Marketing Audit

Business Analysis Questionnaire

Step 1 of 13

General Information
Contact Name
FirstLast
Email
Company
Industry/Profession
Address
Street AddressAddress Line 2CityState / Province / RegionZip / Postal CodeCountry
Website
Number of Employees
Number of Salespeople
Annual Sales $
What kind of business are you in?
- Retail
- Wholesale
- Manufacturing
- Distributorship
- Mail Order
- Service Business
- Professional
- Business to Business
- Other
List hours of operation, time zone (PST, EST) and days closed
What is your current position in the market place?
List some of the highlights of the business? (Example: competitive advantage or growth opportunities)
What is the competitive advantage of the business
Most businesses are in one of these 3 categories: Where are you? Explain?
A. Growing- want to grow more
B. Stagnant
C. Declining
Company History and Background
Years the company has been operating
Years the current owner has been operating the business
Briefly describe the background and history of the business (Include major changes and milestones)
Write a 25 word description of your business to be displayed and used in search engine submissions. Describe what your business offers, to whom it is offered and a succinct reason your business should be considered
List 30 words or phrases that describe your business. Pick words/phrases relevant to your business.
Do you have a business slogan or catch phrase?
Company Structure
No. of employees (including directors):
Describe the owner’s position in detail:
Years with Company:
Job Responsibilities:
Strengths:
Background:
Comments:
Key Staff
Describe The Key Employees in the following section:
Name
Years with Company:
Job Responsibilities:
Strengths:
Position:
Fair Replacement Salary:
Background:
Comments:
Describe the business’s ownership structure (Example: Owner 50% ownership, employees 50% ownership):
SWOT Analysis
Identify the Strengths and Weaknesses of the company (specific to the company and not the industry or the general economy).
Internal Company Strengths:
List The TOP 5 Advantages of Business With You
Internal Company Weaknesses:
Identify the Opportunities and Threats surrounding the industry (Not specific to the company, but specific to the industry or the general economy).
Market Opportunities:
Market Threats:
Give reasons why your business clearly beats the competition? What is your USP (unique selling proposition)?
What reputation do you have in the market place?
Who are your main competitors?

SALES FORCE
If you have a sales force, how are they compensated?
What different types of compensation programs have you tried, and what results did you get?
Program #1:
Result:
Program #2:
Result:
If you use another form of direct sales (independent sales reps, dealers, manufacturers reps), have you ever compared the results to an inside or outside sales force?
Do you have a Sales Manager? Describe his/her duties and objectives. How do they coincide and fit with your overall marketing strategy?
Do you regularly train your staff? (sales, system, etc...) Explain?
GENERAL MARKETING INFORMATION
Who are your top three competitors, and what do they offer that you do not?
What are your competitor’s biggest failings and how do you specifically fill those voids?
Competitor #1:
Competitor #2:
What advantages do you have over your competition?
What is your market potential (universe) and what is your and your top three competitors’ current share of that market?
What kind of response (inquiries) do you get monthly on your marketing and advertising efforts?
How do your competitors get customers?
Where do you get your present customers?
Primary source:
Secondary source:
What methods of marketing have you used to attract new business?
Are you still using the “most successful” strategies? If not, why not?
What was the one marketing method most responsible for building your company to its current success?
Are you still using this strategy? If so, how is it working for you now?
If not, why not?
What is your Unique Competitive Advantage or UCA for your top three products? (What is it about your product/ service that distinguishes it from that offered by your competition? Why should your prospects or customers buy this product from you and not your competitors?)
Product #1:
Product #2:
Product #3:
What is your Unique Competitive Advantage or UCA for you or your company? (What is it about you that distinguishes you from your competition? Why should your prospects or customers do business with you and not your competitors?)
Are your UCA’s consistent themes in all of your marketing and sales efforts? If so, how? If not, why not?
How much is your marketing budget? $
per
How did you arrive at that figure?
How much could you afford to spend on marketing over the next 90 days? $
How many inquiries from prospects do you receive each week/month and what percentage are converted to sales?
Right now, how much more business could you comfortable accommodate without having to add any more staff, machinery, move premises, etc?
Number of customers:
Gross revenues: $
UntitHow much of your business currently comes from referrals?
# of customers:
per
Percent of new business:
% Gross revenues: $
Describe your current, proactive referral-generating script/strategy:
Who is in a position to refer customers to your business?
What specific offers do you use to get new customers?
Briefly describe your marketing program or “marketing mix”… all the different types of marketing you use and how they interrelate (i.e. yellow pages, spot ads, direct mail, direct sales, telemarketing, etc.):
What has been your biggest marketing success to date (defined as a specific promotion, advertising campaign, telemarketing script, etc.)?
Are you still using it, or a version of it?
If no, why not?
After the initial sale, are there systematic, formal methods you use to communicate with and resell your customer? If so, what are they? If not, should there be?
Do you have a systematic, formal program in place for routinely “up-selling” or “cross-selling” your customers when they are making any initial purchase? If so, how does the system work? If not, should there be such a system?
Do you offer “packages” or “bundles” of one or more complimentary products to customers making a purchase? If so, how does the system work? If not, should there be such a system?
Do you use bonuses in your sales/marketing promotions? If not, why not? If so, how does this affect the response?
Do you have an effective “back-end?” In other words, selling your own, or others’ products to existing customers?
Yes
No
Who would be an ideal or logical candidate to consider for back-end joint ventures?
Do you have any incentives for multiple purchases? If so, explain. If not, why not?
Do you regularly solicit current customers to buy from you again? If so, how? If not, why not?
Do you regularly solicit past customers to buy from you again? If so, how? If not, why not?
Do you have an adequate supply of current customer testimonials?
Yes
No
If not, why not?
Explain your system for obtaining testimonials from satisfied customers:
How do you use testimonials in your marketing/sales efforts?
Do you offer a guarantee or warranty? If not, why not? If so, what do you offer, and how does it compare with your competitors and the industry at large?
When was the last time you introduced a new product or service to your market (both existing customers and prospects)? How well did it work and what was the reason for its success or failure?
Which sector of your market do you think offers the most potential for growth and profit?
Why?
Are you currently serving that sector?
Yes
No
If not, why not? If so, what percentage of penetration do you now possess?
Who are your suppliers/vendors, and how much do you spend with them per year?
Notes:
% of sales
% of leads
% of spend across each channel

DIRECT MAIL / TELEMARKETING
How much prospecting mail do you drop each week?
Number of letters:
To whom?
Why?
Postcards:
To whom?
Why?
Do you use a list broker? If not, where do you get your names from?
Who are some non-competing companies that sell complementary products/services that you could approach for use of their lists?
Do you test the different aspects of your mailings? If so, what do you test? (Check all that apply):
Headline
Offer
List
Body copy
Price
Other
How often do you mail to your own list of customers? Is your mail informational only, or do you solicit additional sales through these mailings?
Have you ever used telemarketing as a follow-up to a direct mailing? If yes, how effective was it? If not, why not? If you haven’t tested telemarketing follow-up, why haven’t you?
Do you use telemarketing to generate leads or to close sales, or both? If so, how do you use it and how does it work?
What is your conversion ratio in direct mail and telemarketing?
What is your Cost of Acquisition in direct mail and telemarketing?

TRADE SHOW
What (if any) exhibitions relate to your industry/business?
If you attend trade shows, how many do you attend each year?
What is your main purpose of attending these shows? (Check all that apply):
Lead generation for later appointments
Demonstrating your products/services
Selling products/services
Other:
Do you own your own booth display?
Yes
No
What is the idea behind the graphics? (i.e., demonstrate the features of your products/services, display the product in use, project the image of your company, etc.)
How do you get prospects to stop at your booth? Describe the methods you use, both before and during the trade show:
Do you collect the names and addresses of everyone that attends your booth?
Yes
No
How do you collect these names?
Does this method attract qualified leads?
Yes
No
How do you know?
Do you have a system in place for following up on these leads?
Yes
No
Describe the system (i.e., assigned to sales team, direct mail, telemarketing, etc.):
Do you use a two-step trade show process to qualify your leads and then move them on to the next step in the buying process, or is it a one-step sale where you close them at the show?
What trade organizations/associations do you belong to, and do you attend their meetings and frequent their programs?
Notes:

ONLINE MARKETING
MARKETING INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
This part of the document will serve two purposes.
First, you will get a solid idea of what you know and what you don’t know—what you should be tracking and analyzing, and ways to use that information.
Secondly, we will use your results during our consultation and we’ll discuss with you ways to improve your marketing intelligence and integrate it with SEO and other marketing systems including your Marketing Action Plan.
Do you know where your profit is? In this section, we’ll help you ascertain how well you know where your profit comes from. We’ll also determine if you’re gathering and analyzing the necessary data you need to make reliable decisions and plan ahead.
DEVELOPING YOUR ONLINE MARKETING BENCHMARKS
Let’s look at each item you’ve tracked for the past 12 months or longer:
Number of unique visitors to your website
Amount of time average visitor remained on your website
Number of unique visitors that converted into a lead
Number of unique visitors that converted into a sale
Revenue earned per website sale
Revenue earned per unique visitor
Cost per acquisition generated by online marketing efforts
Gross revenue generated by online marketing efforts
Number of Top 10 search listings
Number of Top 30 search listings
Revenue generated by each keyword query

REVIEW YOUR ONLINE MARKETING APPROACH - Tell us which of the following online marketing strategies you are currently employing (or have employed in the past 6 months):
Pay Per Click (PPC)
Banner Advertising
Search Engine Optimization/Submission
Press Releases Online
Social Networking or Bookmarking
Local Search
Retail Search Engines
eBay or Amazon Storefronts
Offering Affiliate or Reseller Items
Implementing Affiliate or Reseller Programs
Podcasting or Live Teleseminars
Not only can we help you implement many of the above marketing strategies, but more importantly, we want to ensure that any SEO or other marketing initiatives we launch for you work hand-in-hand with your other marketing efforts to ensure a profitable synergy.
DESCRIBE YOUR COPYWRITING NEEDS - What types of copy assistance do you expect to have now, or within the next six months? Leave blank if you do not require any copy
Website Copy
Direct Response
Emails/Newsletters
Blogs/Social Profiles
Advertising Copy
Press Releases
Collateral (Brochures, Case Studies, etc.)
Retail Product Descriptions
eBooks

Okay. Now we have a holistic overview of your currentand planned marketing efforts, along with an idea of your current benchmarks for tracking and analyzing performance of any new marketing initiatives we launch for you.
On the following pages, we will look at your website specifically to gauge your current SEO efforts and your current identified needs.
Your website is the keystone of your online marketing efforts. If some aspect of your website isn’t performing, or if your targeted audience can’t find it, all your online efforts will suffer. This next section will take a quick snapshot of your website’s current temperature, i.e. how HOT or COLD it is in relation to three elements of performance:
A. On Page Optimization

B. Sales/Lead Conversion

C. Stickiness & Interactivity

With this information, we’ll be able to fine-tune not only your website’s traffic, but its ability to convert that traffic into meaningful revenues.
A. ON PAGE OPTIMIZATION - Your on page optimization are those elements that are included in your source code and your viewable text to encourage search engines to visit, index, and highly rank your web pages. We want to get an idea of how well your website is currently optimized. If you don’t have a website, or are completely re-designing it, then simply make note of it here and skip to the Sales/Lead Conversion section. Check off all the optimization elements or tasks you currently implement on your website:
Keyword Optimized Content
Unique, Keyword Targeted Title for each page
Keyword Optimized Meta Tags & Alt Tags
Optimized and Tagged Blog Posts (for ranking on blog search sites like Technorati)
Proactive, Consistent Linking Strategy
Link Monitoring (do you know who is linking to you, and to what page?)
RSS Feeds (Internal and External)
HTML versions of all PDF and Print Collateral
Consistently New, Updated Content
Competitor Monitoring (do you check their rankings and incoming links?)
B: SALES OR LEAD CONVERSION ANALYSIS - Do you track your sales and leads, where they come from, what they responded to, and how much they’re worth? How often do you split test your various marketing and conversion elements—such as copy, headlines, placement, colors, offers, and pricing? Getting traffic to your website will only benefit your company if you can optimally convert that traffic into revenue. We can help you increase your current conversion ratios by at least 37%. Many clients see an increase of 75% or more. Let’s look at how well you’re currently testing and tracking your marketing and conversion elements so that we can later discuss ways to increase your conversion rates. Part One: Testing. Identify which elements you currently test on your sales page, lead acquisition page, or other marketing/ conversion pages:
Headline
Font or Background Colors/Typeface
Text Variations
Offer
Guarantee or Discount Offer
Subscription Form & Button Type
Sub Headers
Photos
Pricing
Layout
Call to Action
Freebies, Giveaways, Downloads
Part Two: Tracking. Identify which elements you currently track for each visitor:
Referrer URL (where visitor came from)
Entry Page
Exit Page
Length of Time On-Site
Offer Responded To (if visitor takes an action on your site, do you know which offer he responded to?)
Specific Offer Iteration (if you provide the same offer or call to action in more than one place on your website, do you know which iteration resulted in the action?)
Visitor Feedback (do you provide a feedback mechanism?)
Referral Systems (do you provide and track referral mechanisms?)
C: Stickiness and Interactivity A site’s stickiness is determined by how often visitors return to your site and how long they remain there. Stickiness is important for several reasons. First of all, the more exposure your visitors have to your company and its offerings, the more likely they are to purchase from you. Secondly, if you choose to sell advertising on your website, or you choose to partner with another company to offer their products or services to your site visitors, the length of time your visitors remain on your site, and how often they return, will factor largely in your negotiations. In advertising, stickiness is often referred to as “Depth of Engagement.” Interactivity is also important—to build a trust and rapport between your company and its visitors. This encourages repeat sales, loyal customers, and positive word of mouth. Let’s look at how your website currently approaches stickiness and interactivity and then we’ll look at how you’d like to turn up your site’s temperature in this area. And last, but not least, your goals...
Check off every dynamic or interactive element your website currently has in place:
Blog Update Frequency:
Community Forum
New Content Frequency:
User-Generated Content
Podcasts, Vcasts, Other Media
Social Networking/Bookmarking
Check off every dynamic or interactive element you’d LIKE your website to have:
Blog
Community Forums
New Content
User-Generated Content
Podcasts, Vcasts, Other Media
Social Networking/Bookmarking
Now we need an idea of your overall objectives. Later, we’ll use these to develop project milestones and overall efficiency analysis. Fill in your ball-park goal for each of the following areas (we can refine these later):
# Unique Visitors/Month
% Increase in Overall Traffic
% Increase in Conversions
# Top 10 Rankings
% Increase in Gross Revenue
Average Length of Visit
What Method Of Autoresponder Do You Use?

OTHER MARKETING INFORMATION
Are there any other primary methods of marketing you use which were not covered (billboards, broadcast fax, Internet, etc.) Do they work? How do you know?
When you first started in business, where did your customers come from? (what process, method or action did you use?)
Which of your marketing or sales efforts brought in the bulk of your sales/customers in the beginning? What percentage of your business still comes from this method?
How well-connected or how involved are you with your customers at the sales transaction level? (Do you still sometimes take orders, or sell, or follow-up?)
What ongoing sales efforts do you personally perform today? How do these functions differ from those you performed when you started your business?
If you had a magic wand, would you rather attract more new customers or garner more money from your existing customers, and why?
Who else benefits from your success; excluding your customers, your employees and your family members? How many of your suppliers would be motivated to help you grow your business more because it will directly benefit them at a very high level?
When you create a new customer for your business or profession, who else have you indirectly created a new customer for?
If you had as much money as you wanted, what would you do to improve your marketing? (i.e., what is your biggest marketing challenge or nightmare today?)
What are your specific expectations of working together in a consulting arrangement with our firm?
Do you hold regular training/sales meetings with your staff?
Yes
No
List some of your competitors’ website URLs:

ADVERTISING
What is your advertising philosophy? What influenced or forged your thoughts on this? Describe how you embody it in your ads:
Do you use Direct Response advertising, as opposed to “image” or “institutional” advertising? If no, why not? If yes, describe the essence of the offer or proposition you typically make:
Are your ads working?
Yes
No
How do you know?
Do you have a testing and tracking system in place that allows you to consistently measure the results of your advertising efforts? If not, why not? If so, describe how it works:
Do you use one-step, two-step, or multi-step advertising? Describe your system:
What is your conversion ratio? (Out of every “X” leads, you get “Y” customers or sales.):
What have you done in the past to improve your conversion rate?
What is your advertising cost per sale? (i.e., when you run an ad that costs $1,000, you generate “X” number of sales. Ad cost divided by the number of sales gives you ad cost per sale.) $
How much have you spent in the last year on advertising and what return did you get?
If you can please list; Advertising Source, Cost, Return (Number of customers) and Return on Investment (ROI)
Notes:
How Do You Advertise Upcoming Sales?
A. Direct mailers
B. Newspaper
C. Local media (cable, radio, etc.)
D. Email to customer list
E. Combination (circle all that apply)
How Do You Track Sales From Ad Campaigns (ROI)?
A. I ask the customers which ad brought them in
B. The customers always tell me what is working
C. I have an automated tracking system
D. I don’t have a system for that
How Do You Know Your Advertising Is Effective?

FINANCIAL AND OTHER INFORMATION
List your last five year’s sales - gross sales and approximate profits (pre-tax).
Indicate all costs of sales.
List all overhead factors, showing breakdowns of what the overhead includes.
What are your year-to-date sales levels?
List the financial Highlights of the business
When is the business’s Fiscal Year End?
What are your forecasts for the current year?
Sales / Gross Profit / Operating Profit
Do you have financial projections/management accounts for the current financial year?
Yes
No
To Follow
Comment:
Do you have any significant trading cycles?
Yes
No
Comment:
Describe the pricing strategy of the business:
Describe the payment cycle of the business:
Does the company have any long-term contracts/lease arrangements?
What is the present cash position of the business?
For Franchises, describe the royalty, commission structure and payment requirements placed on the company by the Franchiser’s agreement. Also include any restrictions placed on the sale/transfer of the business.

FUTURE PROSPECTS: What is your vision for your business for the next:
6 months: # of new customers, Gross Sales: $, New Profit: $ / 12 months: # of new customers, Gross Sales: $, New Profit: $ / 3-5 years: # of new customers, Gross Sales: $, New Profit: $
What are your biggest opportunities/threats to achieve this vision?
Please detail any new products/services planned for the future:
In your view, what is the future potential for your products/services
(Where do you see future growth coming from?)
Summarise the condition of the market place
Do you have a medium and long term sales plan?
Does the business have the physical capacity for expansion?
What are the top three things that could have been done differently?
What is the number one objective, challenge, goal you want reached, solved or closed?

MISCELLANEOUS
Do you have any working relationships with complimentary but non-competitive businesses? Explain?
Professional advisors details
Are there any other factors that we should consider?
NOTES:
NOTES:

Words From Our Clients

OLD Inc is great to work with and knows how to get a company recognized online. In a short amount of time, we have shot up the charts and are starting to produce consistent online sales.

They even worked with our individual managers in educating them how to maximize their online production.”

Joe Garofalo - The Irish Bred Pub

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Business Analysis Questionnaire

Step 1 of 13

General Information

Company History and Background

Company Structure

Key Staff

SWOT Analysis

Clients

FOR CONSUMER BUSINESSES:

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

SALES INFORMATION

SALES FORCE

GENERAL MARKETING INFORMATION

DIRECT MAIL / TELEMARKETING

TRADE SHOW

ONLINE MARKETING

MARKETING INTELLIGENCE REVIEW

DEVELOPING YOUR ONLINE MARKETING BENCHMARKS

Let’s look at each item you’ve tracked for the past 12 months or longer:

OTHER MARKETING INFORMATION

ADVERTISING

FINANCIAL AND OTHER INFORMATION

MISCELLANEOUS

NOTES:

Words From Our Clients

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