ABSTRACT
Marketing in Action
Using data to monitor and control marketing plans can be compared to setting out on a journey with a road map. The process includes identifying your destination (objective), determining the best route to your destination (strategy), and then departing for your trip (implementation of your strategy).
During the journey, you look for highway signs (feedback) to tell you if you are on the way to your objective. Signs along the way quickly reveal if you have made a wrong turn, and you can alter your course to get back on the right road. When you reach your destination, a new route (strategy) is needed to get you somewhere else.
Imagine what would happen if there were no road signs during your trip to let you know if you were on the right road. It might be too late to continue the trip by the time you realized you were traveling in the wrong direction. Yet, many churches are involved in a similar situation, failing to analyze results to determine if objectives are being accomplished.
Failure to establish procedures to monitor and control the marketing process can lead to less than optimal performance. A plan is not complete until the controls are identified, and the procedures for recording and transmitting control information to the administrators of the plan are established.
Simple approaches to controlling marketing activities often can produce good results. For example, if your church changed your advertising in the yellow pages from just your church name listing to a display ad that lists Sunday school and worship time, Bible study meetings, location, and telephone number, you may want to check whether this ad is successful. Simply have the person who answers the phone ask how the people wanting information found out about your church. Over a ten- to twelve-month period, you would be able to show the number of calls that could be traced to your ad. 1
