Growth marketing audits lead to better GTM performance because there’s an intentional regularly strengthening of underperforming strategies and tactics. If you’re looking for an audit, there’s generally some transformational intent behind it, and successful transformations typically follow sequential, logical, and iterative stages. Starting with a marketing audit enables that methodology to unfold.
When we’re consulting with companies or helping companies with account based marketing, we love starting with a growth audit
Using the Ampfactor growth marketing audit process described here, you can answer the following questions:
- What is a growth marketing audit?
- What are the signs and signals you need a growth marketing audit?
- Why should you conduct a growth marketing audit?
- The activities conducted during the audit?
- What should you learn from your marketing audits? (yes, it should be done routinely)
- What should your roadmap look like post-audit?
- How should you get started?
What are the signs and signals you need a marketing audit?
Most companies do not understand the difference between what works and does not work in marketing, leaving them unprepared, unaware of the team’s marketing efforts, and unsure how to move forward. These are red flags, and should be acted upon quickly.
The value of a marketing audit is that it reveals your core systems and where you have been. This is crucial to identify the most efficient approach to achieving your goals and progress forward. But how do you know you need a marketing audit?
Below are some signs and signals that your organization needs a marketing strategy audit:
Your business is expanding
Start with an audit before expanding into a new market, launching a different product or service, or targeting a new customer demographic.
Even if you know why you’ve moved to a new location or created another product, until you develop buyer personas, you won’t know the right way to market to your ideal customer. A comprehensive marketing audit helps clear this up.
Objectives and goals aren’t clear
Marketing teams often manage everything from generating awareness and website traffic to securing leads to help sales generate revenue. The problem is that without concrete objectives and goals, your organization cannot move forward.
Performing a marketing audit will help you clarify your customers’ buying journey and establish clear, measurable objectives that will help you accomplish business and marketing objectives.
Learn what’s working and what’s not
From paid advertisements to social media campaigns, you’ve tried it all. You donate to community events, attend industry trade shows, and have a fancy CRM system. There must be something working since the sales are up; you aren’t sure what it is.
An audit assesses the effectiveness of various channels and investments. This allows your team to focus on what’s working rather than changing everything at once.
Measuring and reporting ROI
Budget season has begun, and the CEO wants to know what you spent the budget on and the results. Or perhaps you need better reporting to justify a budget increase.
Not only will successful marketing productivity audit determine which tactics work within your marketing efforts, but it will also help in the measurement and reporting of tangible results.
Why you should conduct a growth marketing audit?
In addition to being a vital tool in achieving the company’s success, Ampfactor recommends growth marketing audits for several reasons. An audit company can understand its successful marketing activities, including how your marketing strategies are planned, executed, and completed. Also, they can help identify the company’s strengths and weaknesses, along with threats and opportunities. The systematic and organized nature of marketing audits makes it easier to implement marketing strategies. Beyond that, performing an audit often helps businesses correct errors, miscalculations, and other mistakes before they cause severe damage. In general, the effectiveness of the audit relies on the functions of the management, particularly those in charge of marketing decision-making tasks.
The activities conducted during the audit
The structure of a company determines how marketing reviews should be structured and implemented, so there are no standard guidelines for doing and executing them. There is, however, a common concept behind them all.
The following are some of the standard phases of marketing audits.
PHASE 1: Pre-Audit
You’re excited to jump in and start your marketing audit, but there are a few things you need to do first to make this as smooth as possible.
Determining who is responsible for auditing: A self-audit can be conducted by those who belong to the organization, or outside contractors can perform an external audit.
Determination of the timeline when to perform the audit: Set the schedule for when the marketing audit will begin and when the project will be completed. The plan should adjust periodically based on updates throughout the project, not just at the beginning of the process.
Scope and objectives identification: Auditors use the scope and objectives as guidelines for conducting the audit. Furthermore, the objective will serve as the starting point, so it is vital to make sure it is clear and concise.
Identifying the method of analysis: It is also critical that those performing the audit are aware of and are comfortable with the audit processes, tools, and techniques, especially those used for data collection and analysis.
PHASE 2: Conducting the marketing audit
During this step, you will gather the data that will form the basis of an effective marketing audit. Tailor this phase according to your business objectives.
Gathering and collecting of data: There are countless different ways to gather and collect data relevant to a marketing audit, including:
- Research from offline marketing campaigns
- Review of historical internal records like business documents and marketing files
- Questionnaires and surveys
- Interviewing customers, past clients, target audience
- On-site observation
Analyzing data: Following data collection, the successful marketing audit then moves on to the analysis, which is the heart of the process. Here are a few simple and essential tools that teams can use for data analysis:
- SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats): A SWOT Analysis helps in showing the strengths and weaknesses of the intra-company environment and marketing strategy and identifying the opportunities and threats of the external environment.
- Five Forces Analysis: For identifying competition within the industry, threats from new players, customer power, supplier power, and the influence of auxiliary products
- PEST (Political, Environmental, Socio-cultural and Technological) Analysis: Teams can achieve more a more effective strategic marketing strategy by assessing the major influencing factors that affect a sector in which an organization is positioned and the organization itself. This is a type of macro environment audit that we’ll go over in detail below.
Developing recommendations: Now that the marketing audit is complete, it’s time for your marketing team to develop recommendations and a plan of action. Management and stakeholders should understand the results easily by presenting them in a prioritized list. The simplicity of your marketing audit will ensure the recommendations are neither discarded nor overlooked by management.
What you should learn from your marketing audits? (yes, they should be done routinely)
As we mentioned above, a marketing audit typically begins with an outsider audit. This is when you evaluate factors outside of your business that might affect success. Keep in mind that marketing is an outwardly focused process. Making the right connections between your organization and the outside world is vital. Marketing success requires a company to understand their environment and the opportunities and threats they face. Your business doesn’t operate in a bubble. External marketing audits provide you with vital insight into how your audience (other than you) affects your business. The structure of a company determines how marketing reviews should be structured and implemented, so there are no standard guidelines for doing and executing them. However, in addition to several external factors, most companies will look at:
- Political: Government and regulatory agencies, trade associations, and large organizations that affect business operations.
- Economic/Competitive: Structure of markets, trading bodies, interest rates, trading blocks, taxation, government policy, and positioning of markets.
- Sociocultural: Your target audience’s demographics, culture, attitude, and the challenges they face in the marketplace.
- Technological: Innovations related to distribution, processes, materials, and components, as well as marketing and administration.
- Legal: A company’s legal environment, regulatory bodies, and other things that might affect what it can and cannot do.
- Environmental: Recycling, land conservation, managing natural resources, and eco-friendly behavior.
Together, they form what’s known as a “PESTLE” analysis. Companies use this example to determine where they stand concerning the rest of the market during an external marketing audit. It’s important to closely examine all of the factors outlined above and determine how they affect the industry, sales force, and your business.
What should your roadmap look like post-audit?
Now that the marketing analysis is complete, it’s time to review the marketing assessment report and decide on marketing strategies. Sometimes, the company will also provide this report to other departments, particularly those involved in marketing activities. An organization or business should have a guide for both the company and its employees. Marketing audits are lifesavers in times of crisis, but they also serve as a compass for the organization’s success and its people. Not only is does reviewing this marketing audit provide you in depth understanding, but it provides a baseline to use for all future marketing functions. That means reviewing your marketing audit report and creating a post-audit roadmap should be your first task before making any changes to marketing efforts for your business. What should that look like? Your roadmap’s format is ultimately up to you. In the end, finding the organization method that works best for your workflow matters more than how your roadmap is organized. Having a “perfect” roadmap will give you the tools you need to keep your campaigns and projects organized across your team. Build your marketing team’s roadmap based on the findings from your marketing audit. For example if your audit shows that your social media needs a little TLC, make it a point in your roadmap to amp up posting. Finding a lack of organic rankings? Add brand mentions into your marketing assets. There is no limit to what you can do with the findings of your audit!
How should you get started?
By analyzing the market and competitors, you can develop a more effective internal strategy and better overall performance. Besides following these essential facts and steps for a marketing audit, you should also know your business, clientele, and competitors well. Ampfactor provides marketing research and audits for businesses worldwide. To develop a foolproof marketing strategy, we help them analyze their market, their competitors, and their target audience. We offer more than just consulting or coaching; we implement and execute a full range of digital marketing initiatives such as SEO, social media, advertising, copywriting, blogging, and email marketing. Need an unbiased full scale audit that help you substantially increase your revenue without compromising ROI? Drop us a message today!
