5 signs you need a marketing audit

Clients come to us for a variety of reasons – from wanting press coverage for a new product to helping generate new business leads. Sometimes they know which tactics would move the needle, but more often, it’s not so clear. That’s where a marketing audit comes in.

A marketing audit is a comprehensive review of an organization’s materials, messaging, audiences and competitors using internal, external and third-party research. The result: a deep understanding of key buyer personas and recommendations for a strategic path toward achieving clear marketing and communications goals.

5 signs it’s time for a marketing audit

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An audit is typically the first step in working with new clients. However, we strongly recommend clients regularly perform an audit, especially when these common red flags indicate it’s time.

  1. Expansion – Before you expand into a new market area, launch a new product or service or target a new customer demographic, start with an audit. You may know why you moved to a new area or created a new product, but until you develop buyer personas, you won’t know what messages or channels will be most successful in marketing to your ideal customer.
  2. Your goals and objectives aren’t clear. The marketing team is often tasked with everything from generating awareness and website traffic to securing leads to help the sales team generate revenue. But without concrete goals and objectives in place, it’s impossible to move the needle for your organization. An audit will help clarify your customer buying journey and establish clear, measurable objectives to help achieve marketing and business goals.
  3. What’s working and what’s not? – You’ve invested in everything from paid ads to social media and blogging. You have a fancy CRM, sponsor community events or attend industry trade shows. Sales are up, so something must be working, you’re just not sure what it is. An audit will assess performance across a variety of channels and investments to determine what’s effective. That way, instead of spreading your budget too thinly, your team can focus more on what’s working and change what’s not.
  4. You’re not reaching your marketing/sales goals. Even the best laid plans don’t always come to fruition. Even if you have clear and concrete SMART marketing goals, somehow your execution (strategies and tactics) is missing the mark. A marketing audit will help assess why you’re not reaching your goals – which could be anything from unclear messaging to the wrong marketing tactics. We’ve even uncovered some clients who were targeting the wrong audience altogether based on their specific products and services.
  5. Determining and reporting ROI – It’s budget season, and the CEO is asking what you spent the budget on and what the return is. Or maybe you just need a better reporting structure to justify budget increases. A marketing audit will help not only determine which tactics are working, but also help put systems in place to measure and report tangible returns.

You wouldn’t make a presentation to your boss without doing your homework first. So before you invest in a different approach, pursue a new target audience, or try to justify budget increases, rely on research by considering a marketing audit.

Laura Elizabeth Saunders

Laura Elizabeth is a strategic dynamo, especially when it comes to implementing inbound marketing strategies. She also enjoys doing research, writing and media relations works for a variety of B2B clients.

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