Ah yes, it’s tax season and it’s time for an
audit!? A marketing audit. It’s worth it as one client showed when she
made a recommendation of our firm’s services to a hospital seeking to
conduct a marketing audit. She concluded her note to them with: “I
strongly encourage you to give him a call. The audit was one of the best
research investments we’ve done.”
Health care organizations are running a thousand miles an hour. Marketers
are pushed from all sides to please multiple constituents. Often that
means trying to be too many things for too many people with a result of
watered down and unfocused tactics and in short ineffective marketing. Yes
a marketing audit might just be the best investment you ever make.
An audit answers the following:
• Are we focused on the right things?
• Do we have the capital and manpower to implement a plan?
• Do we have the right skill-sets in place?
• Are we paying attention to marketing fundamentals?
• Who are the consumers of our communication and what do they want to know
and how do they want to receive the information?
1. Draw a line in the sand.
When we conduct a marketing audit with organizations we use a proprietary
grid that objectively helps organizations focus on what is right to market
in their circumstance. That gives marketers the license to draw a line in
the sand, essentially saying to people knocking at their door that we have
a plan, here is how we arrived at it and I’m sorry we cannot help you at
this moment. Hard to say but necessary in this day and age.
We arrive at that grid in part by interviewing the executive team. We
typically come away with a strong sense of organizational priorities
(sometimes not). But by engaging them we also gain valuable insight into
what is and what is not currently working in the organization and in
marketing. We start to understand the executives’ role in the
communication process. And we set the stage for buy in of recommendations
to come later.
2. Take a snapshot.
The grid is refined as you delve into the audit by first establishing a
clear picture of the health system. In essence, you are reviewing much of
the same information as you would when writing the strategic plan:
vision/mission, pertinent statistics, community health needs assessments,
patient / resident demographics, trending and forecasting data, competitor
initiatives, among others. However, you are now looking at this
information from the perspective of marketing strategy and tactics,
messages and mediums. If there is information lacking then consider doing
the necessary quantitative or qualitative research to fill the gaps.
As you do this you will start uncovering:
a. Who the real customers are.
b. The buying process.
c. Brand perception and loyalty.
d. What customers 'value' and how you provide that 'value.'
e. The marketing plans and strategies of the competition.
f. The level of adoption of mobile and Internet technologies.
g. Marketing communications uses of technology and media.
h. How or if you measure return on investment.
3. Refine the Plan.
By first figuring out just what makes sense to market and then using all
of the data and research to determine the best way to reach the intended
audiences, you have cleared the way for the writing of a strategic
marketing plan, emphasis on the strategic.
It is easier for an outside firm to be objective in this regard and our
audits tend to morph into marketing audits / marketing plans. At the very
least the marketing executive has a blueprint for going forward.
4. Execute.
How many times have organizations looked back at one of their marketing
plans and realized that maybe 80% of the tactics are still nothing more
than words on paper? “Oh yes,” you say. “I remember that. How come we
didn’t do it?
Reasons abound: not enough time; not enough staff; not enough budget.
Another possibility could be that you do not have the right staff in
place, the skills necessary to execute what you planned or the deployment
of staff in the right way. An audit evaluates these issues so that you end
up with a plan that can be implemented.
Marketing and communication roles, responsibilities and deliverables are
assessed. Individual staff interviews help you gain perspective of each
individual member. Shadowing staffers gives you another perspective of how
they are spending their time.
Answer these questions:
How is our marketing team organized?
How efficient is our marketing team?
How effective is our marketing team?
How does our marketing team interface with other organizations and
internal functions?
Match the skill sets to the deliverables desired. Retrain employees if you
can or bring in the skills you need.
5. Pay Attention to the Details.
We ask our clients to provide us with every, that is every piece of their
marketing arsenal for evaluation. As strategy moves toward market action,
every initiative needs to be fine-tuned. At this stage with everything in
front of us to evaluate we look for common themes: brand consistency,
language, calls to action, images, and mediums. We evaluate the web from
content and site flow to SEO.
We emerge with a checklist for the marketers going forward of things that
must be accomplished in their initiatives. Sometimes the marketer is so
close to the product that they sometimes miss the fundamentals.
Understanding the genesis, purpose, content, design, audience,
effectiveness and results of what you currently deliver can set the stage
for better execution of future deliverables.
A marketing audit should be a fundamental step in reassessing, retuning
and restarting your marketing. Whether you have the objectivity to step
away and do it on your own or can bring in someone to do so, it pays for
itself in ROI down the road.
