How To Perform Digital Audit In Digital Marketing
A digital audit is crucial for establishing exactly what sites, pages, profiles and accounts are in existence, and who has been operating them. By going through this checklist you can create a clear outline of everything that is pre-existing. A key outcome of the audit should be full awareness of digital within your organization. This can be used to overcome internal politics. You can audit the current status of digital marketing activities by analyzing the following factors:
1. Site Audit: Addressing your existing website or current performance. This requires an analysis of the site analytics on a basic level.
2. Social Audit: Identifying existing social media channels, their function and performance.
3. Access and Login details: Ensuring you have all user names and passwords for all channels and analytics.
- Administrators: Noting who the admins of your various channels are and how email updates are received.
5. Existing Resources: Noting who is currently working on your owned channels and how many hours are being dedicated to daily operations.
6. Chain of Command: Understanding who is working on digital activity, what remit each individual has and most importantly who is in command and responsible for decision making.
7. History: Checking what history has been stored on activity management, previous campaign activity and what has previously been implemented.
You need to realize that you can’t just throw money at the digital problem, in the same way you can’t just throw time and not expect to have to invest some money in it.
Time: Digital is time-consuming.
Money: Whether ads, assets or tools – digital success will cost money.
People: This is the most underestimated resource. Often businesses see early success and don’t address the increased requirement for people and quickly their success turns to failure.
It is important to identify what resources are required early on. You can then plan how much is required, and more importantly, plan how to not over-invest. Digital is an exciting space, it’s easy for team members to get a little bit lost in it and dedicate too much time to something that is more ‘fun’ to work with.
Resource Map
A resource map is a clear layout of all the resources you will require and identifies gaps in your current resources.
Resource maps don’t need to be 100% accurate, but it is the first step in outlining what resources you’ll require. They allow you to map out project requirements against current availability. Invariably, digital is under invested in and a resource map can be a good way to start the conversation for more resources.
Really, a resource map is a comparison between what you estimate you will need and what resources are actually available. Using this practice, you can see where you may have gaps and decide whether they can be filled by more people, money or time. Here is an example of a full resource map.
Budgets are the plan for how much money you are willing to invest over a given period of time. Budgets for digital are made up of the following key areas: People, Technology, Training, Process. Your budget is directly dependent on what factors are influencing these areas, such factors are listed below:
- People: Do you need large teams?
- Technology: Larger teams require more tools to create efficiencies.
- Training: How much training does your team require in order to upskill?
- Process: What volume and detail is required in your ad buying strategy?
When planning a budget, the following are the key areas to consider and ask yourself:
- How many people are in your target audience?
- How many people could you realistically make customers?
- How much money are you willing to invest in digital?
- Have you allocated budget to cover busy months or campaigns?
- Are you allocating enough ad spend?
- Are you under-investing and limiting your impact?
- Team Factors: How big is your team? How much will it cost before you start to run the team, e.g. salaries?
- Product Factors: How many products do you need to support? Are some more important than others?
- Market Factors: How many competitors do you have? Are you late to the digital landscape? Are other competitors ahead of you?
- Customer Factors: How many people could you expect to introduce to your product or service?
Here is an example of a budget plan that has budgets allocated effectively for a digital marketing strategy. Doing your budget plan over multiple months ensures resources are allocated in a timely manner, correctly and efficiently.
Budgeting plans allow you to plan out all investment month by month, over a specific period of time. Planning long-term will secure investment. Without a plan, money will be moved around and suddenly digital is under-invested in, under-performs and is ultimately questioned.
Ensure when you are planning over a number of months that you address moments when investment needs to fluctuate. This allows for more resources during times you know will be busier or more important, e.g. seasonal holidays, campaigns, etc.. Nothing is more frustrating than teams overspending or underspending. If you’ve spent time addressing your budget, you can ensure teams are sticking to your plan. It is your responsibility to observe regular review processes. It is important to note that from the outset there are a number of inputs that will influence your budget:
There are a variety of different team structures that can be implemented. Its up to you to decide which structure is most suited to your organization.
The first team structure type is ‘Flat’. This is a simple structure that is suited to small businesses. It usually allows digital to be managed and operated by one or two people. These individuals operate all activities and sometimes report in to the managing director directly.
Tiered teams
‘Tiered’ teams are for slightly larger organizations. These teams have a minimum of 3 people with one being the designated manager who dictates what is to be done on digital and ensures the strategy is implemented. This team member is supported by executives who carry out the day to day activities.
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