We plan, we prepare, we use the available primary and secondary data, with our general knowledge, experience and expertise, to make our plans. We plan, we meet, we review; and we be sure to verify that preliminary data is being collected, which will continue ’till after our campaign, to measure our efforts and ROI by KPI. Sometimes sooner, sometimes later, and always eventually — Decisions have to be made (sometimes some decisions are made before we do any planning).
Through all of this, we find some campaigns have tons of success, while other campaigns don’t always work-out as we may have expected, but we always learn something new about the market, our consumers, and the organization. Success and information are each moving two-steps forward, but we also always need to take one-step back to take the measurements, recognize the patterns, and understood the implications. It is important to remember that not taking one-step back to “measure, recognize and understand” the effects of our work, is moving one-step back.