Marketing communication: principles and practice

P L A N N I N G T H E S Y S T E M
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Communication audit
Concerned with the overall performance of the
corporate systems for communicating
Marketing research
Attention to the performance of the overall
marketing system
Media research
Supports the selection of modes for
communication and media for communicating
Promotion (advertising) 
Examines the effects of messages and content
research
Figure 16.8
Evaluating the marketing system

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A marketing audit is a key element in a total marketing evaluation
programme. Most companies are victims of at least some misdirected
marketing effort. The 80–20 principle suggests that a large proportion of 
total orders, customers, sales territories, or products accounts for only a small
share of total sales or profit. Conversely, a small proportion produces a 
large share of sales or profit. Thus marketing efforts tend to be proportional
to the number of territories, customers, or products, rather than to their actual
sales volume or profit. The iceberg principle suggests that only a small part
of the detail of figures for sales, costs, and other performance measures are
readily visible to managers. Total sales or cost figures are too general to be
of use in evaluation, and may actually be misleading. Thus managers are
required to make decisions based on inadequate information about costs
and paybacks.
The evaluation process has 3 steps:
1 find out what has happened
2 find out why it happened
3 decide what to do about it
Tools for identifying misdirected marketing efforts are:
• sales volume analysis
• market-share analysis
• market cost analysis
These can be studied by product lines and market segments (sales territories
or customer groups).
General marketing performance measures to be monitored for control
purposes are:
• unit sales
• sales value (£)
• sales in specific market segments
• marketing costs
• production costs
• market share
• customer ratings of product quality
• customer ratings of service provided
What might be measured to control marketing communication activities?