I’m the first to admit that a marketing audit isn’t the sexiest part of marketing. It’s analysis, plain and simple. But if you skip it, you’ll feel the impact on your marketing further down the line. You’ll be scratching your head as to why a genius marketing campaign has flopped.
In my experience, some firms bury their head in the sand. They don’t have the skills, the knowledge, or the time to properly dig into their analytics, so they don’t. And when leads are coming in, and marketing looks like it’s performing well on the surface, there’s rarely a reason to look any closer.
But that’s exactly where the value gets missed. A marketing audit can confirm what’s genuinely working, which is extremely valuable information when you’re deciding where to invest your time and resources. It can also surface the gaps and put a spotlight on the bits underperforming or not working at all. This is important because those gaps have a real knock-on effect on your customer journey and your lead generation, whether you can see it yet or not.
It’s not about pointing blame.
Let’s be clear. A marketing audit isn’t about trying to catch anyone out.
In a lot of professional services firms, marketing sits with a director or fee earner (sometimes someone more junior) who’s also got other responsibilities. Client delivery, business development, and teams to manage. Marketing becomes one more hat to wear alongside everything else.
Throughout my career, I’ve seen all sorts of gaps come to light. Enquiry forms that were never tested, or that broke along the way without anyone noticing. Follow-up processes that everyone believed were happening, because everyone assumed someone else was on it.
When marketing sits with somebody who’s carrying it as an additional responsibility on top of everything else, they simply don’t have the time or the focus for it. That’s not a failing; it’s just what happens when marketing isn’t anyone’s main job.
Clarity on what you’re actually doing, not what you think you’re doing.
The first component I look at in a marketing audit is activity. Not the plan, not the intention, the reality.
What’s actually going out, and how often? Is content genuinely consistent, or is it bursts of effort followed by silence? Who’s responsible for marketing, and are they the right person for it, or has it just landed on whoever had the most capacity at the time?
This is often where the biggest surprises are. A client will tell me they’ve been consistent on a particular channel, and then we look at the evidence together and find the last post was months ago. There’s no point sugarcoating what isn’t happening. Knowing exactly where you’re starting from is the only way to know what needs to change.
If auditing all of your marketing feels overwhelming, my advice is to start with one channel first. It is important that you map out the customer journey and understand how marketing across multiple channels works effectively together (or not), but the key is to get started.
Know who you’re really talking to.
The second component of a marketing audit I go through is your audience, and specifically, who your marketing is targeting.
In professional services, this is rarely just one person. You’ve often got multiple decision makers involved in choosing who they work with, and each of them cares about different things. If you’re speaking to all of them the same way, the chances are you’re not really landing with any of them.
A marketing audit asks whether you’ve got a clear profile for each of the people who matter in that decision, and whether your marketing is actually built around them, or just built around a general idea of your ideal client.
A quick tip here: create buyer profiles for each of your decision-makers. Not sure what to include? I cover exactly what you need to think about here.
Is marketing aligned with the firm’s plans for growth?
The third component brings the first two together. What you’re doing, who you’re targeting, and whether that’s actually aligned with the firm’s growth goals.
Firms will often have a clear growth goal on one hand, and marketing activity on the other, and if the two aren’t talking to each other, there’s trouble. You might be investing time and budget into a channel or an audience that has nothing to do with where you’re trying to go. If marketing’s heading in one direction and the firm’s growth is heading in another, neither is going to be successful. Cue all the moans about marketing not working…
Quick wins first, then the bigger stuff
The beauty of a marketing audit is that there are almost always quick wins you can implement, and you’ll see a positive impact on your lead generation in the short term. That instant reward is often exactly what makes completing the audit worthwhile.
Alongside that, you’ll have identified some of the bigger, longer-term aspects that need attention. But you’ve clearly got sight of where the gaps or issues are, and you know exactly why you’re trying to fix them. That clarity can often get senior leadership and other resources genuinely behind getting involved with marketing. A win for everyone!
Where to start
If you haven’t audited your marketing in the last 12 months, I would seriously consider making this a priority. At worst, your marketing ‘team’ will have the evidence to confirm that your marketing strategy is solid and all the activity you’re investing in is working. At best, you’ll know how to improve what you are currently doing, and you’ll reap the rewards in time.
You CAN head into Q4 and 2027 knowing what is and isn’t working in your marketing. If you need some external resource to help you achieve that, that’s what I’m here for. Whether standalone or as part of a bigger project. All you need to do is get in touch.
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