Most companies regularly conduct a financial audit, but how many conduct a marketing audit? A full review of your company's marketing and communication helps understand your business from a marketing perspective. By reviewing issues such as customers and your target audience, your competitors, the marketplace in general, and your internal situation, you will be more informed about previous marketing activities' success (or otherwise). This information is invaluable in helping you to develop a successful marketing strategy. It highlights what you will need to deliver the marketing strategy to ensure you meet your business objectives.

A marketing audit analyses the business objectives understands what the business is trying to achieve, and allows management to decide on their future marketing direction.

By conducting an impartial marketing audit, the team at Win Marketing can provide a fresh pair of eyes and an outsider's view into your previous marketing activities and assess your performance against your competitors. A thorough marketing audit provides a benchmark for monitoring future marketing activity and highlights recommendations to improve the efficiency and performance of your company's marketing activity.

A marketing audit is often used by a company reviewing its business strategy. A marketing audit can inform management with invaluable customer and market insight, vital to help them set realistic business objectives.

Aspects covered in a marketing audit include:

•   A SWOT analysis
• ·Customer and prospect research
• ·Competitor analysis
• ·Market overview – external factors covering a PESTLE analysis
• ·Marketing overview of your Internal factors assessing levels of internal communication

1. Marketing Audit – SWOT Analysis from a customer perspective

• Looking at the strengths and weaknesses of your business from a customer's view
• The key is to understand your strengths that are also important to customers, rather than what you are just "good at."
• The area to understand is what are your weaknesses where the performance affects customer relationships and market opportunities.
• The opportunities and threats available need to be considered to understand how you can maximize the opportunities and minimize the threats
• The opportunities and threats to any business come from the external factors affecting them.

2. Marketing Audit – Market research to understand your customer and prospects

As part of conducting a marketing audit, Intraway can complete some direct market research with your customers and prospects to understand why they buy from your organization and perhaps why people do not believe. It is advantageous to understand what customers like and do not like about your organization to help develop and improve your products and services. An impartial market research exercise will help you gain clarity of what your customers think.

3. Marketing Audit – Competitor analysis

To help you differentiate yourself from the competition, Intraway will conduct a detailed competitor analysis. That could include mystery shopping comparing yourself and your competitors in areas related to service, or it could involve online research regarding website ranking and why your competitors are featuring higher in Google searches than your company.

4. Marketing Audit – The Internal Marketing Environment

Time to put your own business under the microscope. An impartial marketing audit conducted by the Intraway team will look at all aspects of your business from a marketing perspective. Areas we would review include:

• What resources does your company have for marketing & sales? 
• People and budgets
• What promotional material do you use? How do you use it? How often?
• What is the state of your customer relationship database? How could it be used more? How could it be improved?
• What is your website look like? 
• How is it performing?
• What are the key messages?
• Are the keywords working?

5. Marketing Audit – The External Marketing Environment

External factors are equally as important and will generally fall under three primary environments. It is essential to recognize that although we have no control over these factors, they are still hugely influential and, therefore, important to consider when setting your business and marketing objectives.

The Competitive Environment

Who are your competitors, and what are they doing?

The Economic Environment

• The PESTEL model is beneficial for identifying the economic factors that will affect the decisions of your company. What is the PESTEL model?
• Political factors
• Economic factors
• Social factors
• Technological factors
• Environmental factors
• Legal factors

A marketing audit provides a comprehensive review of your company's marketing activities and can help to reduce costs.