Marketing Implementation, Control and Performance

Marketing implementation is the process that turns marketing plans into action assignments and ensures they accomplish the plan’s stated objectives.

A brilliant strategic marketing plan counts for little if not implemented properly. Therefore, the marketing plan typically outlines budgets, schedules, and marketing metrics for monitoring and evaluating results over time.

With budgets, marketers can compare planned and actual expenditures for a given period. Schedules show when tasks were supposed to be completed and when they actually were.

Marketing metrics track actual outcomes of marketing programs to see whether the company is moving forward toward its objectives. These and other tools enable management to measure marketing performance and control the implementation of marketing programs.

Although marketing expenses are easily quantified in the short run, the resulting outputs such as broader brand awareness, enhanced brand image, greater customer loyalty, and improved new product prospects may take months or years to manifest themselves.

Two complementary approaches to measuring marketing productivity are:

1. marketing metrics to assess marketing effects and 
2. marketing-mix modeling to estimate causal relationships and measure how marketing activity affects outcomes.

Marketing dashboards are a structured way to disseminate the insights gleaned from these two approaches.