Evaluation of Marketing Performance

Because of marketing’s day-to-day importance in your business operations, it’s critical that you keep an eye on the
results of your marketing plans and activities. Using a variety of simple review methods, you can monitor, analyze
and evaluate the steps you took to sell your product or service and determine which are working and which need to
be reconsidered.

Direct Response

One of the oldest methods of evaluating whether or not a marketing communication activity, such as an
advertisement or promotion, is working for you is to track the direct response. For example, if you run an ad with a
coupon, track the number of coupons that came in to see if you received a worthwhile return on your investment.
Remember that not everyone who sees a coupon will use it, but they might still come to your store based on seeing
the ad. Modern coupons consist of code numbers customers use when they place online orders. Have your staff ask
customers how they heard of you when they take phone orders or check people out at the counter, and ask customers
placing online orders to check a box or fill in a field telling you where they heard about you.

Website Statistics

One of the latest forms of evaluating marketing initiatives is the use of website traffic statistics. Your company
website should include a traffic statistics package that lets you see your traffic during a specific time period, telling
you where traffic came from, which pages got the most views, what keywords people used to find you and how
much time they spent on each page. One of the key differences between a Facebook business page and a personal
page is the detailed traffic stats the business page provides. Talk to your information technology person about how
to access your website and social media site statistics on a daily basis. Use website statistics to track your traffic
during specific promotions or advertising campaigns to evaluate their effects on your business.

Surveys and Focus Groups

Conducting customer surveys and target audience focus groups lets you get specific answers to questions you have
about your marketing as well as qualitative information such as consumer preferences, feelings about your ads and
promotions and customer impressions of your competitions. People might not take the time to answer long
questionnaires over the phone or Internet, so consider serving different surveys to your group. For example, ask half
of your customers only 10 questions and the other half 10 different questions to get a helpful sample of 20 questions.
Use focus groups to ask open-ended questions that let participants volunteer ideas you might not have considered.

Sales Reports

The more detailed your sales reports, the more information you can generate about your marketing efforts.
Marketing includes creating and promoting your unique selling benefit, developing your product or service to
deliver this benefit, setting the right prices to attract your target customer, selling in the most effective places and
supporting these efforts with communications. Your sales reports should provide you with information about which
locations account for what percentage of your sales, which products provide your biggest volumes and profits and
how each sales rep is performing.
Examples of Controls in a Marketing Plan
To maximize the return on a marketing plan, there need to be controls in place to monitor the plan's progress. As a
marketing plan moves along, the controls are constantly analyzed to determine how the plan's actual performance
compares to the projections. Any changes that need to be made are done based on the analysis of marketing controls.
Understanding what the controls in a marketing plan are will help you develop effective performance measurement
indicators.
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Customer Feedback

Marketing is designed to persuade consumers to purchase a product or invest in a service. One control put into place
in any marketing plan is the monitoring of customer feedback through polls and surveys. You can reach customers
indirectly by hosting online polls on the Internet that ask specific questions about your latest marketing plan.
Conversely, surveys can be done with marketing groups or via individual interviews by phone or in person. Adjust
your marketing plan according to the results of your research. For example, if your marketing campaign includes a
new company mascot and customer feedback indicates that the mascot is not popular, then the mascot should be
removed from the marketing plan.

Target Market Sales

Sales can be measured in units sold, revenue generated or profit amount. Each marketing plan sets out to determine
the effect of the plan on the target market. Once again, this is done through market surveys or at the point of sale
with the assistance of retail partners. Actual sales in the target market are compared to the marketing plan
projections to see if any changes need to be made. For example, if the target market for a marketing plan is males
ages 15 to 21, then the target market sales reports would monitor sales made to that group. If sales are down, then
further market research needs to be done to see why the target audience is not responding to the marketing. In some
cases, analyzing a demographic breakdown of sales may indicate that the initial target market was inaccurate and a
new target market may emerge based on sales data.

Budgeting

A marketing budget is a balance between the cost of generating the advertising materials and the revenue created by
the marketing plan. There are several controls in place that can be used to monitor a marketing budget, including
print advertising expenses, travel expenses for trade shows, the cost of market research studies and internal
personnel costs for the company's marketing department. All of these costs need to be closely monitored to
minimize spending and maximize profitability. By examining expenses, you are able maintain your budget and see
exactly where spending increases come from.

Market Share

Market share is that percentage of consumer sales dominated by your product. For example, you may have several
competitors in a particular industry, with your product sales making up 15 percent of all product sold into that
marketplace. In most cases, market share is broken down by product to get a comprehensive look at consumer
patterns. A marketing plan outlines the market share of a product before the plan is in place, and then projects the
changes to the marketplace when the plan is over. For example, your marketing plan may call for increasing market
share of your newest product from 10 percent of all products sold to 15 percent. During the plan's timeline, there
will be milestone percentages you will want to reach on your way to the 5 percent increase. For example, you may
want to see a 3 percent market share increase at the halfway point of the marketing plan. If your analysis does not
show a 3 percent increase by that point, then you need to analyze why the plan is falling short and what can be done
to correct it.

Five Major Marketing Control Techniques

Competitor Analysis

A small business owner needs to know how his products, services and marketing strategy compare to local, regional,
national and international competitors to retain existing customers and attract new ones. Competitor analysis
involves checking out the new products or services offered by your competitors, examining their marketing
strategies and determining whether they are succeeding or failing with their businesses. Use this information to
adjust your strategies accordingly. For example, you could hire a mystery shopper to shop at your competitor's store
to acquire information or visit businesses similar to your own in other regions and speak with their owners to get
ideas.

Customer Analysis

Another way to monitor and evaluate your marketing is to perform an existing customer analysis to provide a
detailed picture of the types of customers buying your products or services. An analysis involves gathering data
about your customers during or after check out and then tabulating this information in a spreadsheet for comparison.
For example, you might gather data about your customers such as their geographical location, average age and sex.
In addition, you might gather spending habits data such as average purchase amounts, amount and type of foot
traffic before and after advertising and coupon or discount usage.

Testing Research

Once you identify a target customer base, you can determine the potential success of a new product or service, the
marketing methods needed to promote and sell it and the financial impact of a planned marketing strategy through
prerelease group testing. One example of testing research involves communication with a focus group of 10 to 15
people from your target customer base. Ask them to discuss in general the products and services they like and
dislike to help you brainstorm ideas for the future, or ask them to try one of your new products or services and
provide feedback.

Customer Feedback
Customer feedback is a marketing control technique similar to testing research, but instead of gaining insight into
future products and services, you evaluate customers' opinions of existing products or services and the marketing
methods you currently use. Customer feedback might involve inviting your customers to complete a survey, offer
opinions through a suggestion box or respond to specific questions in-person or over the phone after they've
purchased a product or service. Other customer feedback methods include asking your employees for feedback and
maintaining a list of the types of products or services customers have inquired about that you don't currently offer.

Cost Analysis

Small-business owners use cost analysis to create an overall picture of the cost of existing marketing strategies to
reduce costs, weed out products and marketing strategies that aren't working and create a new budget to use moving
forward. To perform a cost analysis, look at the current costs involved with all aspects of your business including
inventory, distribution and the current costs of your marketing strategies. After you determine the costs, compare the
numbers with your existing budget and the costs of alternative marketing methods.

Difference Between Push & Pull Marketing

The primary difference between push and pull marketing lies in how consumers are approached. In push marketing,
the idea is to promote products by pushing them onto people. For push marketing, consider sales displays at your
grocery store. On the other hand, in pull marketing, the idea is to establish a loyal following and draw consumers to
the products. Examples are Porsche and Lamborghini, which no longer need to advertise, as consumers come to
them.
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Push Marketing

Push marketing is a promotional strategy where businesses attempt to take their products to the customers. The term
push stems from the idea that marketers are attempting to push their products at consumers. Common sales tactics
include trying to sell merchandise directly to customers via company showrooms and negotiating with retailers to
sell their products for them, or set up point-of-sale displays. Often, these retailers will receive special sales
incentives in exchange for this increased visibility.

Example of Push Marketing

One common example of push marketing can be seen in department stores that sell fragrance lines. The
manufacturing brand of the fragrance will often offer sales incentives to the department stores for pushing its
products onto customers. This tactic can be especially beneficial for new brands that aren't well-established or for
new lines within a given brand that need additional promotion. After all, for many consumers, being introduced to
the fragrance at the store is their first experience with the product, and they wouldn't know to ask for it if they didn't
know it existed.

Pull Marketing
Pull marketing, on the other hand, takes the opposite approach. The goal of pull marketing is to get the customers to
come to you, hence the term pull, where marketers are attempting to pull customers in. Common sales tactics used
for pull marketing include mass media promotions, word-of-mouth referrals and advertised sales promotions. From
a business perspective, pull marketing attempts to create brand loyalty and keep customers coming back, whereas
push marketing is more concerned with short-term sales.

Example of Pull Marketing

You can often recognize pull marketing campaigns by the amount of advertising that's being used. Pull marketing
requires lots of advertising dollars to be spent on making brand and products a household name. One example
includes the marketing of children's toys. In the first stage, the company advertises the product. Next, the children
and parents see the advertisement and want to purchase the toy. As demand increases, retailers begin scrambling
trying to stock the product in their stores. All the while, the company has successfully pulled customers to them.