Importance Of A Marketing Audit: Review Of The Academic Literature
In this paper, we will review the scientific research by Fahad et al., which describes why a Marketing Audit should be used to evaluate your marketing mix and to explore the advantages that it can offer.
Due to the ever-increasing complexities of the marketing environment, it is now more important than ever to have a systematic, comprehensive way to measure and evaluate a client’s entire marketing plan. In today’s largely unregulated digital-marketing industry, most digital marketing companies offer a generic one-size-fits-all approach to marketing and do not take the necessary time to create a sound individualized marketing plan. In fact, it is amazing how many digital marketing companies operate on a wing-and-prayer model, especially considering how much the average client pays for marketing services (Fahad et al.).
One major problem in the digital marketing realm is that marketing companies rarely evaluate existing marketing strategies for potential improvement, and rather, only make changes once problems arise and sales begin to drop … Often, small changes in strategy are made but fail to take into account the overall needs of the client. A company must periodically review its marketing approach to ensure that their marketing efforts are optimized to keep up with emerging threats and opportunities in the industry (Fahad et al.).
For these reasons, marketing specialists now communicate the need for systematic and comprehensive evaluations of all marketing efforts, known as a Marketing Audit. A Marketing Audit is a systematic and comprehensive evaluation of a client’s entire marketing mix and should determine:
- how well current marketing objectives have been implemented
- how appropriate the current direction of the marketing strategy is
- any technical errors (which can be found with a website audit)
- recommendations for moving forward
A Marketing Audit should be performed by an independent, third-party marketing auditor team. A marketing team cannot reliably audit themselves.
Key Components Of A Marketing Audit:
- Marketing Environment Audit – includes elements that affect all companies within a specific niche, such as trends in the marketplace, trends in income, trends in culture, etc.
- Budget Allocation Audit – considers all marketing activities to make sure there are no excessive costs and to find ways to reduce client spend.
- Website Audit – examines the entire website for both functionality and overall aesthetics. This should include an SEO evaluation.
- Digital Media Audit – reviews all digital media outlets, including social media channels to determine which channels are most effective and which are least effective. Budget allocation should reflect these findings.
- Competitor Analysis Audit – analyzes organizations direct competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, and market share. A thorough review of competitors advertising and marketing should be analyzed.
- Customer Audit – investigates how customers and prospective customers rate the brand and their evaluation of the product or service.
- Advertising Audit – evaluates the effectiveness of paid advertising campaigns.
- Brand Growth Audit – determines a brand’s overall level of growth. This should include a review of growth on social media platforms, website traffic, and overall brand recognition. Company targets and quotas should be determined and adhered to.
- Marketing Strategy Audit – reviews market segmentation, positioning, and marketing mix, as well as the allocation of resources for the marketing mix.
- Company Workflow Audit – evaluates the efficacy of communication between the various departments of your marketing team to determine interface efficiency a company.
- Workteam Audit – evaluates the individuals on your marketing team, to determine if anyone needs more training or supervision.
About My Marketing Auditors:
My Marketing Auditors is a leading Los Angeles-based marketing auditor team. We offer a comprehensive and systematic website audits that are designed with the business owner in mind. Contact us now to learn more about our services.