What is a marketing audit? Pinpointing areas of improvement for your marketing plan
In the realm of marketing plans and sales organization, focusing more on operational aspects than on strategic fundamentals is a trap into which software publishers and IT service companies frequently fall. The risk then is that you are neither as efficient nor as effective as you could be.
Which is why gaining a perspective from outside is highly beneficial. Especially from us, since our team leverages its vast experience of the B2B IT sector: we have already tested the latest methods and confirmed which marketing strategies are the most effective with companies facing the same challenges and having the same goals as you.
What is a marketing audit? The key to building your marketing plan and enhancing your methods
The first step towards a successful marketing strategy is to determine the company’s differentiating marketing positioning and its value propositions. Constructing an annual marketing plan and breaking it down into operational actions are the next stages.
However, building a marketing plan that serves business growth means implementing strategies for lead generation, and putting in place the most effective organization, particularly in terms of aligning sales and marketing teams. To do this, you need to be perpetually alert, share best practices with your peers, and set time aside to test new approaches and toolkits.
A marketing and sales audit provides all this by comparing your usual processes and tactics against experience and advice garnered from external sources.
Choosing a methodology to conduct a marketing and sales audit
While a marketing and sales audit can be all-encompassing, we can also tailor it to your needs, to focus on a specific issue such as lead generation, developing an employer brand, harmonizing pipeline tracking processes across sales and marketing teams, and so on. In all cases, it takes three phases to be truly effective:
An internal audit
The first step is to thoroughly analyze your internal marketing and sales strategy and organization in relation to your offerings, positioning, and objectives. This provides an understanding of how you operate, identifying any discrepancies that might exist between your objectives and certain strategies or methods you use, including for lead nurturing and pipeline tracking.
An external assessment
An external appraisal supplements the initial avenues identified for improvement by comparing your objectives against your competitors’ strategies, your customers’ and prospects’ viewpoints, and market developments.
This comparison will ratify or remove certain avenues, reveal new ones, and make it possible to set recommendations and identify opportunities to be grasped.
An action plan and recommendations
The final step is to summarize the areas for improvement and recommended actions. With the aim of supporting adaptations to the marketing plan, or indeed the building of such a plan, through a detailed action plan and recommendations. This stage is, of course, collaborative and can include our team taking operational charge of some recommendations if you so wish.
Why appoint us to conduct a marketing and sales audit?
For a marketing and sales audit to deliver relevant results, we believe it is essential to be guided and supported by a team specialized in the B2B IT sector, whose experience and proficiency in complex sales cycles bring maximum benefits.
This dual expertise, in strategic marketing and understanding of B2B IT sales, is the core component of our marketing agency. This ensures you see a marketing and sales audit that is both realistic and ambitious, leading to pragmatic recommendations for action with tangible business benefits.
