What are control systems used for in marketing?

Control systems in marketing are fundamentally designed to monitor or measure the success of a marketing plan. This involves setting up key performance indicators (KPIs) and benchmarks to evaluate how well marketing strategies are performing against defined objectives. By assessing these metrics, organizations can determine the effectiveness of their marketing initiatives, identify areas for improvement, and make informed decisions about future marketing efforts.

Using control systems enables marketers to analyze various data points such as sales figures, customer feedback, market share changes, and campaign performance. This ongoing assessment helps ensure that the marketing activities remain aligned with overall business goals and enables timely adjustments as needed to optimize performance.

While aspects like tracking competitor performance and employee satisfaction are vital to overall business strategy, they do not directly reflect the primary function of control systems in marketing, which is focused specifically on measuring and controlling the effectiveness of marketing activities. Similarly, developing new product lines is more related to product development and innovation processes rather than the control and measurement of marketing performance.