How To Perform A Marketing Audit In 2019
A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO MARKETING AUDITS
The “Kotler Marketing Audit”
4 Main Characteristics Of A Marketing Audit
- 1) Broad not Narrow –comprehensive, broad, all-inclusive: covers environment, strategy, organization, systems, productivity, functions. Whereas a vertical audit covers one key function in-depth e.g. a social-media audit, website audit
- 2) Independent, Objective, 3rd-Party
- 3) Systematic
- 4) Periodic
3 Steps To Perform A Marketing Audit
- 1) A Meeting Between Auditor & Company Officer(s) to review
- objectives
- coverage
- depth
- data sources
- report format
- time period
- 2) Gather Data
- macrodata -from public data sources
- microdata – company provides
- web 2.0 data
- primary data
- questionnaires
- interviews
- customer opinion
Remember: You should stay in contact with the officer(s) to discuss initial findings and see if they want to pivot focus of investigation
- 3) Prepare Notes For Visual/Verbal Presentation
- restate objectives
- show the main findings
- recommendations
- Write Final Report
6 Components Of A Marketing Audit
- 1) Marketing Environment Audit
- macro – economics, demographics, technological, socio-cultural, political
- micro – competitors, markets, customers, sales funnels, marketing facilitators
- 2) Marketing Strategy Audit
- Is the strategy appropriate given the findings of the Marketing Environment Audit
- 3) Marketing Organization Audit
- Effectiveness of marketing and sales team
- 4) Marketing Systems Audit
- Examine the various systems used to gather information, plan and control marketing operations Procedures of:
- sales forecasting
- sales goal and quota setting
- marketing planning
- marketing control
- order processing
- distribution
- Examine the various systems used to gather information, plan and control marketing operations Procedures of:
At this point, audit may reveal that marketing is being done without proper planning, implementation, control
- 5) Marketing Productivity Audit
- Where the marketing has the best Return On Investment and where can the budget be trimmed
- most companies do not do a careful marketing cost analysis
At this point, certain areas of weakness may come to light. This is when you perform a Marketing Function Audit or vertical audit to analyze key marketing functions that need further investigation.
- 6) Marketing Function Audit looks at key marketing functions that need to be investigated more in-depth
Possible Pitfalls Of A Marketing Audit
- Initial objectives are apriori notions of key problems. Throughout the investigation, new problems may arise. It is Important to be able to pivot and shift priorities of the investigation. That is why we recommend meeting with company officers throughout the audit.
- The auditor may have to rely on different sources of data than initially planned at the start of the audit.
- Interviewees may not be 100% honest during the interview process. It is important to guarantee and maintain confidentiality.
- Company officers should not have too much input in guiding the audit. They should offer direction but not too much.
- The auditor may place too much emphasis in one area and not enough in another.
- It is important to understand and set expectations. A Josh it marketing audit is not a panacea.
- The findings of an audit can only be beneficial if recommendations are actually implemented.
- The audit may lead to personnel changes, however, it is important to remember that dishes exclusively the executive’s decision.
5 Main Benefits Of A Marketing Audit
- Realign marketing activities with goals
- See what isn’t working for your business
- Get exposed to new ideas and different strategies
- Insight into the competition
- Save time and money
