Keeping a brand relevant is an ongoing commitment, a guest writer says. With that commitment comes the need for keepers of the brand to constantly analyze its relevance.
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Keeping a brand relevant is an ongoing commitment. This is true for businesses large and small and across all industries. With that commitment comes the need for keepers of the brand to constantly analyze its relevance.
An audit is an opportunity to evaluate all facets of your company’s marketing and/or communications efforts. What’s working and what’s not? Often, the audit is used as either your very first step or as a next step before investing more in your marketing effort. Undertaking an audit is a smart and efficient way to strengthen your brand and deliver greater marketing ROI.
A marketing or communications audit evaluates a business’s existing branding or outreach efforts, weighs strengths and weaknesses of the program, provides a competitor analysis, and aligns future marketing efforts with big-picture strategy. Even the most robust and savvy in-house marketing or communications team may find it challenging to review their own program. It’s difficult to bring objectivity to our own decisions.
There are two major benefits of a marketing audit. First, it provides an opportunity to gather up-to-date feedback from an objective professional. And second, an audit reveals insights on which you can then build a strong foundation for future marketing plans and execution.
Marketing audits can be customized to be as exhaustive as your company demands, but there are a few essentials to make the audit meaningful. Whether your business works with an outside branding or marketing agency or performs its audit independently, an audit will ideally include the below steps.
1. Positioning review: This part of an audit examines all available external materials that communicate your brand (logo, identity materials, sales letters, ads, etc.). The goal is to reveal any areas that might cause confusion or mistrust with your audience. Are there any positioning issues that could be hindering your overall success? Has your messaging evolved since these materials were developed?
2. Stakeholder and audience interviews/surveys: Who are your key audience segments? Who are your stakeholders? Referral sources? What do these groups understand about your brand? Stakeholders can be interviewed directly by the audit provider through phone or video conference. Larger groups (i.e. prospective users of your products or services or large groups of employees) can provide input through online surveys. This important step often highlights misconceptions or shines a light on your strongest brand attributes!
3. Competitor review: An audit of your key competitors’ brands and any readily available marketing materials helps you to understand their strategy and unique selling proposition. You can then use the findings as a basis for differentiating from your competition.
4. Online presence review: A review of your website, blog, social media presence, and online advertising assesses alignment with your brand positioning and effectiveness (by looking at analytics) at engaging your prospects in a variety of online environments.
5. Marketing communications plan review: The goal is to provide an opportunity to review your most recent marketing and communications efforts and any available data on their effectiveness. It’s likely that the goals you started with have shifted, but have your strategies shifted with them? Analyze your tactics and whether they’re helping you reach your current goals.
6. Written findings report: The deliverable of a marketing or communications audit is a report that provides the marketing consultant or agency’s findings in relation to the areas above, as well as their expert perceptions and recommendations for next steps for your brand.
When should you conduct an audit?
A marketing audit will deliver valuable feedback at any stage of your business’s life cycle. If you think of the marketing or communications audit as a precursor to taking a bigger dive, often the timing is ideal in Q3 or Q4 as you begin planning your marketing budget. But any audit is better than never auditing!
Armed with the knowledge you receive from the audit, your team can proceed with marketing planning, budgeting and execution with confidence that you’ve maximized every aspect of your marketing or communications program.
Marnie Grumbach is the founder of Fluent IMC, an integrated marketing communications agency in Westbrook. She can be reached at marnie@fluentimc.com.
