What is a Marketing Audit?
What happens in a marketing Audit?
Does every client go through an audit?
Do you throw out everything a company has done?
Why do you recommend a marketing audit?
Can I purchase just the audit?
Doesn't an audit cost a lot of money?
Isn't the marketing audit a way for you to get a lot of money from a client?

What is a Marketing Audit?
You can substitute the words assessment or evaluation instead. We chose audit partly because it is a concept most business owners understand.

In its most basic form, a marketing audit is a structured look at your marketing and/or business plan(s) to determine what mix of activities you should be doing to best reach your stated goals.

We use a comprehensive questionnaire on which record the pertinent data you share about running your business. From an examination of that data, we make a strategic map and tactical recommendations. For most clients it's a three-step process:

• data collection on one visit: copies of your brochures, etc.
• sharing recommendations, deciding on activities to be done first and next
• generating and mailing final client report with decisions, priorities, and resources defined

Ideally the steps occur within a week of each other. Any longer and the details in the conversations and urgent "to dos" seem less and less urgent. We want you to stay fired up!

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What happens in a Marketing Audit?
In the first meeting we ask you to round up all the folks who handle marketing, money, product/service development, and execution. For many of our clients that means one or two people at the table with us. We talk with you for a couple of hours - in large organizations, perhaps a half day - during which we look at what your business plan says, what your services are, staffing, marketing, advertising, and sales activity, what your money commitments are, what business strategies work for you, etc.

Then we go away for a week and look at the data. We may call and ask you to clarify points. We come back to you with recommendations. We review those with you and together we map out a "doable" strategy for your company, taking into consideration the support services and the budget you have. We generate a final report that details your plan

Does every client go through an audit?
No. While we personally feel that doing a marketing assessment gives us more complete information, we often work with a client to design a strategy or a single tactic - brochure, survey, newsletter, alliance, network, etc. - to answer the need of that moment.

A client will often come back to us, after a crisis or campaign is over, to go through an audit. We hear favorable reports about the benefits to proactive, rather than reactive, thinking and planning.

Do you throw out everything a company has done?
Most often we find that companies are doing a lot of the right things right. The audit may uncover a dominant function that should be balanced by some activity or a weakness that should be shored up. Companies usually acknowledge having seen a glimpse of such an issue, but not having enough perspective or distance to pick it up or fix it. We try to take marketing efforts already underway and find ways to build around them if we determine they are sound.

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Why do you recommend a marketing audit?
The audit, the way we structure it (and that's the key), gives us - we and our client -- a baseline from which to build or rebuild a marketing program, if needed.

Experience tells us that the marketing issues that generate most phone calls are, to use a medical analogy, symptoms of a larger malaise. That is, there is usually a more fundamental need or mis-step at the heart of the call.
By virtue of our "outsider" status and expertise, we can often see greater or different possibilities in the marketing activities already underway, and we consider more options culled from other businesses. The audit often uncovers the things that are basically good practice, but need an adjustment to make them better.

Our clients usually tell us that their perceptions are already changed after working through the questionnaire; without even seeing the recommendations.

Can I purchase just the audit?
Sure. The report will be the same whether you continue on with us or not. Our clients are free to

• follow the report recommendations and the schedule or not
• bring in their own resources to carry out the things they can't do in house

While we'd like to do the fulfillment, our clients are not pressured to sign on.

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Doesn't an audit cost a lot of money?
It depends. If you talk to people whose firms undergo regular, rigorous strategic planning, they say it's a time sink that can feel costly up front.

BUT, these same people say that, amortized over a two-to-three year period, planning saves you money because it

• prevents capricious spending
• keeps marketing tactics complementary
• monitors plan effectiveness
• builds in tactical adjustments

And we have a sliding scale based on company size, so it's accessible to everyone.

Isn't the marketing audit a way for you to get a lot of money from a client?
Oh you cynic. The fixed cost of an audit is based on the size and complexity of an organization. It generally works out to a pretty reasonable price.

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