When Should Your Organization Conduct a Marketing Audit?

There are a few key stages in which a marketing audit can best benefit your organization.

1. If you’ve never conducted an audit before, and are unsure how effective your marketing and outreach efforts are, then now is clearly the time to do so.
2. Are you making a change in marketing and communications staff? If you’re thinking about restructuring, or are at a stage in which you need to hire a new director of marketing, a thorough look at what’s been working and how it aligns with the organization’s goals are in order. It can, as it did in one case recently, inform at what level your new hire should enter the company.
3. It’s been three years since you last made any changes to your marketing and communications strategy. Every business changes over a three-year period, and the three-year mark is an excellent time to benchmark and set new goals.

But what does a marketing audit include?

This is the process Jaggers Communications employs:

LEARN: We will learn about the organization’s business goals and objectives and the marketing goals and objectives that support the broader goals. We will ask a lot of questions to learn about your customer profile, donors, grant sources, and any other audiences. We’re interested in your long-term relationships, what creates loyalty, and what audiences represent your most recent growth.

GATHER: We will ask for descriptions of all products and services, including information about what has been the marketing focus or prioritization of each over the past three years.

We will ask for access to all available analytics and marketing data for the past three years, your business plan, your milestone tracking sheet, and other benchmark or tracking documentation you have used. We will look at examples of all marketing assets and collateral, including any press releases and earned media.  We will review newsletters, social media accounts, examples of members-only content, and any other forms of communication that were used in the past three years.

REVIEW AND ANALYZE: We will review all of your data and materials, draw conclusions from what we observe, and provide a report that analyzes strengths and weaknesses of your marketing efforts.

If you’re interested in learning more, please get in touch.