Next steps for Neil & Maddison [for their boutique consultancy]

Neil and Maddison read Joseph’s text and Stephen’s post and they agree that identifying the degree to which an organisation has adopted the marketing concept and is practicing a marketing philosophy are important first steps to their marketing audit pro-forma/questionaire and would set the tone for the business-marketing planning process.

Neil states that what Joseph has raised are foundation questions.

Once again, Neil and Maddison sit down and get to work on the marketing audit pro-forma/questionaire.

Maddison takes the lead. ‘Firstly, we need to clearly define what the characteristics of each of the business concepts [the production concept, the selling concept, and the marketing concept]; next explain why this information is so important to the overall CADDIE process; and then how we intend to measure the degree that the organisation has adopted the marketing concept.’ Neil agrees ‘we can’t assume they our client know what the marketing concept is.’ 

Neil asks ‘quantitative or qualitative? – I am thinking quantitative for various business concepts and qualitative for the descriptor of the business philosophy – what do you think?’

Maddison says ‘it has to be a mixed methods approach; qualitative when we are discovering – quantitative when we are measuring’.

After several hours work, Maddison goes to the white board and summarises their work so far:

  1. Cover page [with Marketing Audit – authors of the document – a place for who conducted the audit]
  2. Table of contents [the word document needs to be formatted to show a hierarchy of importance] 
  3. Overview of CADDIE process – [details the process – includes a statement of purpose]
  4. Foundation Questions
    1. Explanation of the 3 business concepts [includes a statement on how the marketing concept leads to a competitive advantage]
    2. Identifying the present position [organisational philosophy, mission statement, and raison d’etre]
  5. Collect and Analyse – Explanation of situational factors [COMP]
    1. Customer audit [explore the customer characteristics that a marketing practitioner must consider – customer considerations]
    2. Organisational audit [explore the organisational characteristics that a marketing practitioner must consider – organisational considerations]
    3. Market audit [explore the market characteristics that a marketing practitioner must consider – market considerations]
    4. Product audit [explore the product characteristics that a marketing practitioner must consider- product considerations- quality, value, satisfaction, +]
  6. Template for Marketing Audit Report – [ overview of the marketing audit process, executive summary, and then the key COMP findings]
  7. Template for SWOT Presentation – [A template that permits the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats facing the organisation to be presented – what is internal and external – what should be maximised or minimised]

Neil states ‘I really feel that we are making progress and identifying the areas we should explore – I think having the what – how- why explanatory notes will ensure that regardless of whoever conducts the Marketing Audit we will be consistent. I believe the COMP questions will enable our clients to better understand the market attractiveness and their ability to compete. The template for the Marketing Audit Report and the SWOT Presentation will ensure consistency across all our clients. This information will certainly make the business-marketing planning process more effective and efficient.’

‘Excellent we are really getting somewhere. I really like your idea of including a communication audit within the customer audit – brilliant – will help us to ensure that social media tactics are aligned with communication strategies. Let’s take a break and meet back on Friday’ suggests Maddison.

Key tasks when demonstrating your learning

Key task 1: Ensure that you have read ‘Conducting a Marketing Audit’ in the e-book and the slides in the chapter ‘Positioning Marketing Research’. Then employ Neil and Maddison’s outline to fill in the questions you would ask for each area of exploration.

Key task 2: As a student you need to demonstrate your learning – this includes employing the language and concepts of marketing, explaining the language and concepts of marketing, and demonstrating an ability to apply the concepts. For example; every time you introduce a major heading by discussing you should describe:

  1. What the concept is
  2. Why it is important to explore [the implications]
  3. How you intend to measure
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