords that you would expect to use that's all we mean by extra detail it's all we need to have excuse me on the print side definitely I think you'd have some promotional brochures maybe some flyers that you can hand out to people as they come to the center maybe you do a leaflet leaflet drop you might even be able to agree with local schools and nurseries to include it in the school bag occasionally all that kind of stuff and maybe some local magazine adverts uh to to help help promote the help promote these new themed parties there is so much you can do with digital and print quite cost effectively you don't have to do any or all of those but as long as you put something in that explains how you're going to spend the £10,000 that's all the examiner wants they're not going to question whether or not it's going to work they just want to see some detail there we go so what do we think and that should do the trick I think that would be a good campaign so for af6 then the budget what do we say first thing is is if you want to you can write about your promotional strategy in af6 as part of the budget so you don't have to include it in the marketing mix section if you don't include it in the marketing mix section just say put a line in saying um promotion is dealt with in the budget section if you want to include it in the marketing mix that's fine as well when you get to the budget as we've said think about detail don't just say social media marketing £110,000 think about which Which social media platforms why what are you targeting who you targeting where are you targeting and that gives the detail that helps the examiner see that you've thought through your budget think about wider costs not just the advertising cost so we got some great examples in the live chats things like hiring props and costumes and paying for video production and all that kind of stuff add in some wider costs and don't worry about your costings whether they whether they're perfect or not but just be as realistic as you can be and I think if you do that you're well on the way to getting much more than 2.2 out of eight but much closer to seven or maybe even eight out of eight for the budgets so just to finish off with just a couple of minutes on uh timeline time scale now don't forget there four marks going for time scale I've seen it calls different things time scale timeline timetable but anyway the timetable so most people get two some get three very occasionally get four to get four you really need to have a little bit more detail if you've got time about which activities and why but also what's their duration so what's the start and the end time now don't spend forever on af7 the time scale much much more important to spend time writing more in your marketing mix than worrying about producing a really clever Gant chart or some kind of clever diagram or whatever it is to try and squeeze an extra one Mark out for time scale so don't waste more than six minutes five or six minutes explaining the timetable the main thing is it just needs to reflect your budget and have some some some kind of assumptions so for example here's one that you could use I'm not saying this is great but it would do the trick it would probably get two certainly three maybe three certainly two marks all I'd do is just a word table that says what are the what are the different actions start and end time or duration how long is it going to take and when is it going to happen so just blank out a cell in a word table and I've just split the 12 months into three into four lots of uh of four lots of three months just to make it easy so just if you like just just draw out the key parts of each part of the of the budget and the promotion give them a start dark date give them an end date or just tell s to the exam how long it's going to work and then just put them in a table and I reckon that's enough we can go on forever about detailed Tim taes and all that kind of stuff it's only worth four marks and you're going to get two anyway so if you can get an extra Mark or two that's great but you're much better off spending time going back to your marketing mix and linking all your aims and objectives in nicely and making sure that's got enough detail in it so you just asking what are the blue boxes well the blue boxes are just meant to indicate when something is happening so it's a bit like a sort of mini Gant chart isn't it that's all it means in other words when does it happen so we've got some questions coming in on on on budget and time scale let's just deal with a couple of these is it better to use all the budget or can we use the majority of it uh PS get well Jimmy boy well thanks so the answer is uh there's an expectation you will use just about all the budget don't leave a massive chunk of it unspent because the whole idea of the budget is you're meant to spend it it's a budget to help achieve your aim and your objectives if you do have a little bit left over just say uh whatever's left over will be reinvested into additional digital marketing campaigns based on the best performing campaigns and best performing keywords just something that says what you're going to do to spend the uh the remaining budget uh somebody's asking me whether I can do a demonstration on how to make a Gant chart um no because literally it's just a word table where you where you fill in the color you fill the cells of some table with some colors I wouldn't even bother about using Gant chart software or anything for this for the timetable just something simple you don't have to have a table you could just have a list of activities start date end date duration and that would be enough it does look like a Gant chart but it's only because I've filled in the cells to make them look like a Gant chart it's just a table okay so let's uh I think we're doing well here let's just pick out quite a few people explaining how they how they spend quite a lot of time on their af7 uh I'd rather you spent time on af5 marketing mix okay good stuff right let's uh let's go over here let's just pick out see if there's any legendary session thank you very much that's very kind uh let's just see if they got any more questions in here Helen's asking uh you put the budget in a time scale uh should you put the budget in the time scale is you putting in how much to spend per month no I wouldn't put the I wouldn't put the uh the budget spend in the time scale I think I would leave it in the budget section deal with how you how are you going to spend and what you're going to spend in a separate section and then the timetable is really just when things happen not how much he been spent so don't don't worry about making it too complicated uh rag saying when we're doing our promotion should we link to our objectives one two and three three objectives uh yeah yeah I would in the same way that in the other part of the marketing mix we should try to explain how the market each part of the marketing mix helps achieve each of the objectives um it's it's the glue that holds the uh the whole thing together uh K's asking do you have to relate your Gant chart to the marxy aims and objectives no now the Gant chart it's just meant to be or some something is just meant to be an illustration of roughly when things happen uh you've linked the budget and the promotional campaign hopefully to your objectives earlier on haven't you so don't don't complicate your Gant chart Aiden's asking Jim how are you I'm okay I think I'm okay thank you very much um okay Dan is asking few more questions here is rising three objectives in my page not it's a pre-planned marketing campaign uh yeah it is in a way isn't it but the thing is you should have an idea as to what your objectives are going to be but you don't know what the objectives should be until you've found out about the business so it wouldn't help you if you did but I wouldn't be tempted to do it um set your have an idea when you go in as to what you think your objectives might be and then adjust those when you see when you learned about the business um let's have a look see many more questions coming through through here Karen's doing a fantastic job um answering loads of these as well just give me a second whil I scroll through the dozens and dozens of questions coming in and what are these pre-planned marketing examples uh well basically you just can't go into the you just can't go in there with two pages of notes that that sort of you can copy and paste and it becomes the start of your marketing mix or your budget or your time scedule is just not allowed and in any event you wouldn't want to because as we said yesterday with the marketing mix it's all about detail about the real business you don't know about the business until you get to Part B it's not going to help you so wouldn't I wouldn't worry about trying to write anything in advance uh ree is asking do you have to give a justification for the budget and timeline no no the budget should be how you're going to spend it okay well that is the justification isn't it so as long in as long as in your promotional uh paragraphs you've explained what the promotional strategy is trying to achieve that is your justification then you just say look here's how I've decided to spend the budget that's it um don't need to justify it uh let's have a look um here's a good question this this goes back to um the general approach here so how much time should you spend well don't forget there are eight assessment Focus four for Activity one four for Activity 2 two of those assessment Focus one and assessment Focus 8 are basically presentation so don't worry about it that's just you're you're going to get three or wa minimum three marks most people get four you're going to be given those as long as your reports on your two documents have a sensible structure in headings and all that kind of stuff so actually what that means is what you what what you get left with is 62 marks to play for so roughly that's two and a half to three minutes per Mark so but there are some things which are more important than others so for example the marxy mix af5 the start of Activity 2 um you got to spend an hour on it 50 minutes minimum I dealon hour on your marketing mix including the marketing message as we talked about yesterday uh your justification af4 uh 10 marks going for that so half an hour it's the end of activity the end of Activity one probably 35 40 minutes on analyzing the key themes of the research pack and also considering validity and reliability so I would just write down on your two sides of notes that kind of timetable to make sure you just remember it's an hour for them the marketing mix it's half an hour for uh justification and then you won't go too far wrong um a was asking are two objectives enough for a distinction probably not no uh I've learned a lot over the last year or two about what well firstly distinctions are like hen teeth 1% of students get a distinction which is absolutely outrageous but it's what it is uh but in every distinction I've seen every example I've seen there's been three object and they are used throughout both Activity one and Activity 2 so I would go with three certainly not one and I wouldn't bother with four so that leavs two or three and I think three is gives you gives you enough enough to work on so I'd be looking for three um let's have a look what else we've got here coming through okay as a question coming through about justification what is SWAT well strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats and do I have to use SWAT and pestl or one only please well this comes back to our af4 which is the justification and the basic answer is you need to use two models to be able to get up to 10 marks apply two models to this to the to the cas 99.9% of students do a SWAT analysis uh most students do a pestl analysis an increasing number of students ditch pestl and do product life cycle but you could choose any models you want I had somebody contact me today saying should I use the Boston Matrix which would be uh possibly the first time it's ever been used in UN 2 but it is a relevant model somebody else wanted to use Porters five forces from the unit six revision so doesn't matter what which models you use but the vast majority of students use SWAT and an increasing number also top it up with a bit of product life cycle but you can use uh pestal but don't write don't use three models don't waste your time writing three um let's have a look any more questions here lots of questions coming in apologies Karen's doing a fantastic job answering as many of these as possible got a question uh from Daniela it's been asked by a number of people do we need a timetable for ASX with the amount of budgets spent each month and do we need a conclusion well you don't need a conclusion so but uh yeah the timetable is af7 so the timetable that bit that I just showed on the screen there let's just remind ourselves what that was that's a timetable isn't it it says here are the things that happen in months 1 to three through to months 10 to 12 and some some aspects that's a timetable isn't it that's what it is the budget um the budget is how much you're going to spend and on what on so but you don't need to put in all the numbers into your timetable um so that would be a waste of time uh the timetable is only worth four marks do you need a conclusion not really because hopefully you've Justified what your promotion is going to be and you've Justified why you're going to spend the money and on what that's all you need to do you don't need to have any kind of conclusion let's have a look anymore excuse me what I just have a quick F through there's so many questions coming in here Finn's asking a question a number of people are asked uh don't forget we've we've we've disabled slow mode so no need to paste your question in every two seconds that's not to fin that's everybody else well it's all to Finn how many minutes is each Mark equivalent to four marks eight minutes well I say my rule of thumb is two and a half minutes per mark But allow a little bit more excuse me for the marketing mix so for example Mar Mix is worth 20 marks if it was 2 and a half minutes that would be 50 minutes but I think you need to spend a bit more than that if you can so maybe an hour on marketing mix maybe spend a little bit less time uh because you're going to get the marks on presentation and structure which are four marks in Activity one and in activity two so yeah two and a half to three minutes won't you won't be far wrong you won't be far wrong um we've done a live on F3 that was the first live session um K is asking do we need to write for example A5 before the main headings no you don't have to I mean it's I think it's quite a nice thing to remember if only because it helps the examiner Market but also helps remind you what you're doing so AFI we all know is the marketing mix so why not yeah there's nothing to you don't have to you could just write justification you'd have to write justification brackets A4 uh I quite like seeing af5 and af4 and af3 because it it kind of it suggests to The Examiner that the student knows how they how the the the two things are going to be marked good question coming in from uh Mayo which a number of people have asked as well how would we do product life cycle if the business is a service well this is don't forget the product life cycle is not just for products it's called the product life cycle because a product can be something tangible like chocolate bars or customizable drinks cartons or meal kits so it can be a good a tangible product or a good but it can a product can also be a service so and vast majority of businesses in the UK are Services particularly small businesses so don't worry about that it's uh it's about saying where is that market where is that industry in its life cycle is it a growing service is it service that fewer people need so I wouldn't worry about it if it's a service you can still use product life cycle it's about trying to work out how fast is the market growing is there Innovation is it dominated by one or more brands or not are there lots of small players all the kind of things we looked at when we went through product life cycle don't worry about it if it's not a product or a tangible item it might be it might not be you can still use life cycle no question about that uh let's have a look can I leave out the Gant chart Absol absolutely yeah of course you can as long as your timetable has got something in there that says here are the stages of my campaign here's when they start here's when they finish here's the order that can be just a list can't it that's going to get you two or three marks out of four easily and then you just move on can I get a merit by skipping the budget and the Gant chart uh you could skip the Gant chart as long as you had some words in on the time scale I wouldn't skip the budget though no way the budget is eight marks it's eight relatively easy marks to get if you've got time it's a chance to include some detail it's a chance to use the information given to you it's a chance to get four five six easy marks by spending 10 minutes on it so don't skip that um some important marks there going so what would merits be uh let me just quickly remind myself I might put it on the screen actually there we go uh here's the here's the grade boundaries for the last four sittings and Merit be 43 out of 70 you'd only be skipping eight marks dear so we'd only be skipping we don't be skipping the budget okay some more questions coming in here thanks very much to Lisa and others for answering in the live chat uh Helen saying what's the main thing we're not allowed to write about in the notes that we must do in the exam well the only thing you're not allowed to incl include are pre-prepared marketing plans budgets and timelines so you can't pre-prepare a Gant chart you can't pre-prepare a budget with all your campaign costs and all that kind of stuff and you can't pre-prepare your marketing mix you can't take that into with you but I mean okay and you don't need to that's that's the only thing you're not allowed to do everything else is fine little headings little me um little uh notes about your models key key analysis key data all that kind of stuff really useful stuff yeah definitely uh Fin's asking do you have any useful tips for the exam well hopefully found these live streams useful but if I was summarizing them in a minute I would say that the most important thing is the marketing mix so if I think about why students maybe don't get as many marks as they deserve it will be because they've probably produced a marketing mix that doesn't have the right level of detail it's a bit too generic it's not about the business it doesn't go into detail about what should happen the second thing that students uh need to do but often don't is they forget to consistently refer back to their aim and their objectives throughout their answers you don't just deal with objectives at the start and set them and forget about them you need to keep linking back to those because they determine what you what you're trying to achieve aren't they if you've set the the objective of getting a thousand loyalty scheme members what are you going to do to get th000 loyalty scheme members that's going to keep cropping up throughout your marketing mix and through your throughout your budget so you've got to keep referring back to the aims and objectives and I think the third thing use the research don't just copy and paste it into your reports use it pick out be selective pick out the most important things that you think help explain what your marketing mix and budget is going to be uh it's not about copying and pasting the the research but it's it's been given to you for a reason so by using the primary research by using the secondary research and bring it into your sections in your writing that's going to get you a lot more credit than you might imagine so those will be my top tips in no particular order but the marketing mix is definitely important Sam is asking uh again do you have any advice and tips for part a tomorrow I want to get some good notes well the first thing is two hours is a long old time isn't it to read through what's a relatively short Casey uh so you probably time to read it three or four times before you even start thinking about uh jotting down some notes so just have a think about the business have a think about it what's what's going on is there anything you don't understand about it is uh do you get a good feel for what it's trying to do uh pick out the information about the market pick out the information about competitors what are there what are businesses doing in terms of promotional activities you know think about questions like who who's buying this product and why what are they paying who might you be targeting if you were trying to run that business almost like put yourself in the position of running that business think well what would I do if I was running that business and if you put yourself in that M that frames frame of mind I think you'll get some good some good notes that's the end of the day that's all you need a few things to remember uh lots of people asking about what I think the grade B is you want an honest genuine opinion well my honest genuine opinion is as it it all depends it depends on how students respond to the case if you look at grade boundaries over the last four sittings students have done better it's true terms of average average grades when it's been about a product or a tangible product rather in the service however they've also been getting better better with the exam technique better with their time management so I don't know but my guess would be my honest opinion would be that a distinction would be around about the 54 55 out of 70 and that the Merit will be around about 42 43 that's my honest opinion but we won't know until you've all had a go at the uh the exam what else do we got here um asan's been very patient he's only posted this question in about 10 10 times so he using calculations on the promotional section of the Mark is going to give me a high marks uh the the short answer is yes yes it is and thanks for your comments as well so as we said when you're putting your budget together include a few little calculations so don't just say I don't know um ,000 On promotional leaflets say it's going to be 10,000 leaflets at 10p each there's a calculation is ,000 in other words you've shown some detail so yes if you can include a few calculations as long as it's realistic that really helps because it adds to the detail doesn't it uh Abdu ramman saying your two sides of notes have product life cycle but I want to do pestal well that's Grace uh my two side my two size notes don't have product don't have pestal because I don't do pestel I do product life cycle but uh you're more than welcome to to either write p pestal on it or don't forget you can annotate your copy of part A your research pack so you could always write a little pestal analysis on there couldn't you ah now f is asking a question lots of people have asked this the question is for validity and for reliability do we only refer to the research back yes yes you do so let's just quickly go through this validity and reliability reliability is consistency so if you asked the same question or the same questions time and time again would you get the same the same answers that's what we mean by reliabilities consistency of the research so have they asked the right kind of questions to get consistent consistent answers validity is all about accuracy do we do we can we rely on this particular sample and what people have said so yeah just have a look at the questions and have a look at the research if the secondary research about the market does it say where it's come from is it from an industry Association is it somebody's estimate by and large they include some information that's pretty reliable and and valid but yeah you just need to refer to the research that you get given uh Assan still pacing the same question in um ree is asking can we talk to other people asking on behalf of the audience of course can we talk to other people sit in the paper about it between part A and B uh no will people yes but no you can't it's your It's Your Part B nobody else's uh Dan's asking what research should I be doing in the two hours tomorrow well don't forget it's low control so you can use the internet if you wish um I think it once I've got to grips with the industry and the business I'd be maybe just maybe just doing 15 20 minutes of of Google search to see some other businesses in the sector seeing what they're doing maybe have a look at their website see what kind of prices see what you might just get some nice ideas as to some Innovation some some marketing ideas just get a feel for what for what people are selling I'd be having a little browse on the internet for 20 minutes uh as well as having a think about the information about the industry um let's have a look what else we got here this a good question coming through in from Mayo some great questions coming in uh using the media Selections in part A do we have to use them for our promotion section can we make up cost can we make them realistic yes you can you do not have to use anything that is in the media section it's a really useful thing that they provide for you because uh not everybody has access to understanding how much it costs to I know get an influencer to post a video or pay for some leaflets to be designed and printed um so use those if you wish but if you've got some other ideas some other campaigns that you're you're used to to writing maybe you've been writing in mocks absolutely fine um use whatever you use as long as it's sensible realistic no one's going to no one's going to criticize you uh what else we got here lots of questions coming in let's do another five minutes or so um some saying where did it say it's low control the the P peer issue a thing called the teaching guide the guide for delivery so part A is low control so you can use the internet uh and you can take in anything you've got uh your not your folders all that kind of stuff you can use that part B is Medium Control so it's not not online you can't use your notes your folders you can only use your two sides of notes so that's why it is it's low control um let's have a look Andrew's good question here do we justify the choice of marketing media promotion and do the calculations in the budget yeah it's quite nice I like that yeah I think that's a good place to do it yeah so your justification of your promotional mix promotion part of the M mix is you know what are we trying to achieve what what media are we going to use and why who are we targeting and why why is that effective why might that work great stuff that's really important isn't it and then the actual calculations and the costs that sits nicely in the budget that's a nice way of thinking about it I like that Mill of dread has asked a question a number of people asked is a secondary research paragraph just information like on other businesses yeah and it's it's really what we looked at on uh af3 was to say what you need to do with the secondary research is to pick out the key themes two or three really important themes that you think are relevant to the business that will influence your objectives and influence your marketing mix so the key with af3 using the secondary research is to be selective not just to repeat it all but to say if you if you remember from slide and seek I think there was quite a lot in there about economic issues Rising costs um consumer demand national minimum wage so there's like a nice economic bit good for pestl if you're doing pestal and you could have a little paragraph on there says it's a particularly big it's an issue for uh for for the industry and for sliding seat because of rising costs which places pressure on the business and therefore what what's the implication of that for our Aim so with it is the secondary research paragraphs are about just picking out two or three key themes that you think are really really important explaining why they're important I know Karen said this a number of times in the in in the live chat responses already tonight and before it's about being selective picking out the most important bits that you think are relevant to the business um other people might choose some different things but don't just repeat it all what else have we got for my justification do I justify the smart objectives or My Chosen option while in a way uh you're really trying to use the justification to support your objectives aren't you so the chosen option is the option you choose I mean you don't have to choose either of the two you could do your own it's usually best to choose one of the two um but what what's most important are the objectives that you set that you're going to try to achieve with your marketing mix and your budget and your promotion campaign so that's what we mean by justification so really you're trying to just trying to use things like SWAT and pestal product life cycle to justify the objectives that you set and the and what follows which is the marketing mix and the budget so hopefully that's helpful Cameron is asking what last minute revision can I do for this exam when my test is tomorrow well I think the main thing is just to uh just to get ready to go in and and be interested in what the cas it is I don't think there's any more you can do um don't worry about it just go into two hour is in a Long old time and of you're allowed to take the cas home with you most schools and students allow stud students to do that they are allowed to do it your Center may not allow you to do it but you are allowed to do it and uh so you'll have time to think about it a little bit more tomorrow afternoon and then maybe on on Thursday morning so I wouldn't be trying to do too much more revision uh can we use our phones tomorrow for part a uh yeah it's low control so yes if you're allowed phones in in your Center no reason why not uh here we go okay good question coming through from uh Assan again can we do extra research part A is it necessary yes you can is it necessary no it's not will you get credit for using extra research no so the only research that you'll get credit for is stuff they provide you with so your use of the given research pack is where you is what you're credited for uh not for being an expert on a particular industry or finding something which nobody else knows so you only get credit for what you get given which is in the research pack but if you wish to to learn a little bit more about the industry that is fine as well um good question this is relevant to af6 do I have to explain my calculations for the budget um not really no no I wouldn't go into lots of detail as long as the calculation is obvious the fact that there is a calculation is enough the danger with the budget don't forget it's only eight marks the danger with the budget is you can spend too long trying to explain things and not enough time just getting it down and telling explaining how you're going to spend your money so I wouldn't spend too long explaining your calculation but I'll just make sure that you have some calculations in there and also don't forget also some wider costs um so lots of people asking do we need to do additional research on the industry the answer is no we've we've explained that um people asking whether they can use AI well clearly not because it's U part B's uh Medium Control uh right I think we are just about there I think we're just about there lots and lots of questions coming in I tell you what we'll do we'll close it here and and of course as soon as this session finishes then this will be available again on demand so again as always I'll look through any questions that come through on the uh on the comments on the on the recording look we've done four live sessions together before I sign off a huge thanks in particular to Karen who's been with us throughout all four sessions live firing dozens probably hundreds of answers to students in the live chat so in the live chat it would be great if you could just share carrying a bit of love and thank her because that is she didn't have to do it and it's she's a very very experienced and talented business teacher and I really appreciate the help that she and others have given in the live chat so that's massive any more questions you've got ahead of unit two part A tomorrow just put them in the in the comments in the recording version of this I've posted some links which hopefully are useful including a copy of uh a distinction response to January 24's Cas on best rest s if you want to see an example of how some of the things we've covered in the last four sessions can be used in a in the real exam uh but the main thing is now just rest up go well tomorrow when you get to see what the case it is do not worry if it's a service business don't worry if it's a business you know nothing about it doesn't matter by the time you write your report you'll know enough and the main thing is of course please please please manage your time properly manage your time efficiently in Part B don't run out of time spend time on what matters we've covered that um so I won't repeat all of that again but it is really important and I wish you all the best it's not an easy exam but I think you'll be fine and uh look forward to finding out how you get on so for me and Karen and the rest of the team all the best and see you soon