When you want to hit new goals with a digital marketing strategy, it can be hard to know how to get there. Should you dive into a full marketing audit first, or just start building out your strategy?
We’ve seen this time and time again while providing strategy and digital marketing audit services based in Philadelphia. From clients starting with disjointed marketing efforts to those with none at all, let’s walk through how we identify the right first step for each one.
What’s the Difference Between a Marketing Audit and a Marketing Strategy?
Digital Marketing Audit
A digital marketing audit is an evaluation of your past marketing efforts with the goal of understanding what works and what doesn’t.
Our auditing framework starts by sitting down with our client’s team to map out:
- Goals
- Competitors
- Marketing budget
- Target audience
- Who owns each channel
- Current efforts on each channel
- What they perceive as current wins and pain points on each channel
Then, we get access to the reporting and backend of each channel, and one of our channel experts dives into:
- Building buyer personas
- Competitive research
- Analyzing the messaging, design, and user-friendliness of all assets
- Return-on-investment
- Relevant channel KPIs, such as website load time or ad cost-per-click
We then compile all of our findings into a presentation that identifies the client’s strengths and opportunities for improvement.
Marketing Strategy
A digital marketing strategy is a blueprint for future marketing efforts.
When building a strategy, we evaluate the client’s brand identity, competitive positioning, marketing budget, and resources to determine how we can reach their target audience and achieve their goals.
We map out the audience’s journey through the funnel, identify how the client should allocate their marketing budget across channels, and detail the tactics we recommend for each channel.
A marketing strategy can apply to:
- Ongoing efforts for a whole brand: For example, after conducting a marketing audit for TimberCraft homes, we developed an ongoing marketing strategy to help them reach more potential buyers in Oklahoma City.
- A one-off launch or time period: For example, we recently created a go-to-market strategy for Amàre Cancún to support the launch of a new resort in a new market.
- One effort within your brand: For example, we put together a marketing strategy specifically for our in-person production studio space in Newtown Square, separate from our overall brand marketing strategy.
How Do They Work Together?
A marketing audit and strategy can be done together, like we do in our digital marketing audit services. We start with an in-depth audit, and then use our findings to tailor a suggested strategy to our client’s goals.
When used separately, marketing audits and strategies work in a cycle over time. A marketing audit provides insights that help inform your marketing strategy. Executing the marketing strategy generates performance data, which you can then audit to refine your strategy.
As you can see, this creates a chicken-and-egg scenario. Which comes first?
When Should You Start With a Marketing Audit?
Start with a digital marketing audit if relevant marketing efforts have taken place in the last year.
By “relevant,” we mean efforts that relate to current or similar offerings and target the same general audience you want to target moving forward. This ensures that your findings are helpful for your new goals.
We suggest evaluating only efforts from the last year because technology and consumer behavior change rapidly, and a very successful campaign from two years ago may not perform as well in the same marketing channel now.
We started with an audit for TimberCraft Homes to inform their marketing efforts. They had been running various marketing efforts for a while, but the ROI wasn’t strong enough to help them reach their sales goals. We identified what was working and which efforts to add or tweak to help their budget support their goals.
We frequently perform audits when…
- A new marketing person or team starts at a company and wants to understand the performance of existing efforts
- A brand has new goals and needs help understanding how to adjust its marketing efforts to get there
- A brand has diminishing ROI on marketing efforts, or isn’t satisfied with the ROI of marketing efforts
When Should You Start With a Marketing Strategy?
Start with a marketing strategy if you don’t have any previous or recent marketing performance to audit, or if you’re completely changing your offerings or audience.
Starting with a strategy doesn’t mean starting with zero research. Even if you’re not auditing older efforts, you should still evaluate your audience, messaging, and the competitive landscape when building a strategy.
As mentioned earlier, we did this for Amàre Cancún’s go-to launch strategy. Amàre Hotels is a successful resort brand in Europe, but with this resort, they entered a new market with a different target audience and a new, all-inclusive model. Their existing marketing strategies wouldn’t necessarily apply to this new launch. So, our team conducted research to craft an informed launch strategy and a roadmap for transitioning to an ongoing marketing strategy.
We typically skip the digital marketing audit and dive into research and strategy when…
- A brand has no previous marketing efforts, or very limited ones
- An existing brand wants to break into a new market or launch a new product or service
- A new brand needs a marketing strategy
Start Your Strategy With Digital Marketing Audit Services
Whether you want to start with a digital marketing audit or it makes sense to skip straight to strategy, Philadelphia-based Forge Apollo is here to help. Each of our team members is an expert in a different marketing discipline, so we can gain insights and plan tactics based on firsthand expertise rather than generalized best practices. Reach out today to discuss the next step towards reaching your goals.
