A recent marketing audit for a small A/E/C firm grappling with how to better position itself within the marketplace yielded some interesting findings. The result was a fascinating and satisfying deconstruction of the firm’s current marketing efforts with suggestions for improvement, areas of identified growth, and a much-needed discussion on the importance that all facets of marketing play in the A/E/C industry.
Why do it? The act of breaking down regular activities and looking at not only the process in place, but also the reasons for conducting business as it’s done, can be an eye opening experience that provides valuable insight to all involved. Much like a SWOT analysis, a marketing audit will identify areas of strength and weakness, and provide an opportunity to prioritize improvements that benefit the entire
What to look at: Anything and everything! Every piece of marketing should have a purpose behind it, meaning every piece – from proposals to the website – should be evaluated. Some thoughts on approaching an internal or third party marketing audit:
• Break down the proposal process from RFP through submission, looking at the graphics including headers, footers, readability, production, and formatting, and evaluate the content, its relevance to the RFP criteria, and the way the firm presents its qualifications.
• Prepare and practice for an interview, organizing responses and breaking down how the message relates to the objectives of the owner, while guiding the team on how best to interact with the selection committee.
• Review the website page by page and identify areas that work as well as those that could use a facelift. Focus a critical eye on consistency of message and how it is presented to the viewer. Proofread text, navigate from page to page for user-friendliness, and give an honest and objective impression of the site in relation to others in the field.
• Provide additional suggestions in areas that could strengthen marketing efforts. These include thought leadership, speaking engagements, award submissions, media relations, and networking through association involvement. The audit for the aforementioned A/E/C firm even included how to best organize marketing materials through the implementation of a content management system (CMS) database.
After the fact: The act of breaking down all marketing activities with the purpose of identifying areas of improvement and prioritizing marketing and BD efforts provides a roadmap for how to better navigate an increasingly competitive environment. This exercise forces a firm to consider areas for improvement and offers an opportunity to learn how an outside, objective eye views the firm.
Conducting a marketing audit also confirms the concrete bottom-line impact that a well-executed marketing plan can have on business development. By performing an audit and looking at the reasons for its marketing activities, a firm can gain a keener perspective on how strategic initiatives in marketing and business development augment and amplify the efforts of strong technical content, and together can produce great work.
Should you do one? Absolutely. Although a firm could perform an audit internally, chances are the marketing department is too close to its own procedures and has little time to perform one adequately. By engaging a third party, the firm gets a fresh perspective unhindered by habit and familiarity. This isn’t the type of activity that needs to happen regularly to be effective, but it should be performed annually or biannually to maintain consistency with current marketing practices. Similar to performing a SWOT analysis on a new venture, a marketing audit can supply valuable insight into creating an effective communications strategy that compliments business development efforts.
Jennifer Shelby is an account director for Rhino Public Relations.