Oftentimes when companies reach out to us, it’s because they want help with a channel — get SEO working, fix the ad spend, figure out email. One of our first steps, regardless of scope, is to do an end-to-end marketing audit. However, many marketing audits primarily focus on channels, missing the biggest areas for improvement.

Your marketing channels actually sit in the middle; your overall marketing strategy comes first, and your post-lead marketing comes after.

Here’s how we think about a more complete audit. Three layers, in order: your foundation, your channels, and the backend.

Layer 1: Your marketing foundation

This is where you start, and most audits skip it entirely.

We run this layer against a system we call Marketing-Led Growth: audience, positioning, messaging, and reach, in that order — because each one depends on the one before it.

Four things to look at:

Audience

How well do you actually know your buyers?…