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Marketing Audits: Spend A Little, Gain A Lot
In the challenging economic times we are currently experiencing, your marketing team needs to be hitting on all cylinders to survive. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your marketing efforts is key to maximizing performance in today’s economic climate. It’s equally important to maximize your brand in preparation for the eventual recovery, when pent-up demand will create opportunity for those ready to capitalize on it.
Investing in a marketing audit is a cost-effective way to identify both the factors that are working well and those negatively impacting a community’s marketing efforts, and to inform efforts to optimize the marketing program.
In an audit, every component of the marketing program is analyzed and assessed, and recommendations for action steps are outlined. This provides a company with a road map for optimizing sales and marketing efforts, which allows organizations to “hit on all cylinders” and be efficient in their efforts.
A typical marketing audit consists of the following:
 Marketing program review- Demographic analysis
- Updated demand analysis
- Site visit
- Product strengths and weaknesses assessment
- Review of current marketing status/results
- Resident and family profile
- Marketing systems and protocols review
- Evaluation of sales systems, practices and skills
- Mystery shopping
- Review of referral development practices
- Competitive analysis
- Lead base analysis
- Evaluation of advertising and collateral strategy and style
- Evaluation of media strategy
- Resident, lead and referral source interviews
- Comprehensive reporting and recommendations
At the conclusion of the audit, the audit team presents its findings, outlining recommended changes and answering any questions that you might have in response to those findings.
If you want the answers to the following questions, you might want to commission an audit:
- How is your sales team really doing?
- Do your prospective customers have a good experience when they contact you?
- Are sales counselors following up and converting leads effectively?
- Does your community offer what people are looking to purchase?
- How do your critical success factors and conversion ratios compare to industry benchmarks?
- What are your competitors doing that you’re not doing and should be doing?
- What incentives could you offer that would impact sales?
- Is your advertising working? Are you optimizing Internet and interactive marketing?
- Are you getting the referrals you should be getting?
- Who are your customers, and where can you best find more people like them?
- Are there geographic affinity pockets of which you are not taking advantage?
- What’s the best strategy for improving occupancy quickly?
Why invest in an audit?
Making this investment is worthwhile for a variety of reasons.
First and foremost, take a look at your lost revenue. Accepting occupancy percentages in the high 80s to mid 90s is leaving money on the table. And that money lost means programs, services and financial stability lost. Calculate the dollars being lost through unoccupied residences on your campus and the investment in a marketing audit becomes a “no-brainer.”
Second, a marketing professional, who has a national perspective and has seen both successful and not-so-successful communities, will perform your audit. This professional’s knowledge of trends and the marketing tools that are working in other communities can help you make a big difference in your own programs.
Finally, the quickest and most cost-effective change you can make is to optimize sales performance. Better conversion rates lower your advertising expenditures. It’s essential to get an objective evaluation of your sales function. The audit will offer your sales team members constructive ways to improve their performance, the quickest way to improve your bottom line.
Interested? Click here to get more information about marketing audits and SB&A’s comprehensive audit methodology.
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