Occasionally, manufacturers set out to achieve new ambitious goals and aspirations, like doubling their business, opening new markets, and becoming a leader in their space. Before they formulate a new strategy to achieve their goals is the perfect time to take stock of their marketing by undertaking a marketing audit. A comprehensive marketing audit takes a critical look at these areas:

1. Business Goals – this could be a combination of several goals like: get new customers, cross-sell to existing customers, open new markets, expand the pool of strategic buyers, improve capacity utilization, reduce sales cycle, attract and retain talent, and fortify brand reputation.
2. Positioning – how the manufacturer differentiates itself from competitors.
3. SWOT – to size up their business and its operating landscape
4. Competitive Benchmarks – to know who is ahead, far ahead, behind and far behind.
5. Ideal Customer Profile – understand ideal customers and what they value most, and what are their needs, wants and motivations.
6. Website – an audit of products, services and their merchandising, custom solutions, markets served, applications, after-sales service and support and site search. A simultaneous evaluation of visual design, user experience, conversion architecture, content and persuasion architecture, photos and videos, responsiveness, and brand alignment. (Read an in-depth post about Manufacturing and Industrial Website Audit.)
7. SEO Rankings and GEO/AIO AI Visibility – For SEO, a detailed evaluation of keywords, their rankings, and factors that influence rankings like meta- data, URL structure, canonical URLs, internal and external links, social signals, location signals, structured data and schema markup, blog audit, xml sitemap, robots.txt, 404 page, page speed and redirects. For GEO/AIO visibility, a thorough analysis of AI visibility and presence of building blocks for influencing AI visibility like schema markup, stats and facts, FAQs, citations, thought leadership content, etc. (Read an in-depth post about Manufacturing and Industrial SEO, GEO and AIO Audit.)
8. Paid Media – We analyze platform engagement, business strategy alignment, creative fatigue, ad spend efficiency, cost per lead (CPL) and cost per acquisition (CPA) across Google, LinkedIn and Meta. (Read an in-depth post about Paid Media Advertising Audit Agency for Manufacturers and Industrial Companies.)
9. Social Media – an audit of profile info, platform presence, content analysis, promotion analysis, hashtag analysis, editorial calendar, engagement metrics, metrics and KPIs, competitive benchmarks, follower analysis and sentiment analysis.
10. Data & KPIs – insights locked away in Google Analytics, Google Search Console, sales funnel data, and all available market research.
11. Marketing & Sales Collateral – an expert assessment of design and branding, copy and messaging, argument construction, persuasion architecture, conversion architecture and alignment with sales cycle.
12. Tradeshow Booth Graphics – an evaluation of the visual appeal, brand evocation, messaging clarity, readability, interactivity, lighting and portability of backdrop banners, pop-up displays, floor graphics and digital displays.
13. Budget and Staffing – to understand whether it’s right-sized and competitive.

Audit Deliverable: What’s Working, What’s Broken & What to Do Next

At the conclusion of a marketing audit, our senior strategists present our key findings and actionable recommendations based on impact and feasibility including:

• Executive Summary: A high-level briefing of key findings, strategic risks, and immediate growth opportunities for the senior team.
• Website & UX Roadmap: Prioritized immediate, intermediate, and long-term actions to optimize persuasion architecture, argument construction, user experience, and conversion pathways.
• Paid Media Performance Blueprint: A channel-by-channel evaluation of budget efficiency and attribution, complete with a prioritized list of actions to stop, start, fix, test, and scale, accompanied by a 90-day optimization roadmap.
• Sales Pipeline, RFQ & CRM Health Check: Actionable recommendations to tighten CRM workflows, data hygiene, and communication plan cadences.
• Thought Leadership & Publications Strategy: Specific recommendations to fortify your publications, blog taxonomy, editorial calendars, and industrial engineering leadership or product innovations from an SEO and GEO perspective.
• PR & Communications Review: Strategic guidance to modernize PR 1.0 and PR 2.0 efforts into a unified storytelling engine.
• Competitive Strategy & Positioning Matrix: Smart, actionable recommendations based on peer benchmarking findings to carve out a winning market position.

If you are looking for a talented manufacturing marketing agency which has brought prosperity to more than 100 manufacturers to perform your audit, consider contacting us.