The marketing control process in your business needs to be asking the question: “Are we getting there?”
This includes the provision of the actual monitoring and control of your marketing performance for your marketing strategies and tactical programmes which are vital to the success of your marketing plan to achieve your financial business goals.
Why? Because without some means of monitoring, controlling and reviewing your marketing, it would be impossible to know if your plan is actually working to achieve the quantifiable marketing objectives that you’ve set, and hence your financial business targets. In other words, if your desired business results are to be achieved, then consideration must be given to the organisation and responsibility for your marketing management for checking the various marketing activities which you have set in motion.
This is particularly crucial when setting up a Marketing Information System (MIS) so that the relevant data and information is reported effectively (the correct information to the right person, especially customers) and efficiently (it is analysed and communicated well internally within your business) to make the correct intelligent decisions.
That’s because your business needs to understand that accurate, timely and appropriate control data will not arrive by chance and that once the marketing activities have been organised and the process managed, a monitoring and control process needs to be established as an crucial integrated part of continually testing and measuring actual performance against your marketing objectives.
Your evaluation procedure should include a constant review of auditing of your business’s mission, vision, values and financial business objectives and strategy (your products and markets) to be constantly alert to the reactions from both the changing external (opportunities and threats) and internal (strengths and weakness) environments and, a careful examination of the resulting SWOT analysis to meet the new emerging reality.
These should also include feedback systems such as competitor and sales analysis, management ratios, customer surveys, complaints and suggestions which will help the success of the overall marketing evaluation and address any issues and challenges.
You can then make a choice of actions based on information and designed to take corrective measures to achieve competitive advantage by sticking close to your customer and providing the benefits which they need and want. That’s the real art and science of marketing planning.
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