What is a marketing audit? (+ How to do one)

To be a marketer in today’s landscape is equally exciting and terrifying, right? A marketing audit has never been more important. The competition is violent and with AI on the horizon it is difficult to say what the future will bring in the next five years or so.

If you have not revised your marketing strategy for several years or have some important metrics, it is time to roll up your sleeves and get to the bottom. That is what helps you a marketing audit.

In this article we will take a closer look at Marketing audits, the best time to carry out one, and a few best practices to achieve one.

Table of contents

In order to achieve the best results, your marketing audit should be objectively, systematic and recurring.

• The lens It must be ensured that it is free of bias.
• A systematic The approach ensures that your audit is structured, organized and measurable.
• A recurring Audit helps you to discover and tackle problems at an early stage.

Note that a marketing audit can include your entire process or a subset. B. a certain campaign, a certain process or a focus (e.g. social media marketing).

Elements of a marketing audit

A comprehensive marketing audit can include one or more of the following elements:

1. SWOT analysis

A The SWOT analysis describes the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of your marketing. With this framework you can inventive your marketing assets and roadblocks.

2. Competition analysis

As the name suggests, a competitive analysis requires the strengths and weaknesses of its competitors. It adjusts a magnifying glass on your products, prices, marketing strategies, campaigns and target groups.

3. Market research

Even if you believe that you know your customers through and through, market research can result in even deeper insights into your needs, preferences, motivations and behaviors. In addition, you can use emerging trends and new opportunities on the market and help you to be ahead of the curve.

Who does a marketing exam?

It is common for companies to outsource marketing audits to a third party. This is for a few reasons.

First, it is time -consuming. If you don’t have a big team that has time to dedicate days if not weeks to market research and internal data analyzes, it may be the right way to work with an external partner.

Second, your audit must be as objective as possible. If your team was responsible for a large part of the existing marketing strategy, it may be difficult to examine it without prejudice.

Third -party companies also have more experience in carrying out audits, and this experience is really important. They are often better equipped to identify best practices and opportunities for improvement, and may have access to special tools, technologies and research functions.

However, this does not mean that you cannot carry out a marketing test yourself. If you have time and resources (ie people), you can try.

Alternatively, you can also decide a mixed approach as Jacob BarnesFounder at Flowsavvysuggests.

“Store your analysis from time to time. External audits can repeat that your internal team is on the right track and takes the right movements. It also helps to reduce all prejudices in the ratings or conclusions, ”he told me.

Pro tip: If you want to carry out your audit internally, this is Market research kit Can offer a great starting point.

When should I carry out a marketing audit?

As I mentioned above, a marketing audit should be carried out regularly. The earlier it from what works (and fix what is not), the stronger your marketing plan will be.

The exact frequency of your audits depends on the industry, size and destinations of your company.

In general, it is a good practice to carry out an audit annually.

Other factors can trigger the need for an examination, including:

• Significant market changes (e.g. a new competitor).
• Lack of results.
• Remarkable business changes (e.g. a merger).
• Planned investments (e.g. a product introduction).

Let us cover the steps for the implementation of a marketing audit and some best practice.

How to do a marketing audit (+best practice)

1. Choose what you want to check.
2. Identify your goals and goals.
3. Collect the right information.
4. Determine all results or findings from the data.
5. Make recommendations (and follow them).

1. Choose what you want to check.

As I have already mentioned, your marketing audit can cover your entire process or address a certain campaign, a certain process or a specific area. Ultimately, what you choose for the exam is entirely with you and depends on your marketing priorities.

However, your marketing probably consists of components connected, so it can be advantageous to look at your entire conversion funnel. I heard that Arham KhanFounder and CEO Pixelated.

He said that she had carried out an audit against an E -Commerce brand, the product pages of which received adequate traffic, but the conversions had dropped. The team immediately knew where the gap was located: the product pages needed to work.

“After our Cro experts have taken a detailed look, we identified the problems. Your product descriptions read like bad novels, and the “purchase” buttons were lost in the disorder. We have attributed things to the basics and simplified it. Printy product descriptions replaced the waffle, we have brought the product images into focus and impossible to overlook this action-action button, ”said Khan.

The results spoke for themselves: the product side views rose by 28% and the conversions rose by 32% in a few weeks.

2. Identify your goals and goals.

Would you like to know which your social media campaigns do well? Or how does your content strategy stack against your competitors? Or maybe you would like to update your branding or customer personnel.

First select a goal that serves as a “Nordstern” for your audit. Next, divide your object into measurable goals.

Suppose, for example, your main goal is to determine which social media channels offer the best commitment. In this case, your goal could be: “You can reach a minimum quota of 200 new followers per month on Tiktok.” Then your marketing audit would put this to the test.

3. Collect the right information.

After you have precisely defined and measurable goals, the next step is to collect information. This can come from a number of sources -such as campaign metrics, website traffic, social media metrics and marketing editions.

For example, if you pursue the effectiveness of a certain campaign, HubSpot users can access the wealth of campaign data Marketing Analytics Dashboard. From here you can focus your marketing budget on your most successful efforts.

source

You can also collect data from external sources such as market research reports, industries and competitor analyzes. However, the data is reliable and precise.

Will Hatton, founder and CEO of The broken backpackerBelieve that the competition analysis is a must.

“Imagine you have your rival’s game book. You can see your keywords what type of content you create and on which social media platforms you get most of the hits, ”says Hatton.

He added that they may notice that one of their competitors crushes him on Instagram with his breathtaking exhibition of travel photos. And that is a very big hint that you can use fully.

Pro tip: As soon as you have collected the data, organize it so easily to analyze it and to refer it later. You may want to create diagrams and graphics and consolidate data in a single document.

V.

How you rate your data depends on the goals of the exam. For example, you can carry out a competitive analysis if you want to evaluate your price strategy against your competitors.

Document the results or results from this step so that you can make effective recommendations across the board.

5. Make recommendations (and follow them).

Most recently make recommendations to improve your marketing strategy – e.g. B. the new hiring of your news, your marketing channels or your expenses.

For example, if you find that your Facebook advertising strategy does not cover enough leads, a recommendation can be to redirect it for another channel.

After making these adjustments, monitor the results to determine their effectiveness. This includes the persecution of important performance indicators (KPIS) and the procedure of changes if necessary.

Example of marketing exams

Let’s imagine that I work at a SaaS company that sells a CRM.

Here is the fictional setup: Although we have invested considerable resources in the lead generation in the past six months, we have seen a decline in new customer registrations. The conversion rates from website traffic to test applications have decreased by 25%, and the emigration rates for new customers have increased.

My best guess is that the problem is somewhere in the marketing strategy or its execution. My team and I decided to carry out a marketing audit to achieve the cause.

Step 1: Defining the goals and scope.

My goal is to improve my conversion rate and to expand the life of my new customers.

As you can imagine, there may be many factors that contribute to this state. So I have to decide which areas I will examine.

I was able to concentrate on the following:

• Blog content.
• E -mail marketing.
• Social media.
• Website copy.

This will be the scope of my audit.

Step 2: collect data and evaluate your marketing strategy

The basis of a marketing audit is data. To analyze what works and what doesn’t, I have to have the tools that collect it for me.

With regard to the blog content and the target pages, I could contact the Google search console and the Google Analytics. Among other things, I could also check whether the reason for a decline in registrations is due to an overall drop in traffic for my domain (e.g. due to search list lists).

If I want to immerse yourself in my content analysis on site, I could also set up a session recording tool. This would help me to see if people don’t go beyond the flame of a target side.

Or maybe an article about “The best strategies for the successful implementation of a CRM” that used to be number one in Google has dropped to the 12th position. If we accept after I have seen about a dozen recordings, I find that people no longer overlook the introduction.

I check that in the meantime my competitors have written many high-quality content on this topic, including expert roundups, which they have exceeded since they followed Eeat guidelines.

For social contributions, I would watch likes, comments and click in the platform’s own reporting tools or on a social media management platform.

In the meantime, I would have to contact my CRM/marketing automation tool for the e -mail marketing to check and click the open prices. Maybe I will see that people in a certain phase of an e -mail marketing sequence or another revealing behavior pattern.

During my examination, I was also able to ask customer support to send answers to all customers you carried out. With this information I find that many customers who had a short lifespan mentioned mentioned that a function that they wanted to use was too complex. And so they decided to leave my company’s tool for a competing solution.

Step 4: Creation of benchmarks for marketing power.

At this stage I take my results and refer you with industry standards to get a feeling for how well others work. I could also use a tool like keysearch to get benchmarks for those who publish in the CRM area.

www.keysearch.co

Daniel VasilevskiDirector and owner at Light power electricaltold me that the practice that he always follows during each audits describes the marketing performance against competitors. “Without that, there is no way to know whether our efforts work or whether we fall back, ”he said.

He told me that most marketers assume that a marketing strategy will work just because it brings Leads. However, if a competitor attracts twice as many with the same budget, this is a problem.

Benchmarking identified where they surpass others and where they have to improve.

“When we see that competitors have stronger ranking lists in local searches, a higher commitment on social media or better advertising conversion rates, we know exactly how to work. Without these comparisons, decisions are made blindly, and this can lead to waste marketing editions, ”added Vasilevski.

Pro tip: Remember that you have to correctly define your competition. If you are not a company, you will only lead Zendesk or Drift Kings Media as the main competitor, as you do not have the market share or the budget to win the fight for customers.

The next two points will help you to define your most suitable competitors.

Step 5. SWOT analysis

Since I now have a lot of data about my business (both in the past as well as in the present and these first benchmarks, it is time to carry out a SWOT analysis. Here is a brief overview of what it could reveal.

Strengthen

1. Established brand presence. The brand is a recognized name in the SaaS industry with a story of reliable service.
2. Constant marketing budget. The company consistently invested in marketing activities that brought results.
3. High quality product range. The CRM product is known for its robust functions and industry-specific solutions with many positive reviews of Capterra and G2crowd.
4. Experienced team. I and my members of Marketing team members have experience in marketing analyzes. I also have access to extended analysis tools, so it is no problem to find relevant data.

Weaken

1. Lack of updated strategies. My marketing strategies may be outdated because I have not revised them in recent years. I still turn the same budget for marketing activities, but some of the strategies may not be as effective as before.
2. Lack of a social media specialist on board. The person who was responsible for the administration of my social media channels left the company and I have not yet found a replacement. It is now managed by some team members, but nobody can dedicate their full attention to it.
3. Restricted integration of customer feedback. Inadequate use of customer feedback to refine product and marketing messages.
4. No updated website. We have introduced some new functions, but we have not communicated them in the website copy.

Occasions

1. Emerging market. I noticed that I was getting more and more customers from the APAC region. This could indicate that global expansion could be the right way.
2. Content optimization. The revision of the content of the website and the test application could appeal to more potential customers.
3. Customer loyalty programs. The development of onboarding and commitment strategies has the potential to reduce emigration and increase the service life.
4. Partnerships. I would like to investigate how the cooperation with complementary SaaS products for cross-promotions and bundle offers can increase sales.
5. AI and personalization. The use of AI-controlled tools for personalized marketing and improving customer experience can fix my current problems.

Threats

1. Competitive landscape. Competitors can adapt to the customer needs or the introduction of new functions more agile.
2. Economic uncertainty. External economic factors can reduce the willingness of customers for CRM solutions.
3. Change customer expectations. A shift in customer needs and most important functions can make current marketing efforts ineffective.
4. Market saturation. Intensive competition in the CRM room can make it more difficult to stand out.

Step 6. Summarize your most important findings and recommendations together

When completing your marketing audit, write a summary of the executive and a section on the most important examination commands and recommended actions.

In my example I found the following problems:

• Leave the conversions from the blog based on outdated content, which is no longer useful. Higher, more comprehensive content from competitors have been published since my last content update.
• The website copy is not up to date – there is no clear promise of values. Not all existing functions are mentioned on the “Product” page. My lower conversion rates can be caused by customers who turn to a competitor, as they cannot find any information about a must-have function you are looking for.
• Social -Media profiles are not supervised -Comments from potential customers appear in my social media channels, but nobody answers you because I don’t have any special social media specialists on board.

Recommended measures:

• Update blog content with knowledge at expert level.
• Update product pages to reflect the functions of my CRM.
• Use my SWOT analysis to update my homepage and underline the unique properties of my platform and the team.
• Setting a social media specialist or cooperation with an contractor who not only publishes relevant content, but also responds on time on customer questions.

Marketing audits should be a recurring thing

My biggest snack after working on this piece is the memory that no strategy is set in stone. Just because something brought results for a few months do not mean that it works equally well in a year – or even three months. As the business environment changes, my marketing strategy should also.

So I think that it is of crucial importance to carry out a marketing audit – especially when you see a drop in performance. The audit doesn’t always have to be robust. You can only concentrate on a specific problem.

The good news is that the more often you check your existing strategy, the fewer problems you will find – and the faster you can solve you.

Note from the publisher: This post was originally published in May 2023 and updated for completeness.