I have had the pleasure of working for 6 different companies in the past 9 years of my career. While a human resources professional would see red flags, I see breadth and depth in my career. To that end, I’ve written many marketing strategies after starting at a new company. I always begin by auditing the current marketing mix. Here are 10 things that I include in a marketing audit and why:
- Background Information
- Business vs. Marketing Goals
- Product / Service Offerings
- Value Proposition / Unique Differentiators
- Target Market Analysis & Buyer Personas
- Competitive Analysis
- Owned, Earned, Shared, Paid Media
- Website Domain & SEO Deep Dive
- Social Media Marketing Deep Dive
- Paid Media Deep Dive
The Ten Things To Include In A Marketing Audit
1. Background Information
When starting a marketing audit it’s important to truly understand the company that you are writing it for. Gather company background information from the current website, online research and by sitting down with the owner or c-level executive team to get the story behind the company. Why was the company started? What customer problem did they set out to fix? This information is key when understanding what makes the company unique compared to competitors. You’ll be able to understand if that uniqueness is then being properly described in different marketing channels.
2. Business vs. Marketing Goals
Document what the companies’ business goals are vs. what goals the marketing team needs to accomplish. Do they align? Will accomplishing one marketing goal ladder up to accomplishing the corresponding business goal?
3. Product / Service Offerings
Have a thorough understanding of what products or services the company offers is imperative. From there, understand how these offerings are communicated externally to potential prospects.
4. Value Proposition / Unique Differentiators
While understanding why the company exists and what they offer is important, having a thorough understanding of why this company is different than a competitor is key. Write out the value proposition prior to completing a competitive analysis. Having this information will be key to understanding just exactly how the company stacks up against the competitors and if the difference is truly communicated in as many marketing channels as possible.
5. Target Market Analysis & Buyer Personas
Next up, it’s important to understand who the company targets and what buyer personas are responsible for making the monetary purchase.
6. Competitive Analysis
Now that many of the basics are established, you’ll need to dive into a competitive analysis. You’ll decide how many competitors you’d like to look into. Define ahead of time how many you’ll research especially if the company is a part of a competitive industry.
7. Owned, Earned, Shared and Paid Media
I always start by listing out the 4 OESP categories and then listing out all the marketing channels per category. This helps me organize the audit in order of importance. And while one channel may seem really important for a company I’m still of the mindset that optimizing owned assets first is more cost-effective for a company to manage.
As an example:
Owned Media includes assets like the website,
Earned media includes assets like user generated content and pr
Shared media includes any partnership assets
Paid media includes anything like search engine marketing (ie. Google Ads), paid social, etc.
8. Website Domain & SEO Deep Dive
You’ll not only want to do a deep dive into the company’s website but you’ll want to compare things like domain authority, page speed, backlinks, and organic keywords linked to not only your website but your top competitors.
9. Social Media Deep Dive
You’ll not only want to dig into your company’s social media platforms but how they stack up in terms of followers, engagement, and types of content being shared against your competitors here as well.
10. Paid Media Deep Dive
If the company is already spending money on paid channels then this will definitely be included within a marketing audit but this is where you can usually find things to easily optimize based on overall spend, click-through rates and conversion rates.
Conclusion
The goal of a marketing audit is to come out with specific recommendations or what to optimize, what a company needs to start doing or immediately stop doing. A marketing audit becomes a company’s marketing department game plan that can be addressed alongside the marketing strategy and executional tactics for the year.
