DaveStevensNow

As I noted in my last post, it is not uncommon for the marketing audit in a plan to be used as a dumping ground for a whole series of unrelated points and loose threads. It shouldn’t be. It should be a space where marketers look analytically at their environment and prioritise what to focus their plan as a response to.

To try to keep things simple I frequently ask marketers to pick the ten most important areas from the list below as they affect the product or service that they are writing about. Always consider why an area has importance enough to be flagged in a plan. Here’s the list…

 Major demographic developments and trends 

 Changes in laws and regulations 

 Changes in customer lifestyles and values 

 Customer attitudes to the businesses involved in the supply chain of the product or service

 Changes in market size, growth, geographical distribution, and profits of customer

 Major customer segments 

 Customer needs and buying processes 

 Reputation of Company branding the product or service and its competitors in the eyes of customers 

 Decision making process of customers 

 Major competitors, their strengths, and weaknesses, and marketing approaches 

 Main channels to market 

 Internal stakeholder team objectives and strategy 

 Your budget 

 Your timeframe for marketing 

 Product strengths and how these change over the period of the plan 

 Product weaknesses and how these change over the period of the plan