SITUATION ANALYSIS

How do you begin a marketing audit? Start by doing a situation analysis about your company.

A marketing audit is a self-examination companies can use to collect their thoughts on activities and needs, goals and objectives, business and marketing descriptions, competitive intelligence, and communications planning.

A place to start is with an overview of the company. Start by writing down details like locations, sales history, and mergers, as well as how aware and perceived the company is among buying influences. This is the beginning of a situation analysis that will help define your market dynamics and begin to identify current position in the market. Begin to see your company from an internal and external perspective.

Here are the basic facts about your company to collect for the situation analysis portion of a marketing audit.

• What is the company’s incorporated name? Do you have a “Doing business as” or a DBA name as well.
• What is your company’s location(s)? List the headquarters as well as any others that might be significant to the marketing process like manufacturing and sales locations.
• What is your company’s website address? Do you have product websites as well as company?
• Do you have a company profile on LinkedIn? Do you maintain Twitter or Facebook pages?
• What is the date the company was established?
• What is the annual sales history for 3 – 5 years? What is the current number of employees?
• Who are key personnel? List any that are stakeholders in the marketing decision process.
• Is there a chronology to the company’s events like mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures?
• In 50 words or less, can you state the company’s business philosophy?
• What is the current awareness level of your company among buying influences? Are you known for your price? Performance? Quality? Service? Availability? Features? Etc.
• What is the current perception of your company among buying influences? Do they have a positive or negation perception about your price? Performance? Quality? Service? Availability? Features? Etc.
• Begin to organize the 4P’s (product, price, place, and promotion) of your company.

• What are my products? Do I make a thing or provide a service? Does your product have the right features? What is the quality of this product compared to the marketplace? List all products or services produced, with brand names if they have them.
• What is the pricing of my product compared to the competition? Do you need to sell large or small numbers to produce profit?
• What is the place my company sells it’s product? Can your target audience get it easily? Is it for use by consumers or businesses? Do you distribute it through resellers or direct?
• How are they made aware of the existence and availability of product? What promotional factors should be considered between seller and buyer? What might influence, inform or persuading the purchaser? Put in order of importance of the promotion mix: personal selling, advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing, public relations or demonstration.

As an advertising agency, Brigham & Rago is here to help businesses develop marketing communications plans to keep or capture new market share. The marketing audit process can help your company analysis and evaluate your approaches, activities, aims and results achieved. We look forward to working with your company to develop a powerful marketing communications program to meet your business objectives. Call 973-656-9006 to set up a meeting to discuss your next communications project. Visit our online portfolio to see examples of work we’ve created for our clients.