Unpacking Strategy Audits: A Deep Dive

At co&co, we don’t do fluff. Like it or not, a strategy audit is your best chance to cut through the noise, ditch what’s not working, and build a marketing strategy that works for you and your business. A strategy audit will expose whether you’re any good at marketing or not. Businesses love to pretend everything’s fine – until the numbers start falling, leads dry up, and suddenly, they’re in panic mode.

What is a strategy audit then? Think of it as a full diagnostic that tells you what’s working, what’s not, and what needs to be burned to the ground and rebuilt. It might just be the revamp your brand needs. Let’s go a bit deeper 👇

The Psychological Aspects of Marketing Audits

Let’s talk about the mind games behind marketing audits. Because a marketing audit goes beyond just data, it’s also got a lot to do with psychology. Every marketing decision you make is influenced by bias, assumptions, and the good old “we’ve always done it this way” mentality. But guess what? That mentality is literally killing your business 💀.

Cognitive Bias and Marketing Failures

Marketers and business owners often suffer from a little thing called the sunk cost fallacy. You’ve spent months (or years) investing in a strategy, so you convince yourself it’s working – even when the numbers say otherwise. When it comes to decoding a strategy audit, the process strips away the excuses and the justifications. It forces you to take a step back and see the raw, unfiltered truth.

Then there’s confirmation bias, where you only look for information that supports your existing beliefs. This is why bringing in an external team (like us) to do your audit for you will be the best decision you ever make. Everyone needs to look at things objectively. Take a bad, toxic relationship as an example - you rarely ever see what's wrong until your friend pulls you aside and says it's not right. Well it's kind of the same principle with your marketing strategy. You might think everything’s fine because you’re too close to it, but co&co would be able to spot the red flags instantly. We’re not here to pat you on the back; we’re here to tell you if your strategy is actually delivering results. If it’s sh*t, we’ll say so.

Quantifying Audit Results for Stakeholders

Strategy audits reveal true potential for you to optimise, refine, and scale your marketing efforts. If you’re doing a strategy audit but can’t explain the results in a way that gets buy-in from stakeholders, you’ve wasted your time. It doesn’t matter how many insights you uncover – if the people making the big decisions don’t see the value, nothing will change.

Business owners, CEOs, and investors don’t care about vague reports filled with marketing jargon or endless charts that mean nothing to them. They care about numbers that show impact, ROI (Return-on-investment) metrics, and clear action points that outline what needs to happen next. If you can’t translate your audit findings into a compelling business case, you’ll struggle to get the support needed to actually implement the changes.

Data That Speaks Their Language

Here’s how to turn your audit findings into something stakeholders actually give a fu*k about:

🖤 Revenue Impact – If your marketing isn’t making money, what’s the point? Break down how your strategy affects lead generation, conversion rates, and overall revenue. If something isn’t driving ROI, it might be time to re-think your strategy.

🖤 Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) vs. Lifetime Value (LTV) – If your CAC is creeping up while your LTV stays stagnant, you’ve got a problem. Your strategy should be optimising this balance, not throwing it off.

🖤 Competitive Benchmarking – Show them how you compare against competitors. Are you leading the market, or just blending into the noise? If your competitors are outpacing you in engagement, visibility, or conversions, it’s time to rethink your whole approach.

🖤 Engagement and Retention Metrics – If your customer retention rates are low, it means people aren’t sticking around. That’s a red flag that your brand messaging, customer experience, or product positioning needs work.

Presenting Findings Effectively

So the strategy audit process has been completed, so what now? It’s time to present what you’ve found. Don’t dump a 50-page report on a table and expect everyone to stand up and clap for you. Break it down:

👉 Start with the big wins and losses – What’s working, what’s failing, and why.

👉 Use visuals – Charts, graphs, and side-by-side comparisons make data digestible.

👉 Provide clear action steps – No one cares about insights without a roadmap for change so think: what’s next for us?

Strategy Audits and the Bigger Business Picture

There’s no point in us telling you how strategy audits are mega for your business if we don’t actually show you WHY. So let’s look at the bigger business picture and what that might look like for you.

A deep dive strategy audit helps to optimise the entire business. It’s about making sure every part of your organisation is working in sync. Think of it as your business’s performance review, exposing the inefficiencies, gaps, and untapped opportunities that could be holding you back.

A weak marketing strategy often signals deeper operational issues. If your messaging is off, it’s likely your brand positioning is weak. If your sales pipeline is leaking leads, it’s probably due to misalignment between sales and marketing. If your retention rates are poor, your customer service or product offering might need a rethink. A proper strategy audit brings all these factors into focus and helps you fix them before they snowball into bigger problems.

How Audits Drive Business Growth

A strategy audit doesn’t just help your marketing team; it aligns your entire organisation. Here’s how:

🖤 Sales & Marketing Alignment – If sales and marketing aren’t on the same page, you’re losing money. A strategy audit identifies where misalignment is causing problems. It’s on you to ensure your marketing teams are aligned with your broader business goals.

🖤 Brand Positioning Reinforcement – Your brand isn’t just your logo and colour palette. It’s how your business is perceived. If your messaging is inconsistent, confusing, or just plain boring, an audit will highlight where you’re going wrong.

🖤 Operational Efficiency – Sometimes, the issue isn’t marketing – it’s the systems behind it. Are you investing in the right project management tools? Are your processes slowing you down? A proper audit digs into the efficiency of your entire marketing operation.

Actioning Your Audit Findings

Once you’ve done the audit, here’s how to make the changes stick:

👉Prioritise fixes – Focus on the biggest impact areas first.

👉 Set clear KPIs – Define success metrics and track improvements.

👉 Reallocate budget – Stop throwing money at channels that don’t convert.

👉 Train your team – A strategy is only as good as the people executing it.

We can’t stress this enough: your strategy audit is not a one-off task. You have to work with it all the time. So this means regular strategy audits, constant refinements, and staying agile enough to pivot when needed. Markets shift, customer behaviours change, and what’s trending today might not be tomorrow. It’s an essential part of running a business that actually grows. If you’re not auditing your marketing strategy regularly, you’re operating on guesswork. And guesswork is expensive.

There is a relationship between strategy audits and ROI and it’s a simple one: the businesses that audit, adapt, and optimise consistently see better returns. A well-executed strategy audit shows you exactly where to double down for maximum impact.

At co&co, we don’t sugarcoat the truth. One thing we do is get sh*t done. If your strategy is working, great. If it’s not, let us handle it.

Need a no-nonsense strategy audit? You know where to find us. Let’s work together.