When communications professionals hear the words “marketing audit”, they often break out in a sweat. Why is that? Often the audit takes the form of a critique of all areas related to communications. But a smart audit can really help your organisation and should be more of a guide to what needs to be improved than a criticism.
Let’s start with what a marketing audit looks like in practice. I’m going to describe it from my own experience, because I’m sure every specialist has their own way of doing it.
A marketing audit consists of three stages: analysis, recommendation and training.
1. Analysis
The workshop is essential in the first phase. During the workshop we get to know the organisation, I try to understand its objectives, why certain communication choices have been made and what resources it has at its disposal.
This process is necessary to understand why the organisation has created certain marketing messages. Looking from the outside – without knowing the organisation’s goals and resources – it is easy to miss the point of why some activities are done.
Having a good idea of the resources an organisation has and the know-how it possesses will be helpful later when writing recommendations. Only then will they reflect the real capabilities and needs of the organisation.
Paper will take anything. It is possible to write very ambitious recommendations that require an entire marketing team and a huge budget to implement. Unfortunately, many organisations do not have these capabilities. Therefore, your insight is essential to writing recommendations that these organisations can use in the future.
Of course, the analysis phase also involves a thorough examination of the organisation’s communications and their impact. Using web tracking tools, we look at how certain messages spread and who they reached. We analyse the organisation’s social media and user behaviour on its website.
2. Marketing audit – recommendations
After the analysis We create a document in which We share all of the collected data and conclussions.
The document consists of three key elements:
- Analytical data – It’s a compilation of raw data that shows how information is being disseminated and the reach of the content.
- Conclusions – based on the data collected, we present conclusions and describe the image the organisation is building with it’s audience.
- Recommendations – taking into account the knowledge gained during the workshops about the organisation’s goals and resources, we make recommendations and propose solutions to the diagnosed problems.
3. Marketing audit – training
Experience shows that leaving an organisation with a paper document after an audit is usually of limited effect. That’s why we always include training, or a series of training sessions, in the audit package.
The training covers a wide range of topics. There are usually a few recurring topics that most organisations struggle with, such as understanding the marketing funnel or remarketing systems.
However, each training session is different and tailored to the recommendations from the audit.
When is it worth conducting a marketing audit?
Many marketers will say that every moment is good for it, but I find it hard to agree. There are several situations where it certainly does not make sense to conduct a marketing audit, such as at the time of rebranding or implementing a new marketing strategy. An audit in such a situation would be inconsistent and the conclusions based on it would be wrong. In this case, you should wait for the completion of these processes and only carry out an audit after the situation has stabilised in order to analyse what can be improved.
An audit should definitely be carried out:
- Immediately after the marketing campaign has finished – this allows you to identify any shortcomings and improve the next campaign.
- Before the planned launch of a marketing campaign – if you are preparing for a new campaign, this is a good time to conduct an audit and incorporate its recommendations.
- During the usual period – when life goes on and nothing special has happened for a long time. An audit in such a situation is a good impulse to optimise communication activities.
Conclusions
As you can see, conducting a communications audit is a much more complex process than simply analysing messages and making recommendations.
If your organisation needs a communications audit and you would like me to conduct one for you, please contact us.
