Not sure what a marketing audit is, or how to run one? this list of 10 ways it will help your business grow is the perfect place to start!
Starting a business is exhilarating! Everything is set and the website is launched. And we, wait, and wait, and wait….
Why isn’t our business booming immediately? Everyone is online, right? According to money.cnn.com in February of 2014, Google was worth $395 billion. So everyone must be googling to search and then buy OUR product, right?
In March 2012, Netcraft did a web server survey and found that there were 644,275,754 active websites and the growth rate per month was increasing by five percent. At that rate, we have approximately 1,514,048,021 active websites today, all possibly vying for the same customers’ attention. That is a lot of competition. Basically, you are up against a billion other websites trying to win more business.
How are you competing?
The Top 10 Ways A Marketing Audit Will Help Your Business Grow
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| Image by Flickr user Richard foster |
10. The audit outputs allow your firm to risk LESS money and produce MORE results
9. Your on-line business will be a winner, rather than just 1 of 1,514,048,021 websites that are also going un-noticed (and going broke).
8. Using strategic marketing rather than basic tactile marketing.
7. Maximize customer loyalty!
6. Review communication strategy.
5. Human resources is not just a department! Employees are people that are also underutilized marketers.
4. Finding exact price-points, adding value without necessarily cutting costs.
3. Planning and budgeting to ensure effectiveness.
2. Identify all competitors.
1. Blow all of your competitors out-of-the-cyber-water.
Even with an MBA, I too have my own disdain for marketing jargon, but honestly marketing audits are not just talk. We live in access-heaven, but with great opportunity comes real competition. The online businesses that succeed understand their marketing, inside and out.
But, you don’t need an MBA to be successful in this amazing new world of access. Let me tell you what you need to know.
What The H-E-Double-Tooth-Pick Is A Marketing Audit?
It is basically an audit of a firm’s marketing practice. It is a periodic and impartial analysis and evaluation of a firm’s marketing approach, activity, aim, and results achievement. The audit most importantly determines problem areas and opportunities in order to recommend a plan of action for improvement.
Let’s Talk About My Momma
Sound overwhelming?
Well, let’s break it down. As my mother always says, “Keep it simple, stupid.”
(She’s Italian, so it’s sweet when she says it.)
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| Image by Flickr user Official GDC |
We analyze and identify marketing opportunities within internal marketing environments and review the firm’s operations including the vision, mission, and position statements, marketing objectives, goals, strategies, formal structure, functional efficiency, functional interface, and productivity. External marketing environments are also reviewed and evaluated, including suppliers, competitors, distributors, dealers, customers, competitors, public viewers, political structures, social factors, technological advances, legal constraints, ecological issues, and the economy.
Your firm is most likely doing a great job already with a decent client-base and a steady revenue. But, there is no perfect firm or marketing plan. Everyone is working towards that perfection. In an ever-changing market-place, it is impossible to ahead of the marketing curve, unless you have ambitious marketers working around the clock to keep your firm on the fore-front.
The reality is, you may be comfortable today, but tomorrow there is an entirely new market which is volatile. It is expanding and contracting, ebbing and flowing, moving to the rhythms of new transitions of a strange and ever-changing economy with vast competitors all circulating in this global circuit, mostly connected only by of the worldwide web and satellite lines via smart phones and tablets.
This is why sitting pretty today can be your worst enemy tomorrow. You may be too comfortable. One has to be willing to always having fresh eyes auditing a firm asking five really good questions that relate to the real health and wellness of a firm’s future when it comes to your current marketing efforts.
Here Are Five “Digging Deeper” Questions For Your Market Analysis:
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| Image by Flickr user Sebastiaan ter Burg |
Number 1: Does your current marketing plan match up with the firm’s goals?
Number 2: Do the individual marketing tactics or campaigns support the overall marketing plan?
Number 3: What are we measuring? And why?
Number 4: Do we have the right people in place?
Number 5: What is our plan for consistent improvement – specifically efficiency improvements?
Here is the best part, after all of these questions and research, there are amazing opportunities that arise from the output data.
This data provides a whole new perspective for a firm and can create a new roadmap for future success and create an entirely new “cha-ching” sound…the sound that is so amazing that you just can’t help but lung, punch, and pop that elbow. And, oh heck, throw in a good old “show me the money” in there for the Hollywood dramatic effect as well.
Marketing analysis and creating a new and creatively updated plan will help your firm be ONE in a billion rather than just another one lost in the shuffle.
