How a marketing audit can save your marketing strategy
You've drawn up a sophisticated marketing plan, but the results aren't always there. How can you pinpoint what's going wrong and improve the impact of your actions? By enlisting the outside (and life-saving!) eye of a marketing audit expert. His mission? Take stock of your strengths, so you can make the most of them, and your weaknesses, so you can define areas for improvement.
But what exactly does this entail? And how do you effectively carry out a marketing audit?
We explain it all to you.
But what is a marketing audit?
The definition
A marketing audit is the process of taking stock of your marketing and/or digital marketing strategy, with the aim of revealing your strengths and weaknesses.
This is followed by the implementation of a recommendation plan determining the levers to activate to achieve your objectives.
💡 Please note: the scope of a marketing audit can be very broad, or on the contrary restricted to a narrow field of action:
- service organization,
- brand positioning,
- social media strategy,
- marketing budget management, etc.
The different types of marketing audit
Traditionally, there are 3 types of marketing audit:
- Internal audit: focuses on the strategy and actions already deployed within your organization.
- Environmental audit: analyzes the external factors, such as economic factors, that influence the strength of your operations.
- Organizational audit: studies the way you operate internally (processes, tools used, etc.).
☝️ Keep in mind, however, that a complete marketing audit encompasses all these components, as they all have an impact on your performance.
When should a marketing audit be carried out?
There 's no right or wrong frequency. It all depends on your needs and objectives.
Some organizations undertake this on a regular basis, every quarter for example.
However, we realize that the exercise can seem cumbersome, so we recommend that you carry out an in-depth marketing audit at least for key moments: new product launches, changes to your brand image, shifts in your positioning, etc.
Why carry out a marketing audit?
- To improve your performance. The in-depth analysis involved in a marketing audit provides you with a solid action plan to boost your performance and competitiveness.
- Optimize your budget. Areas for improvement are identified, taking into account the ROI of your activities.
- Neutrality. We strongly recommend that you have your marketing audit carried out by an external service provider. This way, you benefit from a fresh, neutral viewpoint.
- Team well-being. There's nothing more frustrating than spending energy for nothing! But after a marketing audit, your teams will devote their efforts to creating real value.
- Positioning. Benchmarking, monitoring... these beneficial marketing practices are not carried out regularly enough by companies. The marketing audit is an excellent opportunity to position yourself in relation to your competitors and the market.
The 4 steps of a marketing audit
Carry out an environmental audit
As we've already mentioned, a complete marketing audit encompasses all the factors that influence the effectiveness of your operations. This includes the environment.
The environmental audit consists of studying elements external to your company (socio-demographic, political, cultural, etc.), to see :
- how you can benefit from them,
- or, on the contrary, how they can be a hindrance.
It also includes an analysis of your business sector:
- your competitors and their strategy,
- your potential customers and their needs,
- market trends.
Analyze your current strategy
The analysis of your current strategy is based on an examination of the relevance of the actions deployed, in relation to your positioning and objectives (spreading your brand image more widely, penetrating a new market, etc.).
This involves a study of your various metrics, to determine the precise results obtained by activating your marketing levers (content marketing, social networks, etc.).
This is how you determine your famous strengths and weaknesses.
☝️ The results are also compared with those of the environmental diagnosis. A good way to identify new opportunities!
Examine your internal organization
Finally, focus on the organization of your department. The better it is, the more efficient and productive you'll be!
The analysis then focuses on elements such as :
- hierarchical structure
- processes in place
- communication within the department,
- relations with other departments, especially sales,
- involvement of teams and service providers, etc.
Drawing up a recommendation plan
Finally, once all these analyses have been carried out, it's time to draw up a recommendation plan, in line with the areas for improvement identified.
All that's left to do is implement the change throughout the marketing team, and roll out the new strategy.
Pricing and service providers
In absolute terms, it's possible to carry out your own marketing audit.
But it's better to have an outside view of your strategy: you're always in the thick of it, so it's hard to stand back and be completely neutral.
So which service providers should you call on? There are specialized companies, notably marketing agencies. On the other hand, they can quickly add up. The service generally costs several hundred euros, and the invoice can run as high as €3,000 excluding VAT.
💡 Did you know that there are free services available? For example, Solocal offers the free Solocal Digital Audit, which focuses on companies' web presence: visibility on search engines, directories and social networks, website performance, etc. To obtain your audit, simply complete an online questionnaire. And to take things a step further, Solocal can help you draw up and deploy an action plan to boost your online presence.
The marketing audit in a nutshell
A marketing audit is an invaluable tool for capitalizing on your strengths and eliminating your bottlenecks.
Carried out regularly (or at key periods), and ideally by an external service provider, its aim is to study :
- your current strategy and its scope,
- the environment in which your company operates,
- your organization.
The result will be an action plan and best practices to be applied to boost your performance and the ROI of your campaigns. So, why go without?
Article translated from French