How to Conduct a Killer End of Year Marketing Audit

How often do you review your marketing?  Ideally you should be looking at your statistics regularly throughout the year, but certainly before you embark on plans for the next 12 months. 

You need to look at what worked this year.  And what did not. 

In marketing, we call this an audit – a systematic review and assessment of what has happened up to this point in the year.

  1. Where are you now?

The first place to start is by looking at where you are at right now.  Get all of the data you can together for your website, your email marketing, your budget and it’s ROI, your social media, your sales and whatever other data you’ve been measuring throughout the year.

  1. Look back to look forward

Step two is to reviewing the marketing plan that you made at the start of the year and seeing where you are relative to what you wanted to achieve.  For each objective and goal that you set yourself, look at the measurements and find the relevant numbers you’ve gathered up in step one to see how you did.  For example, if you wanted to increase the number of subscribers to your newsletter by 25%, go dig out your numbers for January and for now and do the maths. 

The reason we do this before we make our next plan is not just to pat ourselves on the back for the goals we reached, but to help us in setting our goals for the year to come.  Where did we surpass our goals – were the numbers too conservative?  Where did we miss the mark – did we not focus on this area enough or was something else responsible? 

  1. An honest appraisal

Step three requires setting your ego aside, and having an honest look at how your competitors have done in the year. 

How active have they been on email and social media?  If you don’t already follow them on social media, or subscribe to their emails, now is the time to do that! 

How has their website been updated during the year?  Where are they coming up in the search results compared to you – has this improved? 

As well as your own statistics, this information can help you to see where your company’s marketing was lacking and offer inspiration on where to focus attention for the year to come.

  1. Delve deep

Finally, step four is to review all the information you’ve collated.  Dig deep and ask questions on everything you have gathered, like:

  • Why is this number different to last year? 
  • How can we improve on this statistic? 
  • What time of year needs more attention? 
  • Who could we ask for help with this next year?

The answers to these questions will form the basis of your marketing plan for the year to come and create actions that you need to take in order to see improvements and reach your new goals.

If you think your business would benefit from some marketing support this festive season we’d love to hear from you! You can contact us here or pick up the phone and call us on 01600 891525.