What Is a Marketing Audit?

Marketing audit, also known as "marketing audit" and "marketing audit", is a comprehensive, systematic, independent, and periodic review of a company's environment, goals, strategies, and actions to determine problems and opportunities. It conducts comprehensive, systematic, independent and regular inspections of the marketing environment, goals, strategies and activities of the enterprise or business unit, finds marketing opportunities, identifies marketing issues, and proposes correct short-term and long-term action plans To ensure that the implementation of marketing plans or unreasonable marketing plans are corrected. ^[1]

Marketing audit

It is an audit of the efficiency of a company's marketing mix factors (ie products, prices, locations, promotions).

It mainly audits the company's product quality, characteristics, style, brand customer welcome, the effectiveness of corporate pricing goals and strategies, market coverage, the efficiency of channel members such as suppliers, advertising budgets, media selection and advertising effects, and sales teams Scale, quality, and initiative.

(1) Margin of sales. Generally speaking, companies use sales profit margin as one of the main indicators to evaluate their profitability. Sales profit refers to the ratio between profit and sales. It represents the profit made by the enterprise for every 100 yuan of sales. The formula is:

Sales profit margin = profit for the period / sales × 100%

The debt ratios between enterprises in the same industry are often very different, and the evaluation of sales profitability often has to be compared with the average level of the same industry. Therefore, when assessing the profitability of an enterprise, it is best to add interest expenses to profit after tax. This will generally eliminate the different effects of interest paid on debt operations on profit levels. Therefore, the formula for calculating sales profit margin should be:

Margin of Sales = Profit before interest / tax / Net product sales income x 100%

Such a calculation method can only be compared when measuring the level of operations in the same industry, so that the marketing efficiency can be more correctly evaluated.

(2) Return on assets. Refers to the ratio of the total profit generated by an enterprise to the total assets of the enterprise. The formula is:

Return on assets = Profit before tax / average total assets × 100%

For the same reason as the profit margin of sales, in order to be comparable among the same industry, the return on assets can be calculated using the following formula:

Return on assets = Profit before tax / average total assets × 100%

The denominator uses the average total assets because the balance between the beginning and the end of the year is very different. It is obviously unreasonable to use only the balance at the end of the year.

(3) Return on net assets. Refers to the ratio of profit after tax to net asset income. Net assets refer to the net value of total assets minus total liabilities. This is a measure of the rate of return on residual assets after a company has repaid its debt. The calculation formula is:

Return on net assets = profit after tax / average balance of net assets × 100%

The reason why its numerator does not include interest expenses is because the net assets have not included the liabilities.

(4) Efficiency of asset management. It can be analyzed by the following ratios:

1) Asset turnover. This indicator refers to the total asset turnover rate obtained by an enterprise by averaging the total assets and subtracting the net product sales revenue. The calculation formula is as follows:

Asset turnover rate = net product sales revenue / average asset occupancy

This indicator can measure the utilization efficiency of the entire investment of the enterprise. A high asset turnover rate indicates that the utilization efficiency of the investment is high.

2) Inventory turnover rate. This indicator refers to the ratio of the cost of products sold to the average balance of inventory (referred to as products). The calculation formula is as follows:

Inventory turnover rate = product cost of sales / average inventory balance

This indicator indicates the number of turnovers of memory in a certain period, thereby assessing the liquidity of the inventory. The average inventory balance is generally the average of the beginning and end of the year. Generally speaking, the higher the number of times of inventory turnover, the better, indicating that the inventory level is low, the turnover is fast, and the use of funds is high.

Asset management efficiency is closely related to profitability. Asset management is highly efficient and profitability is correspondingly high. This can be shown from the relationship between the rate of return on assets, the turnover rate of assets and the profit margin on sales. The return on assets is actually the product of the asset turnover rate and the profit margin on sales:

Return on assets = net product sales revenue / average asset occupancy × before tax interest

Profit / Net Product Sales Revenue = Asset Turnover Rate × Sales Margin

Marketing audit is

Back in 1959,

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The practice of western companies has proven that marketing audits need to play an effective role in the application of four principles: 1. Comprehensiveness. Marketing audit is not a functional audit, it is not just for

Marketing audit standards refer to the auditors' evaluation of the efficiency and effectiveness of audited marketing activities.

Since conducting marketing audits should reflect the principles of comprehensiveness and systemicity, marketing audits include a wide range of content. It is generally believed that its content can be divided into six major parts: marketing environment audit, marketing strategy audit, marketing organization audit, marketing system audit, marketing efficiency audit, and marketing function audit.

1. Marketing environmental audit

Marketing environment is the fundamental constraint of marketing activities, so marketing environment audit is the basis of other audit content. Enterprises audit their marketing environment to analyze whether the marketing strategy is compatible with the marketing environment and whether to revise the original marketing plan. The specific contents of the marketing environment audit include the external environment and the market environment. The former refers to the factors that affect the enterprise due to macroeconomic conditions such as economy, politics, nature, and technology. Narrow marketing environment audit refers to the audit of the company's market environment, that is, the micro-environment. The content includes the market capacity and size.

Marketing audits are a complex and detailed evaluation exercise. The specific implementation process is:

1. First, the company's management and marketing auditors should work out an agreement on audit objectives, coverage, depth, sources of information, form of reporting, and timing.

2. Then, according to

There are many technical methods of marketing audit: there are data-oriented audit methods, there are system-oriented audit methods, there are sampling methods, there are

1. The functions of marketing audit are: (1) Promotion. promote

Especially huge: (1) Newly established enterprises and business units. With the relaxation of China's registration requirements for enterprises, more and more enterprises will be established;

1. The relatively backward level of economic development has left China's buyer market incomplete. In line with this, marketing activities in enterprises are not popular and the level of marketing management is too low. This has become a fundamental problem restricting the development of China's marketing audit. Although with the reform and opening up, China's increasing supply of goods and services has become increasingly abundant. As a result, customers' position in the market buying and selling relationship has been continuously improved, and some products have experienced a situation of oversupply. However, on the whole, a considerable amount of goods and services in China are in a relatively surplus state due to structural imbalances. The buyer's market in a real oversupply environment has not yet formed. Quite a few companies' understanding of marketing remains in the form. Not implemented. The level of marketing management is generally low, which makes the survival and development of marketing audits in China lack due soil. 2. Chinese enterprises, especially state-owned enterprises

1. The theoretical community should strengthen the research on marketing audit. Introduction and introduction abroad

Marketing audit is not a temporary job. The following issues should be noted in the work:

1. Comprehensiveness

Marketing audits don't just review a few problem areas, but cover every aspect of the entire marketing environment, internal marketing systems, and specific marketing activities.

Systematic

The marketing audit includes a series of orderly diagnostic steps, an orderly inspection of the marketing environment, internal marketing system, and various marketing activities, and a revision plan based on the diagnosis.

3. Independence

Carry out independent work through self-audit, internal cross-audit, higher-level company audit, and hiring external experts for audit.

4. Periodicity

Marketing audits are conducted on a regular basis and are not temporary actions that are taken only when a problem occurs. Regular and ongoing marketing audits are part of the company's regular business work.