1. What is a marketing audit?
It looks at what the company has done in the previous period in terms of marketing, and compares the marketing plan and the things what really happened. Conclusion must be if any, what kind of change is needed to improve and achieve an updated plan.
The Marketing Audit needs to be a fundamental element of the company’s Evaluation and Control system. A good marketing audit should be:
• Systematic: Logical and predetermined to do list containing diagnostic steps. The goal is an action plan.
• Comprehensive: All factors and underlying problems must be carefully overlooked to find the real causes, and not only the generated symptoms. Fixing the symptoms without fixing the causes, the symptoms come back quickly.
• Independent: The conduct should be made by an experienced, objective and first of all outside party, who is not affected at all by the marketing department. (Questions by this party should be made about: the macro-, and task environment, marketing- strategy, system, organisation, function and productivity.)
• Periodic: Needed to be scheduled regularly, because it is useful at good times and necessary at bad times. (“The important thing is not to stop questioning” --- Einstein)
2. What is the purpose of conducting a marketing audit?
The purpose is to find out and identify the problems in the current marketing plans and actions, to determine what went wrong, how and why, and than to define the field of improvements.
It is essential that the company review its strategies and tactics and make necessary changes.
It is essential to update the plan regularly, so the marketing plan and the actions taken for to follow that, can always suit the best for the continuously changing internal and external environment.
All in all, marketing audit is a control mechanism for the marketing plans and the actions, to keep the company continuously on the right track.
3. What elements should a marketing audit consider?
A marketing audit is not a single rigid process, it can be done various ways, but finally it will need to consider the followings:
About the external environment (things of the environment what the company has no effect on):
• Task environment: this analysis need to consider the capabilities and performance against the firm’s objectives of the listed elements: material-, services-, information-suppliers, facilitators and intermediaries.
• The competitive environment:
-direct competitors, marketing of other firm’s closely similar product
-competitors with some product in the same wider product category
-dissimilar products for the same needs and wants
• Public environment: analyse and arrange that the company’s goals and objectives are in good and supportive relationship back and forth with the surrounding 7 publics element’s
• Macro environment: identify and investigate external market environment parts, that may change market opportunities, competition and strategies. Ways of approach: PEST/STEEP (discussed at other question points).
About the internal environment (things what are under the company’s control):
• Marketing strategy: market oriented clear business mission revision, reset the marketing objectives with opportunities and resources (SWOT), check if the marketing strategy seems to support to reach the objectives, is the budget used appropriately?
• Marketing organisation audit: check and revise if the marketing decision makers are sitting in the right positions supporting the flow of information and decisions towards customer satisfaction. Here need to check if the employee in connection with marketing are motivated and trained. Check and improve cross functional interactions.
• Marketing system audit: audit if marketing research, it’s supporting information system is working properly, and effective decisions can be and are done. Assure that short term and long term marketing planning is done, and results are used. Continuous control of sales and profit is working at it’s best? Keep an eye on new product R&D.
• Marketing productivity: Recheck profitability of various products on the various markets, make changes accordingly. Spending optimisation.
• Marketing function: review of products, prices, distribution channels, advertising and sales force. Check if everything is working as it was planned and designed, analyse what should be improved or eliminated, arrange activities for reaching it asap.
4. Why analyse intermediaries, suppliers and facilitators?
When manufacturer wants to sell a product on the market, most probably cant do it alone, regarding that there is a range of things that needs to be done before a product can reach costumers hands.
The intermediaries, suppliers and facilitators are providing the necessary knowledge, information, tools, actions and resources that makes possible for the product or service to reach costumers. Intermediaries mean wholesalers, importers and retailers (for example car dealers). Facilitators and suppliers are for example transportation and storage providers, advertising and market research companies, insurance firms.
Because all of these has a cost, quality and operating speed, the manufacturer or seller must select their providers carefully to be able to fulfil their marketing goals, because these employed companies has a great effect on the following important things: get the products to the costumer
• at the right place
• at the right time
• at the right quality
• at the right quantity
• at the right price
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