Marketing Audit in Five Steps — a Beginner's Roadmap

We hear people talk a lot about it's time to audit this and audit that. However, most individuals without a marketing background often find the general auditing process quite confusing. And you know what we hate? Unnecessary chaos. While we admit that digital marketing is becoming increasingly challenging everyday, we do not approve the overuse of jargon and overcomplication of simple processes. Therefore, we're going to show you how to conduct a marketing audit in five steps.

Take this simple roadmap, and customize the details according to your unique needs. Doesn't sound too hard at all, does it?

What is a Marketing Audit

First thing first, what is a marketing audit? By definition, it is a "systematic examination of the way a business is being marketed (Digitallogic)." Nowadays, when we talk about a marketing audit, we're usually talking about a digital marketing audit. However, this doesn't mean a comprehensive audit is no longer needed. Quite the opposite — it's often wise to audit both the online and offline marketing efforts for the most comprehensive results.

Think of an audit as a physical examination. Similar to how we go through various lab tests and checkups each year to know how we're doing, a business also undergoes similar procedures to ensure its wellbeing. And a marketing audit is nothing more than one of the specialty examinations needed for the business "body".

The Components of an Effective Audit

Typically, an effective marketing audit should include the following components.

• Marketing environment audit

• Marketing strategy audit

• Marketing system audit

• Marketing organization audit

• Marketing function audit

• Marketing productivity audit

Of course, there are further components that fall under each category. For example, when we talk about the marketing environment, are we looking at both online and offline or only one of them? Alternatively, is it the internal or external environment we will be talking about?

Step 1: Define Your Scope

And that's why your very first step is to define the scope of your marketing audit. Alongside the scope, you should also determine the goals of your audit so you can properly adjust the scope to focus on the most critical items for review.

Step 2: Create an Inventory

Next, start an inventory of your existing assets. This should include everything from marketing collateral, channels, connections... literally everything that falls into the scope you just created. Keep in mind that your inventory should contain both the tangible and intangible resources on hand, such as past analytics.

Step 3: Filter Your Data For Accuracy

Once you have everything organized, it's time to pick and choose. There are various reasons why your data might be erroneous or inaccurate. In other cases, they may simply be unnecessary for the goals you'd like to accomplish. Often, we forget that prioritization and filtering is just as important as gathering information.

If you want to conduct an effective marketing audit, you must know when to say no to what.

Step 4: Evaluate Results

Now that you have the data reflecting each piece you wanted to look at, it's time to evaluate your final results. Here are a few good questions to ask yourself:

• Do the auditing results support the concerns you had

• Are there any pieces missing?

• What are the reasons behind negative results?

• What brought the success in the positive results?

Step 5: Create an Action Plan

The answers to the questions above will guide your creation of a follow-up action plan. The rules are simple. You want to improve on your weaknesses and maintain your strength. Additionally, make sure you're using SMART goals to guide your action plan. Finally, create an updated roadmap for execution so you don't get overwhelmed.

Bonus: Competitor Analysis

Finally, a bonus tip.

Here's the thing: While not always a part of your marketing audit, it's almost always wise to conduct a competitor analysis when auditing yourself. For example, if you're auditing your social media performance, look up your key competitors and see what their approach is on each channel. Are there any channel they're active on but you're not? Is their content strategy similar to what you're doing?

Ideally, you want to analyze 2-3 competitors with similar services and offerings as yours. A competitor analysis, when carried out properly, will bring you lots of ideas for your new action plan.