The Benefits of Conducting a Marketing Audit

Marketing audit is a comprehensive, systematic analysis of the marketing environment of a business, both internal and external. It covers the company’s goals, objectives, strategies, and principles in order to identify any problems or areas of opportunity and recommend a course of action that best suits the needs of the business.

There are two main goals for it:

1) Is it aligned with your business' objectives?

2) Review what's working and what isn't so you can identify areas for improvement.

A marketing audit provides management with an in-depth look at the marking operations of the business, which enables them to evaluate the performance, budget, and resources available to the department as a whole.

A well-conducted marketing audit will highlight any areas that are performing well, as well as those that are not up to par. Ultimately, a marketing audit enables decision makers within an organization to make major decisions based on facts, analysis, and data that will support the overarching goals of the business.

If you don't conduct marketing audits on a regular basis, you could be throwing resources and money out the window.

Here are five reasons a marketing audit is a good idea for every business.

1.- Realign Your Marketing Activities With Your Goals?

Many business owners are so concerned with executing the day-to-day responsibilities of running the business that they lose sight of the big picture and the business’?long-term goals. When this happens, it can be difficult to recall why a specific?marketing strategy?was implemented or determine if the business is executing it successfully.

A marketing audit is a way to take a step back, return to your?business plan?and your marketing plan, and ensure that the daily activities you are executing support your business goals.

2.- See What Isn’t Working?

A marketing audit helps business owners explore all of the marketing activities currently being implemented while evaluating if those activities are successful. This is a time to look at your business with an objective eye, armed with facts and data gathered from your research. It's an opportunity to make judgment calls on marketing areas where your business is underperforming. Then you can make informed decisions about how to improve activities or employ new tactics to achieve greater success in your marketing efforts.

3.- Gain Exposure to New Ideas and Different Strategies?

A marketing audit requires a significant amount of research into your business as well as external factors. Although it may not be a primary reason for conducting an audit, the research process can be an excellent way to discover new ideas to try in your business. For example, during your research, you may discover that your competition is doing something you never thought of doing. With a few modifications to make the strategy your own, you can develop new marketing activities that have tremendous potential.

4.- Get In-Depth Insight Into Your Competition?

Successful marketing requires an in-depth understanding of several factors, including the market, your target audience, and your competition. A marketing audit is a great way to dig into who your competition is. By exploring the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors, you can improve the way you approach your audience. Knowing what they're doing well will help you plan how to do it better, so your business will rise to the top.

5.- Save Time and Money in the Long Run?

Without this kind of regular check-in, you may be unconsciously wasting time and money on marketing activities that are producing few results. Conducting a marketing audit regularly helps you maximize your marketing investment by helping you focus on the activities that work best for your business.

Plan Your Marketing Audit?

A marketing audit generally involves reviewing all existing business documents for clarity on goals and plans, compiling a list of strategies currently being executed, gathering input from your team, and conducting research into external factors (competition, market, economy, industry, etc.). It often begins with a?SWOT analysis?of your business, which will help you clearly identify your opportunities for improvement.

Who Is Responsible for Conducting a Marketing Audit?

Typically, it’s best for a marketing audit to be conducted by a third party that is not a member of the organisation. This eliminates any inherent biases and often results in the most constructive analysis of the business. Regardless of who actually conducts the audit, however, a few things should be top of mind.?

Components of a Successful Marketing Audit

• The audit needs to be comprehensive.?An audit should cover all areas of marketing, not just areas where a problem is already perceived or areas that the team knows they excel in. A holistic audit is the best way to uncover opportunities and can highlight previously unknown areas of strength.
• The audit needs to be systematic.?Order and efficiency are key elements of a successful marketing audit. To ensure that your audit doesn’t have any gaps, you need to account for each and every environment, principle, strategy, and operation in your organisation.
• The audit needs to be regular and recurring.?Some companies only conduct an audit when things are going horribly wrong, but as we all know, 'prevention is better than cure'. Conducting a marketing audit, at least once a year, enables your team to discover problems early and solve them.?

How to Conduct a Marketing Audit

Step 1: Describe All Marketing Goals and Objectives?

Your marketing goals should be comprehensive and well thought out.?Marketing goals should be SMART?and align with overarching business objectives.?

Some examples of key marketing objectives include:

• Increasing company visibility
• Increasing audience size
• Differentiating from competition
• Increasing or maintaining market share
• Generating qualified sales leads
• Increasing usage among existing customers

Be sure to create both long-term and short-term goals. Long-term goals should be able to be accomplished within the next two years and be listed in the order of their priority. Short-term goals should be anything that can be accomplished within the next 12 months, ordered by priority, and keeping in mind available company resources such as time, budget, and team.

Step 2: Create Your Customer Personas

If you haven’t created detailed?buyer personas?for your ideal buyer, take this opportunity to do so.?

Your ideal buyer persona should include things like:?

• Job titles or functions
• Industry
• Geographic location
• Company size
• Other demographic, ethnic, or behavioural descriptions

In our free workbook "How To Win More Customers Without Spending More", we provide you with a step-by-step guide to identify your buyer persona

Step 3: Identify the Competition

Name the top 3–5 competitors in your industry. Note their business information, such as the company name, website, and headquarters location. Make a comprehensive list of all their products and services and note each that overlaps with your own products and services.

Step 4: Describe Your Products and Services

Be sure to include all features, benefits, pricing, sizing, and distribution methods for each product and service that you offer. Analyse how each of your products or services compares to your top competitor(s). Detail the various strengths and weaknesses, as well as any historical data you may have regarding your market share, customer perception, and overall performance of each item as it compares to the competition.

Step 5: Map Out Your Inventory?

Create a detailed document that contains all of your current marketing assets. Compile and catalogue all of your brand materials and marketing collateral. Start with a site map of your website and a spreadsheet that contains pertinent information about each item. Some things to include are:

• Name of the asset
• Category or topic
• URL
• Target buyer persona
• Broken links
• 404 errors
• Duplicate content
• Traffic by channel
• Click-through rate
• Engagement
• Sessions
• Page views
• Shares by network
• Content length
• Metadata
• Content type
• Organic position by keyword
• Page speed
• Bounce rate

Step 6: Analyse Data and Draw Conclusions?

Once you’ve assembled and documented all of your data, you should have a pretty clear picture of your company’s standing. Identify areas of strength and weakness as you analyse each section of your marketing audit. Keep detailed notes about anything you see that you’d like to improve upon or keep doing well.?

Step 7: Make a Plan and Put It into Action?

After analysing the results of your marketing audit, you can make more informed decisions about how to move forward. Your action plan should start by solving any issues that were identified during the audit:

• Address all site penalties, such as broken links, or 404 errors.
• Resolve any analytics-tracking issues.
• Identify gaps in existing content.

Next, address any areas that could be quick wins for the marketing and sales team. For example, align your marketing materials to support the onboarding, delivery and off boarding process and protect your brand by doing the following:

• Optimise and refresh any and all social media channels.
• Update your information (or claim) in Google My Business.
• Respond to any online reviews in the directories relevant to your industry.

Plan for the future:

• Align sales and marketing communication strategies with potential, new and existing customers.
• Update your brand guidelines, messaging, and voice.
• Identify opportunities for improving customer experience and conversion rate optimisation.
• Research any upcoming networking, publication, and industry-specific opportunities.

With a detailed marketing audit under your belt, you’ll be ready to move forward your business and make the most of all your daily efforts.

Sources:

https://www.thebalancesmb.com/reasons-to-conduct-marketing-audit-2951719

https://www.smartbugmedia.com/blog/marketing-audit