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Marketing Strategy week 4: Measurement and Control

Marketing Strategy week 4: Measurement and Control

MarketingFile - Marketing Strategy week 4: Measurement and Control

We are now on our final week of our marketing strategy tips focusing on the part of the strategy which normally is forgotten, the measurement and control of the project.

Get Control

Once you have planned, discussed, implemented and managed your strategy you need to know if it’s achieved your original objective. To do this effectively using a Gantt chart at the beginning of the project will help keep your plan on track. 

However, don’t feel like you have to stick to the plan 100%. Your business environment can change, internally and externally. Therefore your strategy needs to take this into account with contingency plans ready if certain situations occur, i.e. a competitor releases a similar product a month before you’re launch date, or your head of sales goes on maternity leave – your business should have plans in place to manage these changes effectively. 

We’ve included an example of a Gantt chart below, each task will be given a time frame it has to be completed by and include slack time (amount of time a task can go on for before effecting other tasks). Planning in this way gives a visual display of how long each task will take, because of this it is sometimes useful to write your Gantt chart whilst producing your marketing plan to give yourself realistic time frames.

Gantt Chart

Measure Results

At the end of your project your shareholders or board of directors (or even for your own sanity) will want to know if you achieved what you set out to do. To do this you need to measure how well your marketing plan was implemented and to what level did it achieve its goals.

Your measurement will depend on your objectives, for example increasing website traffic can be measured by volume of traffic, page views, time on site, bounce rate etc. Or to increase social media engagement can be measured by reach, participation and number of followers. 

Document your results in an easy to read format so everyone involved understands the final outcome of the strategy. Don’t forget to produce a formal report to indicate the project has come to an end which should be distributed among all teams involved and shareholders/board members.

A final note...

We hope your business will find our four weeks’ of strategy blogs useful for your next marketing project. If you would like more information or hints and tips please call our team on 0845 345 7755. Plus why not get in touch for your free data count to find prospects for your next direct marketing campaign.

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