What is a Marketing Audit?

Marketing can make your head spin. What worked yesterday may not work today or tomorrow. Trends change, platforms evolve, and consumer behaviors shift rapidly. That’s where a marketing audit comes in. It’s like a health checkup for your marketing efforts — helping you to understand what’s working, what’s not, and what you need to tweak to stay competitive.

What Exactly is a Marketing Audit?

A marketing audit is a deep look into all aspects of your marketing efforts, including:

*Marketing goals and objectives
*Target audience and marketing segmentation
*Brand positioning and messaging
*Traditional marketing channels (print, TV, radio)
*Budget allocation and ROI
*Customer feedback and brand perception

It’s not just about looking at data, either. A marketing audit evaluates the internal and external factors that impact your success. Internal analysis focuses on your current marketing processes, staffing, tools, and strategy. External analysis looks at your competitors, market trends, and customer behavior.

Why You Need a Marketing Audit

Marketing audits are helpful for any company of any size, and here’s how they can help.

Identify What’s Working and What Isn’t

Without regular evaluation, you could waste valuable time and money on tactics that don’t deliver results. A marketing audit shows your strengths and weaknesses so you can double down on what’s effective and drop what isn’t.

Stay Aligned With Your Business Goals

Your business evolves, so your marketing efforts have to evolve, too. An audit ensures your marketing strategy still aligns with your overall business objectives.

Adapt to Market Changes

Consumer preferences, technology, competition, and platforms change constantly. A marketing audit keeps you informed and ready to pivot if needed.

Improve ROI

It’s easy to become fixated on what you’re currently doing, so you ignore or miss out on new ideas or overlooked opportunities to reach customers. An audit can highlight the untapped potential.

Make Better Data-Driven Decisions

By clearly seeing your performance metrics, customer behavior, and industry trends, you can make better-informed decisions about your marketing efforts and become more proactive and less reactive.

How Often Should You Conduct a Marketing Audit?

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer, but here are some general guidelines.

Annually: Most businesses benefit from a full marketing audit once a year. This ensures your marketing stays current with your business goals and industry changes.

After Major Changes: If you rebrand your business, launch a new product or service, or enter a new market, it’s wise to do a fresh audit.
During Growth or Decline: If you’re scaling quickly or seeing a drop in performance, an audit can help you pinpoint what’s driving the changes.

Quarterly Check-Ins: While a full audit is necessary once a year, doing smaller checks once a quarter is a good idea to monitor progress and make any adjustments.

Who Should Perform a Marketing Audit?

If you have the right experience, you could do the marketing audit yourself. However, many companies offload this to an external consultant or marketing agency. Third-party auditors can be more objective about what’s working and what isn’t than you might otherwise be. This objective viewpoint can uncover blind spots your internal team might miss.

Let Brandtastic Handle Your Marketing Audit

Brandtastic is a full-service marketing agency with years of experience. Whether you need a marketing audit, a custom web design, SEO, paid and social media advertising, graphic design, or anything else, we can handle it.
Schedule your free consultation today!