Research owned and published globally by The Paper Store, Inc. Page 1 1-800-90-WRITE CONDUCTING A MARKETING AUDIT A marketing audit is a fundamental part of the planning process – in addition to being conducted at the beginning, before a marketing plan is developed, an audit is conducted during the plan's implementation (Marketing Teacher, 2008). Any audit worth its salt needs to include an analysis of the internal and external marketing environment, as well as a review of the current marketing plan (assuming there is a marketing plan in existence) (Marketing Teacher, 2008). Other points of review (or data to be analyzed) include a company's objectives, strategies and activities, and helps identify a company's operational strengths and weaknesses (Copernicus Marketing Consulting, 2008). One of the most important tools that can be used is face-to-face interaction with people; while another is the comparable analysis tools (Nevitt, 1997). One helpful checklist also attempts to align the marketing audit with corporate strategy, asking questions such as the business mission, the corporate objectives, goals and strategies, sales and management, target markets and the 4 Ps of marketing already in existence (De La Garza, 2006). In this paper, we'll put together an example of what information needs to be collected to perform a viable marketing audit. As there is no information on the industry or product that will undergo the audit, we'll discuss the marketing audit in general terms. We'll also provide an example of how an entity goes about performing an audit. As mentioned above, the key task of any audit is to understand where a company is competitively, what the current marketing plan might be, and how an updated (or new) plan can help that company reach its goals or objectives. Also, if there
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Research owned and published globally