Actual results exceed goals in this case marketing

Actual results exceed goals . In this case, marketing must act quickly to exploit
unforeseen opportunities. In 2012, Starbucks added a “blonde roast” and more food items
for U.S. customers. It also opened hundreds of new stores for Asian customers. The
result: Starbucks' first quarter 2013 profits grew by 13 percent. Having exceeded its
goals, Starbucks recently announced aggressive plans to add thousands of additional
stores worldwide, make 60 percent of new U.S. stores drive-thrus, and develop new
coffee varieties on its just-purchased 600-acre Costa Rican research farm. 35

Actual results fall short of goals . This requires a corrective action. Beaten badly for
years in the U.S. toothpaste market by P&G's Crest, Colgate used new technology to
introduce its Total toothpaste, the first “oral pharmaceutical” approved by the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration. Total not only cleans teeth, but its germ-fighting technology
helps heal gingivitis, a bleeding-gum disease. Colgate marketed this feature aggressively,
enabling Total to become No. 1 in the U.S. toothpaste market. 36
Marketing ROI, Metrics, and Dashboards
The concept has been extended to measuring the effectiveness of marketing expenditures with
marketing ROI , the application of modern measurement technologies to understand, quantify,
and optimize marketing spending.
The strategic marketing process tries to improve marketing ROI through the effective use of
marketing metrics and dashboards:

Marketing metrics . Depending on the specific goal or objective sought, one or a few key
marketing metrics are chosen, such as market share, cost per sales lead, cost per click,
sales per square foot, and so on.

Marketing dashboards . Ideally, the marketing metrics are displayed—often daily or
weekly—on the marketing dashboard on the manager's computer. With today's syndicated
scanner data, website hits, and TV viewership tracking, the typical manager faces
information overload. So an effective marketing dashboard highlights actual results that
vary significantly from plans. This alerts the manager to potential problems.