☆ Why Review Marketing?
Regular marketing reviews help businesses:
- Identify what's working and what's not
- Make better use of marketing budgets
- Respond to changing market conditions
- Improve future marketing campaigns
- Stay ahead of competitors
Importance of Marketing » Review and Assessment
What you'll learn this session
Study time: 30 minutes
- How to review and assess marketing effectiveness
- Key performance indicators (KPIs) for marketing
- Methods of measuring marketing success
- How to interpret marketing data
- Ways to improve marketing strategies based on assessment
🔒 Unlock Full Course Content
Sign up to access the complete lesson and track your progress!
Unlock This CourseIntroduction to Marketing Review and Assessment
After putting all your marketing efforts into action, you need to know if they're actually working! Marketing review and assessment is about checking if your marketing activities are doing what they should be. This helps businesses make smart decisions about where to spend their time and money in the future.
Key Definitions:
- Marketing review: The process of examining marketing activities to determine their effectiveness.
- Marketing assessment: Evaluating the success of marketing strategies against set objectives.
- Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Specific measurements used to track marketing performance.
✓ When to Review Marketing
Marketing should be reviewed:
- After specific campaigns end
- At regular intervals (monthly, quarterly)
- When sales targets aren't being met
- Before planning new marketing activities
- When market conditions change significantly
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
KPIs are specific measurements that help businesses track how well their marketing is performing. Different businesses will use different KPIs depending on their goals, but they all serve the same purpose – to show if marketing is working.
£ Financial KPIs
- Return on Investment (ROI)
- Sales revenue
- Cost per acquisition
- Profit margin
- Marketing spend vs budget
♥ Customer KPIs
- Customer satisfaction
- Customer retention rate
- Net Promoter Score (NPS)
- Customer lifetime value
- Number of complaints
@ Digital KPIs
- Website traffic
- Social media engagement
- Email open rates
- Click-through rates
- Conversion rates
Methods of Measuring Marketing Success
There are many ways to gather data about marketing performance. Using a combination of these methods gives the most complete picture.
Quantitative Methods
These methods use numbers and statistics to measure marketing performance:
- Sales data analysis: Looking at sales figures before, during and after marketing campaigns
- Website analytics: Tracking visitor numbers, page views, time on site, etc.
- Social media metrics: Measuring followers, likes, shares, comments and reach
- Market share calculations: Comparing your sales to the total market size
- Financial ratio analysis: Calculating ROI, profit margins, etc.
Qualitative Methods
These methods focus on opinions, attitudes and experiences:
- Customer surveys: Asking customers directly about their experiences
- Focus groups: In-depth discussions with small groups of customers
- Customer interviews: One-to-one conversations with customers
- Social media sentiment analysis: Examining the tone of comments about your brand
- Mystery shopping: Having someone pose as a customer to evaluate the experience
Case Study Focus: Greggs' Vegan Sausage Roll
In 2019, UK bakery chain Greggs launched their vegan sausage roll with a clever marketing campaign that parodied Apple product launches. To assess the campaign's success, they tracked:
- Sales data: The product sold out in many stores within hours
- Social media engagement: The launch video received millions of views
- PR value: The campaign generated an estimated £250 million worth of free publicity
- Share price impact: Greggs' share price rose by 13.5% following the launch
- New customer acquisition: The product attracted customers who had never visited Greggs before
This comprehensive assessment showed that the campaign was hugely successful, leading Greggs to expand their vegan range further.
Interpreting Marketing Data
Having data is only useful if you know what to do with it. Here's how to make sense of your marketing measurements:
&search; Data Analysis Tips
- Compare results against your original objectives
- Look for patterns and trends over time
- Benchmark against competitors when possible
- Consider external factors that might have affected results
- Don't just look at averages – examine outliers too
- Combine different data sources for a fuller picture
! Common Pitfalls
- Focusing only on metrics that look good
- Confusing correlation with causation
- Not giving campaigns enough time to show results
- Ignoring qualitative feedback
- Setting unrealistic benchmarks
- Making decisions based on insufficient data
Improving Marketing Based on Assessment
The whole point of reviewing your marketing is to make it better next time. Here's how to use your findings to improve:
The Marketing Improvement Cycle
- Review: Gather all relevant data about marketing performance
- Analyse: Interpret the data to identify strengths and weaknesses
- Plan: Develop strategies to address weaknesses and build on strengths
- Implement: Put your new strategies into action
- Review again: Start the cycle over to see if your changes worked
+ What to Keep
When your assessment shows something is working well:
- Continue successful campaigns
- Increase budget for high-performing channels
- Apply winning strategies to other products
- Share success stories across the business
− What to Change
When your assessment shows problems:
- Adjust messaging that isn't resonating
- Reallocate budget from poor performers
- Test different approaches
- Improve targeting to reach the right audience
⊕ What to Try
Based on your findings, consider:
- New marketing channels
- Different creative approaches
- Alternative pricing strategies
- Partnerships with complementary brands
Summary: The Importance of Marketing Review and Assessment
Marketing review and assessment isn't just a box-ticking exercise – it's essential for business success. Without measuring your marketing efforts, you're essentially guessing what works. Regular, thorough assessment helps businesses:
- Spend their marketing budget more effectively
- Continuously improve their marketing strategies
- Respond quickly to changes in the market
- Justify marketing expenditure to stakeholders
- Build on successes and learn from failures
Remember, the most successful businesses don't just do marketing – they constantly review, assess and improve their marketing based on solid evidence.