The implementation and control of marketing plans - is a process which should ensure

the achievement of the strategic objectives adopted by the company. A special role in this
process plays a function of organizing and directing people. It involves preparing
comprehensive list of activities to be performed, people responsible for this activities and
resources needed.
Controlling of marketing plans - the main objective is the current monitoring and evaluation
of the marketing activities of the company, recording and reporting of deviations
to management, which takes decisions based on this information.
The process of the implementation of the marketing plan
during the process of the implementation of the marketing plan managers must ensure efficient use of
capital, human and marketing resources of the company. Selection of the strategy has a significant impact
on the subsequent functioning of the company, because its organizational structure must be adapted
to strategy. Strategic marketing effectiveness largely depends on the level of involvement of executive
leadership in the implementation of marketing tasks. In the implementation of the marketing plan very
important factor are the skills, attitudes and behaviors of the staff.
Quality of management depends on:
leadership - top management involvement in the planning process,
coordination - to ensure harmonious cooperation between the organizational units,
communication - vertical and horizontal information flows,
human resources - personnel selection, training and evaluation,
organizational resources - IT systems, buildings, management methods,
motivating - the creation of incentive climate in which staff undertake actions to achieve the purpose of
the company,
organizational structure - relations between organizational units, processes, and formalization,
organizational culture - market focus, values, customer orientation of personnel,

Implementation Control
Implementing a strategy takes place as a series of steps, activities, investments and acts
that occur over a lengthy period. As a manager, you'll mobilize resources, carry out special
projects and employ or reassign staff. Implementation control is the type of strategic control
that must be carried out as events unfold. There are two types of implementation controls:
strategic thrusts or projects, and milestone reviews. Strategic thrusts provide you with
information that helps you determine whether the overall strategy is shaping up as planned.
With milestone reviews, you monitor the progress of the strategy at various intervals or
milestones.
Strategic Surveillance
Strategic surveillance is designed to observe a wide range of events within and outside your
organization that are likely to affect the track of your organization's strategy. It's based on
the idea that you can uncover important yet unanticipated information by monitoring
multiple information sources. Such sources include trade magazines, journals such as The
Wall Street Journal, trade conferences, conversations and observations.
Strategy
is selected and implemented over a period of time. But strategies being forward looking and designed to accomplish
the future objectives, it is necessary to enforce control over strategy.
Strategic controls, which can be enforced by certain operational controls, are enforced through:

1.
2.
3.
4.

Premise control
Implementation control
Strategic surveillance
Special alert control

1. Premise control:
Premise control is designed to check systematically and continuously whether or not the
premises set during the planning and implementation process are still valid. For example, a
bank may adopt an aggressive marketing strategy to achieve 15 per cent annual growth, on
a planning premise that their non- performing assets would not be more than 10 per cent.
Premise control should therefore ensure monitoring the non-performing assets at branch
levels on a regular basis.
2. Implementation control:
Implementation control is designed to assess whether the results of overall strategy
associate with incremental steps and actions. For example, an internationally known fastfood centre decided to maintain the ratio between company-owned outlets and franchisee
outlets at 3:1, to ensure control over quality of foods, rates, etc. But the growing competition
in this business later forced it to reverse the ratio to enable it to open outlets at new
locations.
3. Strategic surveillance:
Strategic surveillance is designed to monitor a broad range of events inside and outside the
company that are likely to threaten the course of the firms strategy. For example, in the
early years of its attempt to sell the CFA courses, the Institute of Chartered Financial
Analysts of India (ICFAI) made its course more finance oriented, covering all conceivable
finance papers, targeting the financial services sector as the prospective employers of their
students.
Later on, since the financial services sector became highly unstable and volatile, ICFAI felt
the need to target other sectors as prospective employers of their students, and therefore
shifted its focus to PGDBA papers like marketing, HRD, information technology, strategic
management, etc.
IBM adopted a similar shift in focus, while marketing its large expensive mainframe
computers, from corporate houses to libraries, worldwide.
4. Special alert control:
Special alert control is the need to thoroughly, and often rapidly, reconsiders the firms basic
strategy based on a sudden, unexpected event. For instance, a likely political coup or
internal disturbances in a country will create pressure on exporters to that particular
country, who may have to thoroughly reconsider their export market strategy. Again, a
sudden incident like a major air crash could have a devastating effect on the concerned air
line company.
Examples of Strategic Surveillance
Small businesses use strategic surveillance to observe events inside and outside the
business that will likely affect its strategy. Businesses can do these observations in a variety
of ways, such as by reviewing outside literature, monitoring environmental factors,
attending trade conferences and watching social networking websites. The goal of
this surveillance is to keep ahead of competitors and changes in the business
climate.Reviewing Outside Literature
One example of everyday strategic surveillance by small business is the review of outside
literature relating to business activities. This literature can include reading The Wall Street
Journal, Business Weekly, or any other trade publication. These newspapers and periodicals
offer insight into business trends or trends that are becoming outdated. This is a relatively
inexpensive way for small businesses to observe business trends that will affect their

company strategy.
Environmental Factors Watching environmental factors is another example of strategic
surveillance. For example, the mad cow epidemic immediately affected what the fast food
industry served. Restaurants stopped serving beef and began serving chicken and
vegetarian alternate dishes. The fast food industry knew that this epidemic would
immediately affect their business so it changed its menu to avoid revenue losses.
Attending Trade Conferences Another example of strategic surveillance is attending trade
conferences in your line of business. Every type of business holds various trade conferences
throughout the year to introduce new products and to discuss ideas for the future. These
conferences are a perfect way to view the competition and to test new ideas or products.
Customers also attend these conferences so small businesses can view how the customers
will react to possible changes.
Social Networking Websites Another example of strategic surveillance is watching social
networking websites. This is an inexpensive way to observe how clients and competitors will
react to a company changing strategy and to receive their comments. For example, most
companies place on their websites "Follow us on Face book and Twitter." This enables
consumers to connect with companies on these social websites by making comments about
problems with the company or posting things they like about the company. These comments
are then read by the company and other consumers.
Examples of Controls in a Marketing Plan
Monitoring your marketing plan is key to creating successful advertising campaigns.
To maximize the return on a marketing plan, there need to be controls in place to monitor
the plan's progress. As a marketing plan moves along, the controls are constantly analyzed
to determine how the plan's actual performance compares to the projections. Any changes
that need to be made are done based on the analysis of marketing controls. Understanding
what the controls in a marketing plan are will help you develop effective performance
measurement indicators.
Customer Feedback
Marketing is designed to persuade consumers to purchase a product or invest in a service.
One control put into place in any marketing plan is the monitoring of customer feedback
through polls and surveys. You can reach customers indirectly by hosting online polls on the
Internet that ask specific questions about your latest marketing plan. Conversely, surveys
can be done with marketing groups or via individual interviews by phone or in person. Adjust
your marketing plan according to the results of your research. For example, if your
marketing campaign includes a new company mascot and customer feedback indicates that
the mascot is not popular, then the mascot should be removed from the marketing plan.
Target Market Sales Sales can be measured in units sold, revenue generated or profit amount.
Each marketing plan sets out to determine the effect of the plan on the target market. Once
again, this is done through market surveys or at the point of sale with the assistance of retail
partners. Actual sales in the target market are compared to the marketing plan projections
to see if any changes need to be made. For example, if the target market for a marketing
plan is males ages 15 to 21, then the target market sales reports would monitor sales made
to that group. If sales are down, then further market research needs to be done to see why
the target audience is not responding to the marketing. In some cases, analyzing a
demographic breakdown of sales may indicate that the initial target market was inaccurate

and a new target market may emerge based on sales data.

Budgeting A marketing budget is a balance between the cost of generating the advertising
materials and the revenue created by the marketing plan. There are several controls in place
that can be used to monitor a marketing budget, including print advertising expenses, travel
expenses for trade shows, the cost of market research studies and internal personnel costs
for the company's marketing department. All of these costs need to be closely monitored to
minimize spending and maximize profitability. By examining expenses, you are able
maintain your budget and see exactly where spending increases come from.
Market share is that percentage of consumer sales dominated by your product. For example,
you may have several competitors in a particular industry, with your product sales making
up 15 percent of all product sold into that marketplace. In most cases, market share is
broken down by product to get a comprehensive look at consumer patterns. A marketing
plan outlines the market share of a product before the plan is in place, and then projects the
changes to the marketplace when the plan is over. For example, your marketing plan may
call for increasing market share of your newest product from 10 percent of all products sold
to 15 percent. During the plan's timeline, there will be milestone percentages you will want
to reach on your way to the 5 percent increase. For example, you may want to see a 3
percent market share increase at the halfway point of the marketing plan. If your analysis
does not show a 3 percent increase by that point, then you need to analyze why the plan is
falling short and what can be done to correct it.