Blinders Off: The Value of Performing a Marketing Audit

One of the late George Carlin’s most famous comedy bits was his list of oxymorons, or as he put it words that don’t go together with other words. He used examples such as ‘jumbo shrimp’, ‘exact estimate’ and ‘military intelligence’ to make his point.

There is one more phrase I’d like to add to the list: honest self-evaluation. Pulling off the blinders and seeing ourselves as we really are is one of the most difficult things in the world to do.

We all think we sing a little better than we do (especially after a couple of cocktails), or look better in that dress designed for models who are built like coat hangers, or can decorate our homes as well as Martha Stewart. That’s the way our brains are wired, to make us feel good about ourselves so we can get on with our daily lives instead of curling up into a little ball in the corner as tears of inadequacy roll down our cheeks with only our ever-adoring dogs giving us comfort.

The same is true in business. We often see our PR and marketing programs the way we want to see them instead of the way they really are. There’s nothing like a little confirmation bias to help us avoid the ugly truth.

But just because you believe something doesn’t make it true. That’s why it often helps to bring in another set of eyes to perform a PR and marketing audit of your integrated program. As my recent blog post from the Forbes Agency Council points out, an impartial third party “one that had nothing to do with developing or executing the current program” can often help you see what you’re actually doing well and shore up any areas you might have missed.

An in-depth audit of your integrated marketing program will typically look into nine areas:

• Current messaging
• Share of voice/sentiment versus competitors
• Media targets and their value
• Overall content strategy
• Existing byline articles and case studies
• Press releases
• Speaker and award targets
• Speaker and award applications
• Social media strategies and posts

To learn more, be sure to read the full post here. Oh, and be sure to tune up that singing voice. Karaoke night is coming up soon.