PERFORMANCE MONITORING/MEASUREMENT

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Performance Monitoring/Measurement
Introduction
The primary objective of a marketing plan is to increase the number of sales and attract more customers. Marketing involves activities like advertising, selling and delivering products to customers. Marketing performance measurement is the backbone of marketing operations they help in the management of resources and activities of the firm to ensure the firm achieves the expected returns while providing quality services to customersCITATION Rog12 p 290-330 l 1033 (Roger Palmer 290-330). The results from these measures are either positive or negative, and management uses them to take immediate action concerning the issue. This article will focus on the marketing plan of a pharmaceutical company. It will also look into the marketing performance measures that can be used to monitor the success or failure of the company. The following are the marketing performance measures that get used in the pharmaceutical company.
Data and analytics
Data and analytics are one of the main activities used for performance measurement. They involve activities of collecting appropriate and accurate data that is crucial to the pharmaceutical company for example data like the number of sales made daily, the day when sales are high and the time when customers are many. The collected data is then analyzed to come up with information that is understood. The company then can use the information to improve their marketing strategies and plans, for example, they can reduce the price of their chemicals, promote their products or organize roadshows.

The other use of analytics is to optimize marketing spending in the market since the company has access to useful data on sales of products. They are also used to monitor and predict customer behavior such as the number of chemical customers likes to purchase. The sources of the data are websites, accounts or data analyzersCITATION Rog12 p 300-330 l 1033 (Roger Palmer 300-330).
Assessment
Assessment is the process of conducting SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analyses in the marketing environment. Assessment involves performing benchmarking other companies and comparing the performance of other companies to a certain standard or example comparison of the price of a particular product. Benchmarking is mostly done in companies that are doing well in business and helps one to know the best business processes to conduct or adapt. Comparisons will enable one to track their competitor’s practices especially if they are doing better than them. When the competitor’s information is obtained, one can adjust the prices of their products to attract more customers and generally improve performance by exploiting weaknesses of the other firms.
Accountability
They involve activities of measuring the achievement of the marketing plan, plan or group. They check whether the desired objective is achieved or not for example if the marketing plan was to increase sale they evaluate whether the sales have increased. If the activity does not achieve its objective, then changes are madeCITATION Rog12 p 300 l 1033 (Roger Palmer 300). Accountability also includes one being responsible or a particular action and be accountable for the results.
Reporting
Reporting is one of the measures to monitor marketing performance. There are different formats for reporting marketing performance, e.g., pictorial, graphics, tabular and verbal they help in accountability and decision-making in the company.
Conclusion
As far as marketing is concerned performance measures have to be taken to know whether the marketing plan is bearing fruits. Information obtained from performance measures helps the firm or management to make efficient and effective decisions or take actions that will lead to the success of the company.
References
BIBLIOGRAPHY Roger Palmer, Richard Meek, Lynn Parkinson, Helen Meek. CIM Coursebook 06/07 Managing Marketing Performance. Routledge, 2012. print.