“Can you start tomorrow?” That’s often a question I get when a potential client sees a gap in their marketing approach. My answer — more often than not — is yes, but not in the way my response might imply. Before we start firing on all of your channels, we have to stop, look and listen to the data. When you have a team that’s responsible and driven by data as a means to create meaningful communications plans, it’s best to understand what’s working well and what’s not performing and then identify areas of opportunity.
Those areas of opportunity aren’t always obvious or visible on the surface. Think of a marketing audit as going to the doctor. On the surface, symptoms like congestion can be attributed to seasonal allergies, the common cold, the latest strain of the flu or something more serious. A thorough exam and tests can be carried out to diagnose the root of the problem and prescribe a treatment plan that gets you on the road to health swiftly.
A marketing audit is no different. Before deploying tactics like social media marketing, press outreach or running an ad campaign, it’s critical not to let assumptions drive strategy. As a steward of invested resources that are intended to contribute to the bottom line — whether that’s generating awareness, protecting a brand’s reputation or securing qualified leads — I’d prefer to see a brand pause and do things right rather than pressing forward before doing due diligence.
But where to start? For a holistic communications audit, follow these steps.
1. Begin with the outcome in mind.
While general audits are certainly beneficial in evaluating the overall health of a brand, having established goals and objectives can focus the lens through which an analyst looks at data. Setting parameters for the intended outcome of campaigns, and the purpose of the audit, means analysts can create a blueprint to look at appropriate metrics, messaging, brand positioning and resonance, engagement, third-party endorsements and other marketing elements.
2. Home in on your target audiences.
This is Marketing 101. No plan is complete without taking into consideration the intended consumer. Generating detailed audience personas can lead to effectively auditing, measuring and analyzing current efforts. When we find the intersection between the intended outcome and the sensibilities of the end user, we can build campaigns that add value and create a connection.
3. Catalog all of your active marketing channels.
Create a catalog of all the active channels and the person or team assigned to manage them. For owned media (channels you control), that includes your website, analytics, social media, newsletters and the software used to manage them. For earned media (channels you don’t control but are important to your brand), that includes access to press and blogger lists, recent media hits, media sponsors and coverage reports. For paid media (channels through which you advertise), that includes access to dashboards, Google analytics and reports from advertising partners.
4. Create a system to collect qualitative and quantitative data.
Before analysis and recommendations, create a system to simply collect meaningful data points in a way that will make assessment more accurate. Whether that’s creating boards for visuals, grids for language or spreadsheets for metrics, an organized and methodical process for mining and sorting data can help eliminate the chances of experiencing analysis paralysis.
5. Time to analyze: Be an insider and an outsider at the same time.
When analyzing data, think from the perspective of the target audience. Being able to remove yourself from the confines of the industry in which you work can be critical to assessing brand elements that are more subjective in nature. By observing customer behavior and data as an outsider, you keep a healthy, balanced pulse on how you need to be organizing and reshaping your marketing strategy.
What do you do once you’ve completed your communications audit? The answer usually reveals itself during the exercise.