A marketing audit assesses the marketing mix, or the combination of efforts that an organization makes to increase knowledge about and demand for its target populations. The key elements of the marketing mix that you should assess are:

• Product—The services or outputs you offer.
   


• Populations—The groups with whom you make exchanges of services for resources.
   


• Price—The amount you charge for each service.
   


• Place—The locations where your product is available and ways in which your population can access your product.
  


• Production—Your capacity for meeting demand.
  


• Promotion—The communication techniques and messages you use to motivate people to respond.

The audit helps you to address your action goals by organizing information to help you see if you are providing the right services at the right prices, in easily accessible ways to the right people, and if you have the capacity to produce the quantities of services demanded. To meet your image goals, the audit will help you to identify the key groups of people you are reaching and plan your promotional efforts to reinforce the image you want.

For the audit, you and your team will look at service records, make observations in the facility, and collect information from staff, clients, the community, and others who know your target populations well. You can conduct an in-depth audit where you gather a great deal of information over six months or perform a quicker audit to identify troublesome areas. If you decide to assess a number of departments, you will want to perform a separate audit for each.

As a result of the marketing audit, you should be able to identify where you need more information, where you need to make adjustments in the current mix, and what features and benefits you should promote. The following box shows a sample format for a marketing audit.