What’s a Strategic Marketing Audit?

Digital Marketing

April 25, 2023

How a Strategic Marketing Audit Helps with Revenue Growth?

Are you tired of trying marketing ideas that are not getting the results you wish for?

According to Gartner, the marketing budget has increased to 9.5%  of a company’s overall revenue in 2022.

Partnering with a B2B full-service marketing agency to grow your business might be the answer – no matter what stage of growth your business is in. The first step is to start the relationship with a strategic marketing audit.

Are you looking to grow your B2B business efficiently while optimizing your marketing budget but don’t know where to start?

What is a strategic marketing audit?

A strategic marketing audit allows you to take a 360 tour of your marketing function to assess objectively what has been accomplished to date.

The audit is also a way to identify opportunities, expertise gaps and your team’s strength and make sure you’re set up for success. The audit deliverable is a list of recommendations we put together to help prioritize the right initiatives. We also identify the right tools and expertise needed to accelerate your marketing function.

What is the purpose of a strategic marketing audit?

When you lead a company or consider acquiring a business, the state of the marketing function is often the hardest to assess.

Given the broad nature of marketing responsibilities, the impact on current and future success, and the number of opinions that various stakeholders typically have about marketing, many CEOs and investors ask us for guidance on assessing the status of a B2B SaaS marketing function.

According to Gartner, 60% of marketing leaders have centralized some or all of their marketing functions suggests that many companies are realizing the importance of strategic alignment in their marketing efforts. By conducting a strategic marketing audit, companies can gain a better understanding of their target audience, evaluate their branding and messaging, assess the effectiveness of their marketing channels, and identify opportunities for growth.

How does a strategic marketing audit work?

Step 1: Due Diligence Marketing Checklist

To better understand where you’re getting the most results and ROI from your existing marketing activities, we’ll send you a brief survey to complete. During the strategic marketing audit process, we’ll request access to important documents, dashboards, and files to collect valuable data and insights.

Step 2: Expert Review, Robust Research & In-Depth Analysis

Through expert review, robust research, and in-depth analysis, we’ll assess your company’s marketing function to pinpoint areas of success and areas in need of improvement. Our strategic marketing audit will assess key aspects of your marketing function against industry best practices. Our team will deliver strategic recommendations to build a powerful marketing engine that drives predictable revenue growth.

Step 3: Scorecard & Report

Our team will organize and summarize our strategic marketing audit findings in a report. This will tell you what’s working and what isn’t based on a scale covering various marketing areas. As a key feature, the report will include a marketing performance scorecard to shed light on your marketing performance and be used as a benchmark. It will enable your executive team to make informed decisions moving forward as you build your company’s marketing engine forward for revenue growth.

What deliverable can I expect from a strategic marketing audit?

Within 2-6 weeks, depending on the size of your organization, we will deliver an in-depth report assessing the status of your marketing functional areas. Trust us to provide a comprehensive evaluation.

Our strategic marketing report includes 11 marketing areas.

1. Go-to market strength

  • Are the growth priorities clear?
  • Is there a clear vertical focus?
  • Have you found product-market fit?

2. Market team makeup

  • Do you have the relevant marketing skills filled by members of your team? If not, what skills and capabilities need to be filled first?

3. Market fit

  • What problem does your company solve?
  • What’s your market share?
  • How does your company stands out?

4. Product marketing messaging

  • Is your product marketing aligned for the maturity of your market?
  • Is your positioning and messaging resonating with your target audience?

5. Content marketing

  • What content already exists?
  • What content should be created?
  • Are you leveraging SMEs?

6. Online presence

  • Are you tracking your traffic?
  • What needs fixing to increase conversions?

7. Sales funnel health

  • Is the funnel accurately defined?
  • Revenue leaks that need to be fixed?

8. SEO & paid search

  • What keywords are you currently ranking or?
  • Where is the low-hanging SEO win?

9. Demand generation

  • Where is your budget going?
  • Is there a dependence on pay-per-performance?

10. Best performing channels

  • Which channels provide the most value and opportunity for growth?
  • Which channels should we scale up?
  • Which channels should we scale down?

11. CMO recommendations

  • Present a 90-day go-to-market plan based on our findings to reflect how we would lead your marketing function.
  • Present how to put together a marketing budget.
  • At present we recommend you invest your marketing budget to get 300% ROI.

Are you ready to invest in a strategic marketing audit?

A survey done by Gartner shows that marketers only utilize 42% of their marketing technology capabilities. Before implementing any marketing ideas, it’s crucial to evaluate the effectiveness of your current marketing strategies and identify areas of improvement through a thorough b2b marketing audit.

As part of our CMO consulting and B2B full-service marketing agency services, we conduct a strategic marketing audit. And if you choose to continue working with our award-winning team of business marketing experts, we’ll happily apply the cost of the audit toward your first-month retainer. With our expertise and exceptional value, you can jumpstart your marketing efforts and accelerate your business growth.

The assessment of your company’s marketing function and marketing capabilities will include the following marketing areas:

Strategic marketing audit check-list

Get in touch with Pace Creative to transform your B2B marketing budget into a savvy investment. Let’s work together to conduct a strategic marketing audit and evaluate your marketing function and capabilities. This essential step jumpstarts our proven process in crafting a tailored, high-performing B2B marketing engine that guarantees predictable revenue growth.

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