Internal Audit Checklist For Sales and Marketing

soumya Ghorpade

An internal audit checklist for sales and marketing is an indispensable way of uncovering new opportunities. Be sure to cover areas within your control such as team size and choice of marketing tools when conducting this analysis.

Consider how your competitors’ sales processes, customer relationships and external factors could impact them as you plan. Here are a few questions to get you thinking:

1. Review of Sales Process
Reviewing your sales process allows you to identify areas for improvement. For instance, it allows you to determine whether the sales team is effectively following up on prospects or whether too much time passes before closing deals are achieved.

Your sales training program must also meet the needs of the business. One way of doing so is through conducting surveys with sales reps in order to ascertain which content and tools are most valuable and which are unused.

Finalize and report sales performance statistics. Do so by comparing actual numbers against goals set. In addition, review sales returns, rejected orders, discounts and allowances recorded as statistics of sales performance.

2. Review of Marketing Strategy
An internal marketing audit allows teams to gain an understanding of the effectiveness of their current strategies, while providing opportunities to improve future efforts and ensure they meet customer goals.

As part of its audit, marketing departments should review all channels, functions and tools used for sharing content with customers. Furthermore, it should describe its current clientele while outlining those it intends to target in future campaigns.

Once this information has been gathered, it can be used to develop a mock marketing schedule for the coming year. This can help determine how much of your budget should be spent on each channel and make adjustments accordingly. Furthermore, it can identify any potential threats which require mitigation controls; which in turn leads to documentation.

3. Review of Sales Tools
Sales teams require access to tools and solutions that enable them to achieve their goals. An internal audit should review these sales tools, their performance and effectiveness.

Vidyard provides digital business card solutions that enable sales teams to save time on administrative tasks while concentrating more on selling. Outreach provides an all-in-one sales tool solution for cold outreaching, qualifying leads, and closing deals.

Storydoc is another valuable sales solution, helping SDRs and sales managers craft interactive AI proposals that differentiate their products from competitors. Your sales solutions may differ based on your specific needs; therefore it is wise to do your research prior to selecting any tool for your team.

4. Review of Sales Team Performance
If you don’t audit regularly, it can be easy to lose track of how your team is doing. Fortunately, there are numerous software tools that will assist with keeping an eye on sales data.

This review template includes an evaluation of sales development reps (SDRs), account executives and any other role responsible for early stages of the sales pipeline – including prospect research, lead generation and making initial introductions – such as SDRs or account executives. Furthermore, this audit assesses their abilities at identifying buyers’ true needs while maximizing opportunities for upselling or cross-selling opportunities.

Tracking sales metrics is essential to any business, and regular audits can help identify issues early and address them before they escalate into larger problems. Therefore, it’s crucial that your team and brand establish an audit schedule which works for them both.

5. Review of Customer Relationships
An audit helps businesses to identify areas for improvement and assess the efficacy of marketing strategies, but can take up valuable time. A checklist can reduce this activity’s complexity and save valuable hours spent performing this activity.

Customer relationship analysis is an integral component of an internal marketing audit. Consumers expect companies to understand their needs and preferences and provide personalized products and services accordingly.

An internal marketing audit evaluates those aspects of a company’s promotional activities over which it exerts greater control, such as its team, tools and strategy selection, customer service support processes and support processes for advertising campaigns. A thorough marketing audit can help a business increase performance and return-on-investment when conducting promotional activities.

 

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