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...perspectives from a
fulfillment services company serving corporate marketing,
promotional, and advertising executives by helping them get their
messages about their products and services into the hands of their
clients. |
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Reports!... What
are they good for? |
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Everyone wants reports. And there are enough IT folks who'll give
you anything you want any way you want.
But there's only one reason ever to request a report (or
indeed to read
one) in the first place: to help you make a sensible decision
affecting what you're doing in your marketing efforts.
Everything else is just cute. |
| marketing management
n. the art and science of choosing target markets and
getting, keeping, and growing customers through creating,
communicating, and delivering superior customer value.
--Philip Kotler |
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Decisions...Decisions... |
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Decisions are fueled by questions around effectiveness. Your regular reports
should reflect what you need to know to be effective in what you do.
Some questions you may have already asked on occasion:
- How much literature should we run for this
campaign? What makes economic sense? What have similar campaigns
used in the past?
- How do we balance the costs of ordering
materials against the costs of carrying them?
- Who do we send our message to?
- How effective are the pieces we now have?
- Where are the pieces going now, and who is
responding to our offers?
- What is the turnaround time between
request and delivery? Does that affect our offerings?
- When do we re-order so we're not out of
stock?
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Types of Reports |
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In our
industry, there are 3 types of reports we offer marketing managers
to help them in their decisioning process:
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Status reports - are "snap shots" of your materials at any
given moment. They tell you what is on hand, and what you may be
running low on.
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Usage reports -
are "moving pictures" of your materials over time. They can detail
any movements of stock between 2 dates.
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Distribution reports -
show you who-got-what-and-when. They can be shipping reports or
product reports by customer or dealer.
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Report Formats |
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Reports can come as simple printouts, either hardcopy or pdf's (Adobe's
portable document format). These reports can be printed out
periodically (weekly, monthly...) or they can be triggered by an
event (e.g., low stock). However
reliable "canned" reports can be, you may still want to construct
your own reports. You do this by getting the data that backs the
reports, which you can then manipulate. The data can come as a
simple text file, or as an EXCEL sheet, or as a
database (ACCESS works well here). You can now further
slice-and-dice your data in even more meaningful ways, sorting
columns or doing simple queries (again, for the purpose of helping
you make better marketing decisions).
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Upcoming Issues |
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Here's
what we hope to do in upcoming issues of Marketing Notes:
- discuss the issues, challenges, and
opportunities you face as a marketing professional.
- provide you with some real hands-on tools
for helping you make effective decisions.
- offer you links to other marketing
resources.
Our goal is to make Philip Kotler's
definition of marketing management (see above) come alive for you in
your everyday work by helping you to put ideas into practice. |
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If you have received this second hand (or are
viewing it off our website) and you want to subscribe, click
here.
If you have received this publication in error,
we sincerely apologize. If you no longer wish to receive it, click
here to unsubscribe. You will not receive another. Promise. |
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Integrated Fulfillment
Services, LLC
42 Cherry Lane
Floral Park, NY 11001
516-326-6201
vnystrom@integrated-fulfillment.com
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