How to run an in-house Marketing Audit

Does the word ‘audit’ make the hair on the back of your neck prickle? It’s got connotations of digging deep, finding dirt, and going to jail after a dramatic attempt at escaping to the tropics in a private plane. The first two parts of that sentence are true, the private plane – probably not.

A marketing audit is a thorough examination of all your marketing activities. Every customer touchpoint, every tool, every platform, even down to the wording and placement of your call-to-action buttons gets assessed, as well as your organisation’s internal goals, objectives, and strategies. What’s working? What’s not working as well as it used to, what could work better? What’s changed?

Getting a marketing audit done is like sending your organisation to the GP for a check-up. It’s a great opportunity to find any weaknesses before they become major issues and figure out how to keep improving, rather than just coasting on ‘good enough for now’.

How can a marketing audit help your organisation?

Discover opportunities for improvement

It’s easy to stop seeing the bigger picture when you’re caught up in the day to day details. Running a marketing audit nudges you to step back, look at your marketing with a critical eye, and figure out where you can improve. Many organisations prefer to bring in an external team to run their audits, either for greater marketing expertise than they have in-house or for the added benefits of getting an unbiased perspective.

Remind yourself of campaign goals

Although the broad goal of your organisation will probably stay the same over time, the same is not true of your marketing campaigns. Looking back at your planning in the context of your original goals can help you make improvements. If you don’t have SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound), or your previous ones aren’t appropriate for you anymore, this is the time to make new ones.

Assess what is and isn’t working

Prevention is better than a cure. Regular marketing audits will give you plenty of warning signs before a big crash. They’ll also show you what’s working well and allow you to focus your resources there.

Give yourself a fresh perspective

Although you might have started out with the best intentions, it’s easy to get caught up in getting through each day. Stepping back and conducting an audit can help you take a new look at your customers, their challenges, how you solve those challenges, and how your competitors do – a great way to generate fresh ideas

Save yourself time and money

Marketing is expensive! If your business goals and marketing plan aren’t working together, and if your marketing activities aren’t being tracked and adjusted to align with your goals, your marketing budget will go down the drain. Having an audit done will help you make sure your marketing dollars are working effectively to help your business achieve the right goals.

When should you do a marketing audit?

While there’s no rule of thumb, the key is regularity. Think of a marketing audit as preventative health care rather than emergency surgery. Many organisations fall into the trap of only running an audit when they re-brand, but to reap the full benefits and keep yourself growing steadily and effectively, marketing audits should be run regularly. Newer organisations might want to run one annually, while larger ones would benefit from a quarterly audit. The more moving parts are involved, the more often an audit should be run.

Ready to find your weak spots and push your marketing forward in the right direction?

Contact https://mih.com.au/ today for a no strings attached chat about where things are at and if or how we might be able to help.