For many small businesses, marketing can feel like a constant cycle of guessing, trying and hoping something sticks. But without a regular marketing review, it is easy to keep doing things out of habit, even if they’re no longer working. The truth is, effective marketing isn’t just about doing more; it’s about doing what matters most.

A marketing review (or self-audit) helps you step back, assess your efforts, and make smarter decisions moving forward. It is your opportunity to refine your strategy, stop wasting time on ineffective tactics and focus on the activities that genuinely support your business growth and goals.

Here’s a practical and simple framework to help you evaluate what’s working, what’s not and where to improve.

1. Revisit Your Business and Marketing Goals

Before you analyse any marketing activity, go back to where it all begins… your goals. Ask yourself:

• What are my current business goals for the next 3, 6 and 12 months?
• Do my marketing activities support these goals?
• Am I clear on the outcomes I want to achieve? For example, do I want more leads, more sales, increased brand awareness, stronger engagement?

TIP: If your marketing isn’t aligned with your goals, it’s time to realign.

Your goals set the direction. Marketing simply fuels the journey.

2. Identify What’s Working (Your Wins)

Look for the activities that deliver real results, not just likes, impressions or vanity metrics.

These could include:

• Email campaigns with high open and click-through rates
• Social media posts that consistently drive engagement or enquiries
• Website pages or a landing page attracting strong traffic or conversions
• Repeat customers returning through your nurture efforts
• Collaborations or referrals that generate new leads

TIP: Ask yourself… what activities bring the highest return for the least time, money, or effort? These are the marketing strategies that are worth focussing more effort on.

3. Audit your Channels and Identify Any Gaps

Every business has marketing activities that drain time, money or your energy without delivering valuable results.

Auditing your channels helps you identify which platforms actually support your goals and which are wasting your precious time and resources. This step of the marketing review prevents burnout and ensures you are investing your time and energy where you’ll get the highest returns.

Consider:

• Social platforms you post on because you “feel you should”
• Ads that burn through your budget without leads
• Content that gets little or no engagement
• Email newsletters that aren’t opened
• Website pages with high drop-off rates

TIP: The goal here is to clarify where to focus your efforts. Once you see what isn’t performing, you can adjust, refine or remove these activities so that you have room to trial another strategy.

4. Review Your Messaging and Branding

Your business will evolve, but your messaging doesn’t always evolve with it. Reviewing your brand messaging ensures the way you talk about your business is still clear, relevant and compelling for your target audience. Strong, consistent messaging builds trust, increases conversions and makes your business instantly recognisable.

Your marketing activities will fall flat if your messaging and branding isn’t clear or consistent. Check the following:

• Does your messaging still reflect who you are and what you offer today?
• Is your brand easy to understand at first glance?
• Are you communicating your value clearly and consistently across all touchpoints of the customer journey
• Does your visual identity look cohesive and aligned or are you using a mix of different styles?

Inconsistency confuses audiences. Consistency builds recognition and trust.

TIP: Access my 10 Step Formula for Brand Consistency, a vital formula for creating a strong, memorable, and trustworthy brand, click here.  

5. Assess Your Customer Journey

Your marketing isn’t just about attracting the right people, it’s about guiding them from awareness through to taking action.

A strong customer experience improves conversions, retention, referrals and long-term loyalty. By reviewing how people interact with your business from start to finish, you can identify friction points and opportunities to strengthen relationships and deliver more value.

Map out the key touchpoints in your customer’s journey, including:

• How do people discover your business?
• Do you make it easy for them to learn more?
• Is your website clear and easy to navigate?
• Are you nurturing leads (email, follow-up, retargeting)?
• Is it simple to enquire or purchase from you?
• Are you clearly communicating what the next steps are?

When there are gaps in the journey, your prospects will drop off before becoming clients. Take action and adjust where it’s needed.

TIP: If you are not clear on your target audience, I highly recommend reading How to Identify Your Target Audience to ensure you get this critical step right.

6. Check Your Data (Without Overwhelm)

Data removes guesswork. Reviewing your numbers helps you understand what’s making an impact and what isn’t. Many small businesses rely on intuition instead of insights, but performance data gives you clarity on where to focus, what to change and what to stop doing altogether. It’s one of the quickest ways to improve your marketing efficiency and return on investment.

You don’t need to be a data expert, just focus on what matters, including:

• Website: traffic, top pages, conversions
• Social media: engagement, reach, referral traffic
• Email: open rate, click rate, unsubscribes
• Leads: where they come from, how many convert
• Sales: which products/services perform best?

TIP: In your marketing review, look for patterns, not perfection. Numbers will help you make decisions based on facts, not guesswork.

7. Prioritise What to Improve

Once you understand the full picture, I highly recommend choose 3–5 focus areas for the next quarter.

This might include:

• Strengthening your website messaging
• Creating more consistent content
• Focusing on one social platform instead of five
• Improving your email nurture sequence
• Developing a stronger brand identity
• Reviewing your customer onboarding process

Focused action always beats doing everything.

8. Create a Simple Action Plan

Once you’ve reviewed your marketing, the next step is to turn insights into action. A simple action plan helps you prioritise what to keep, what to stop, start and continue. By focusing on a small number of high-impact actions with clear timelines and ownership, you create momentum and accountability. Even modest, well-planned adjustments can lead to meaningful improvements in visibility, engagement, and results over time.

A simple Action Plan might include:

• Stop: Which activities are no longer worth your time?
• Start: Which new ideas or tactics will help you reach your goals?
• Continue: What’s working well and should be maintained or scaled?

TIP: Make your Action Plan realistic, and something you can implement (and review) consistently.

9. Schedule Your Next Review

Scheduling your next marketing review is just as important as completing the current one. Setting a regular review schedule, whether monthly, quarterly or biannually, ensures your marketing stays aligned with your business goals as they evolve.

Treat your marketing review as a non-negotiable part of your business practice. This helps you move away from last-minute fixes and instead creates a proactive, continuous improvement approach that supports consistent business growth.

TIP: Set a time to repeat this process. Schedule the date and time in your calendar to keep yourself accountable or join a Business Growth Group, such as Alumni XX for regular accountability and inspiration.

Regular reviews help you stay aligned, adjust quickly and stay connected to what really works.

Pause. Reflect. Realign.

Marketing becomes clearer and far more effective when you pause, reflect and realign your efforts. This simple self-audit can help you uncover new opportunities, eliminate time-wasting activities and refocus on what truly supports your business growth.

If you’d like support in exploring how to overcome your marketing challenges, and creating an action plan that works, I invite you to book a free 30 minute Marketing Clarity Call to help you take your next step with confidence.

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