Several measures may be taken in assessing performance in relation to the marketing plan, including sales analysis, market share analysis, marketing expenses to sales ratios, attitude tracking, profitability and efficiency. Each of these will be briefly discussed.
Sales analysis
Actual sales can be compared to sales targets and budgets and an analysis of any variance between the two would be carefully examined. Sales analysis centres interest upon the relative contribution of different factors to a gap in sales performance. Say, for example, that the managing director of the National Canning Company is told by the marketing manager that sales are up half a million units on the target and that revenues are five percent above budget, this would be cause for celebration. Or would it? Before answering this question the managing director would wished to look at these figures a little more analytically. The operating results might look those presented in table 3.2.