Businesses worldwide are feeling the squeeze of encroaching competition, and in this environment leaving marketing to chance can spell disaster.

The competition may have a better offer or a product/service that is more specialized than yours. They may have more time in the market, perfected more marketing channels, and their brand messaging well established. However, this doesn’t mean you throw up your hands and surrender, but instead, work up a marketing audit reviewing both internal and external influences. Then, with confidence put your best plan forward.

As a fundamental part of the marketing process, a marketing audit serves as a planning and budgeting document. It determines the existing opportunities, and in some cases, identifies current issues. This is because the fundamentals involved – defining, describing and analyzing are critical. A marketing audit allows you to see the big picture – what’s really taking place in your company. Plus, it allows your firm to be more confident moving forward, risking less money and producing more results.

What should a marketing audit provide?

1) A marketing audit is an impartial assessment of your company’s marketing and sales activities for customer development and retention purposes. It should review the brand, the market, messaging, marketing channels, marketing tactics, creative approaches, offers, collateral and sales tools, data collection processes as well as your website and social marketing efforts.

2) The audit should report on the strengths and weaknesses in the areas of staffing, accounting, technical support and operations that may sabotage the entire marketing efforts. Inefficiencies should be noted and acted upon early. My recommendation is to build an interdepartmental team consisting of these areas to ensure a clear understanding of responsibilities and communications going forward.

3) A deep dive into customer data should be part of the audit. Accurate data is the base of successful marketing programs. Without it, you could end up targeting the wrong people or worse, missing out on identifying demographic populations perfectly suited for your products or services. Never base your marketing efforts on assumptions, but a clear understanding of why, how, and what customers buy. The outputs from this section should identify short and long-term sales opportunities to maximize revenues and improve customer retention.

4) A final wrap-up report for senior management that identifies the findings and announces recommendations, as well as an action plan to implement the recommendations is always suggested.

Does your current marketing plan match up with your organizational goals? Have you been measuring and identifying key areas for growth? Is the right team in place? Do you have a plan for consistent improvement, specifically efficiency improvements?

Next time you plan a campaign, begin with a marketing audit, and make sure all your bases are covered for a successful effort going forward.

If you would like to schedule a time to talk more about improving performance with a marketing audit, please write [email protected]

With more than 20 years of hands on marketing strategy and operations experience, Jay Griffin is dedicated to developing marketing strategies that help clients succeed. Specialties: direct response marketing, customer acquisition, lead generation, integrating media channel performance, search engine marketing (SEO), email marketing, competitive marketing strategy, collateral development, product development and brand management.