Marketing Control

• Marketing control is concerned with analyzing the performance of marketing decision,

identifying the problem/opportunities and taking actions to take advantage of
opportunities and resolving problems.

• All managers need to exercise control over their decision and marketing operations.

• Specifically marketing performance is measured in terms of market share, sales, profits.

Hence most control measures are designed with these parameters in mind.

• Today's marketing needs to measure the following.

a)      Market share

b)      Sales and profits

c)      Marketing effectiveness

d)      Customer satisfaction

e)      Customer perception of the firm and its brands

Types of Marketing Control

Strategic control
1)  Annual plan control: It is with top or middle level management to evaluate actual
performance with the targeted performance to analyze differences or gaps. The tools used are
sales analysis, market share analysis, sales and expense ratios, and financial analysis.

2) Profitability control: It is used by marketing department to examine profitability by product,

territory, customer segment and trade channel.

3) Efficiency control: It is used to assess the effectiveness of money spend on sales force,
advertising, sales promotion and distribution.

4)  Strategic control: It is used by the top mgmt to examine whether the firm and marketing is
capable to cope up with the environment or not. The major tool used here is marketing audit.

Marketing Control Process

a)  Decide the aspect of marketing operation to be evaluated

Eg: Effectiveness of media, sales person performance or performance of product

b) Establish measurement criterion (standard)

Performance standards are decided against which actual performance is evaluated.

Eg: sales person performance - new accounts obtained, call frequency ratio and order per call.

c)  Establish monitoring mechanism

MIS is used to record performance of all marketing areas like monthly sales volume for
products.

d)  Compare actual results with standards of performance

Results obtained through monitoring process are compared with pre-established standards of
performance.

e) Initiate performance improvement

If the results/performance are not up to the desired standards, corrective action to be taken to
enhance the performance level.
 Marketing Audit

A marketing audit is a comprehensive, systematic, independent, periodic examination of a

company’s or business unit’s marketing environment, objectives, strategies, and activities
with a view to determining problem areas and opportunities, and recommending a plan of
action to improve the company’s marketing performance.

The marketing audit helps to determine how well a firm’s marketing department is carrying
out the marketing activities and how much it is adding to the overall performance of the
organization.

Features / Characteristics of Marketing Audit

Periodic
• It should be comprehensive and broad in focus covering the entire marketing
environment of the company.

• It should be a systematic and orderly sequence of diagnostic steps as compared to an

unstructured and random investigation.

• It should be an objective exercise and independent of the managers directly involved in

making the marketing decisions.

• It should be carried out periodically. The marketing audit should be undertaken on a

regular basis and not only when major problems arise.
Components / Types of Marketing Audit

Marketing Environment Audit:

• It is divided into two groups i.e macro environment and task environment.

– Macro environment audit includes analysis of political, economical, technological

and cultural aspects.

– Task environment audit covers customers, competitors, markets,

dealer/distributors, suppliers, marketing firms and public.

Marketing Strategy Audit:

• This audit reviews firm’s marketing mission, objectives, goals, and strategies and to
appraise their adaptability to present and future environment.

Marketing Organisation Audit:

• The audit evaluates the firm’s capability in implementing necessary strategies for the
future environment.

• It also reviews formal organization structure and efficiency.

Marketing Systems Audit:

• It evaluates the subsystems of a system such as marketing information system, marketing

planning system, marketing control system and new product development system.

Marketing productivity Audit:

• This audit critically examines the profitability of different marketing entities and cost
effectiveness of different heads of marketing expenditure.

Marketing Function Audit:

• It is a functional audit mainly covering marketing mix components namely product, price,
place and promotion (advertising, sales promotion, personal selling , direct marketing and
publicity).

Benefits of Marketing Audit

 Identify areas of improvement (uncover inefficiencies). 

 Identify areas where you excel and build on that. 
 Drive your marketing strategy with data insights collected during the auditing process. 
  Set a list of action items so that you can constantly move your marketing efforts forward. 
 Formulate performance targets and how to measure ROI. 

The outcome of audit is a clear insight into your marketing abilities and assets.