A Workbook to Audit Your

Client’s Marketing Strategy

6 templates with 100 scripted questions
to plan for the upcoming year
 INTRODUCTION

As an agency, you understand the importance of having a good relationship with your client. The best
type of agency-client relationship is a partnership, characterized by open and honest communication.
The start of a new year is an ideal time to begin one very meaningful conversation: the annual plan.

Annual planning meetings don’t have to be a daunting. They can be an opportunity to build a deeper relationship with your client. Use the meeting
to collect a holistic picture of your client’s business, past and present, so you can plan for the future.

This workbook is designed to guide you through a conversation with your client. It will help you audit their current marketing strategy and also build
an annual plan for the future. It includes scripted questions and fill-in-the-blank templates for note taking. But, that’s not all this workbook could be
used for.

Here are some examples of how you can make this piece of content your own:

Act as a marketing consultant and charge for a full-day-session to discuss every question and template in-depth.

Or, you could limit the number of questions you ask and hold a one-hour session or call.

Create a small-group workshop where you let prospects or clients fill in templates themselves. Be available to teach and help.

Turn these scripted questions into a survey that you can send your clients.

Use the survey as a lead generation tool on your website by offering a free annual planning consultation for anyone who completes it.

Use a section of this template as a basis for a lead generation webinar.

Expand on this template and make a more robust version to use for each client.

There are so many possibilities.

 HOW TO USE THIS WORKBOOK

Gathering information from a client, organizing it, and explaining

it back to them clearly, with solutions, is key. This workbook helps Fill in this template
Chapter Title
you do just that. It contains five chapters that take you through:
Paragraph explaining importance of topic
what the client has done in the past, what they’re doing now,
their buyer personas, the state of their industry, and what they Corresponding questions for this section
should do in the future. 1. Sample question
2. Sample question

Each chapter contains a script of questions for you to ask, and a Corresponding question

fill-in-the-blank template to outline an accurate picture of their 1. Sample question

business (as seen right). 2. Sample question

Corresponding question

Completing this workbook will give you a comprehensive look at

your client’s business. It is meant to be a collaborative endeavor.
And, it will outline the next steps you must take to fulfill the
client’s business goals.

Let’s get started!

Written by:

AMANDA KOPEN
Marketer on HubSpot’s Agency Partner Team
linkedin.com/in/amanda-kopen/
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Each chapter contains an overview, scripted questions,

and corresponding templates.

Audit current practices 01

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Review past campaigns 03

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Buyer personas 05
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Competitor analysis 07
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Growing for the future 10

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Conclusion 13
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Become a better agency 14

AUDIT CURRENT PRACTICES

It’s important that you and your client are on the same page
throughout your time working together. Start off on the right foot
by gathering a full picture of your client’s business. You can begin
by conducting an audit of their current practices. This helps you
understand how sophisticated your client’s marketing strategy is.
It also forces them to take an honest look at their performance.

Start by analyzing the amount of traffic that your client’s website

received throughout each quarter of the past year. Reviewing
website traffic and the sources it came from, can prepare you for
the scope of work that this client requires. HubSpot’s free Website
Grader is a great tool for analyzing how strong your client’s
website is.

1
Questions to Ask your Client: Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

Website Traffic Volume

Website Traffic Volume
Domain # of views 3500

• How have you measured website traffic in the past? Why is our fencing so
Title durable?
• Are you satisfied with this traffic volume? Do you want to grow it? Best performing
website page
• What have you been doing to increase awareness of your business? # of views 800

• How many views does your website’s homepage get? - Importance of

fencing
• What is your best performing page? Subjects covered - Fun facts on
history of fencing
» Why do you think it’s performed so well? Blog
Frequency of posts Twice a month
• Do you have a blog?
» If yes, how often do you post to your blog? What’s the most # of views 1500

popular content topic? Whose cow is this?!

The point in time when
» If not, why? Title people realized they
needed fencing.
Best performing
blog post
Source Traffic Volume # of views 600

# of likes & 189 likes

comments 20 comments
• Where is your traffic coming from?
» What source receives the highest volume of traffic? Source Traffic Volume

• Are you satisfied with this traffic volume? Organic Search # of views 1300

• Which area do you want the most improvement in? Direct # of views 300
• How much money do you spend on paid advertising to drive website
Paid Advertising # of views 950
traffic?
Email # of views 500
» What platforms do you usually use for paid advertising?
• What social media accounts do you have? Referrals # of views 250

» What’s the purpose of each account? Social Media # of views 200

• Do you have a YouTube channel? Other # of views

» What types of videos do you post?

Conversion Rate Funnel

# Leads Conversion Rate

# MQLs

• Dig into various traffic sources and review the conversion rates from their highest trafficked pages. %

» What is the conversion rate of website visitors to leads? # Opps

» Are you satisfied with this rate? Why? %

» Is there a point where the percentage between two stages in the funnel drastically drops off? # Customer

2
REVIEW PAST CAMPAIGNS

Now you have a baseline understanding of what’s driving

consistent traffic to your client’s website, let’s dig into past
marketing campaigns. Evaluating what the client did last year
can help you understand their mindset. Additionally, you can
determine what campaigns were most successful.

If their past campaigns were successful, great! A piece of well-

received content is a goldmine. Brainstorm how you can re-
purpose it into different types of lead generating offers like blog
posts, video series, webinars, e-books, etc.

Unfortunately though, not everything we put out into the world

does well. Understand the reasons why campaigns performed
poorly, and avoid making those mistakes again. Sometimes clients
are fixated on one idea, even if historically it hasn’t yielded results.
Illustrate to the client why they need to pivot and focus efforts
elsewhere for the upcoming year.

If you’re reviewing an existing client, this section should be

relatively easy. After all, you were the one working on past
campaigns. You also already have a relationship with the client and
know their goals and values.

3
Questions to Ask your Client:
Campaign 1 Campaign 2 Campaign 3
Campaigns 1, 2 and 3
Goal 300 net new leads in 2 months

• What were your best performing campaigns?

• What were your worst performing campaigns? Persona Marty VP of Manufacturing Firm

• Were there any campaigns last year where you deviated from your
Your property will stay safe with
status quo? Message
our high-quality fences
» How did that go for you?
• What were your “highest hope” campaigns? These are campaigns that Content 3 webinars
had high expectations and consumed a large amount of time/budget.
Recorded case-study type videos
as an offer. Promoted on social
Persona Execution
media, through email sends, and
on blog

• Do you have any buyer personas that were not reflected in any of last
100 net new leads in the first 2
year’s campaigns? Results
months

» Why were they left out?

$1500 - Production, paid social,
Cost
etc.

Proven ROI
Yes. Gained 3 new customers
Proven ROI
and $10,000 new business

• Did you consider each campaign a success?

• How do you measure campaign success (leads generated, page views, Case studies are beneficial
for our credibility, but did not
Key Takeaway
etc.)? generate the amount of leads
we were hoping for

Key Takeaway
Though we did not hit our
goal, these case studies will
Model for future gather organic traffic and
• Are there any trends when you look at all the campaigns you’ve run? campaign will contribute to our SEO.
Additionally, they are producing
• What types of campaigns or content consistently generate success? revenue for us

» Which ones don’t?

» What topics should you incorporate in future campaigns?

Model for future campaign?

• Based on this campaign’s performance, could it be a model for a future

campaign?

4
BUYER PERSONAS

If your client doesn’t already have a set of ideal buyer personas,

drop everything and create them now. Even if they do, it’s a good
idea to refresh personas every year. As an agency, you have
experience creating messaging that resonates with different
demographics. Your knowledge can shine through at this step. If
they don’t know how to find this information, step up and dig into
the information that you mined from the past two steps.

As a reminder: A buyer persona, also known as a marketing

persona, is a fictional, generalized representation of your ideal
customer. Constructing buyer personas allows you to see what
motivates your different customer groups. With this information,
you can position a product or service in a way that makes sense to
buyers and entices them to purchase.

Having buyer personas is necessary, however crafting some

“negative personas” can be helpful for your client too. Negative
personas are the potential customers that your client should avoid
– they will either waste your client’s time, or the product or service
just isn’t a fit for them.

5
Questions to Ask your Client:
• Do you have buyer personas? If not, here are questions your client
should answer about their customers:
» Describe their demographics.
» Describe their educational background (school, level of
education, etc.)?
» How do they prefer to interact with vendors (online, via
email, on the phone or on social media)?
» Do they use the internet to research vendors/products?
» How do they search for information?
» What publications/blogs do they read? • Independent
» What associations and social networks do they use?
» Describe what they considered when making a recent
purchase?
» Describe how often they will purchase your product.
If you want to learn even more details about creating buyer personas,
read this blog post.
• Do any of your buyer personas need to be updated?
» Have you noticed that your customers today look different
than you customers a year ago? If yes, how so?
» Does your sales team feel your value proposition is resonating
better, worse, or equal to how it resonated in the market a year ago?
• Did you launch a new product/service that requires a new persona?
• Are you seeing the same, better, or worse return from specific social
media channels? If worse, do you have any theories on why?
• Do you have forms on your website to capture this information? Do
any of them need to be updated?
• Do you have “negative personas,” or people you actively don’t want
to target? You should avoid creating campaigns that target this
persona.
Buyer Persona Name: Marty - VP of Manufacturing Firm
The “Who”
• Worked in corporate side of manufacturing his entire life
Background • Has only worked at two companies; moved up the ranks both times
• Married with 2 kids (10 and 12)
• 45-60 years old
• College degree in business
Demographics
• Skews male
• Dual HH income: $100,000
• Values hard work but is himself overworked
Identifiers • Skeptical of “the next best thing”
• Not always quick to jump on the latest technological trend
• Oversees team of 20 in different departments of the company
The “What”
• Provide the best quality fencing
Goals
• Buy durable materials for the cheapest price
• Have at least 5 large customer jobs going at all times
• Be available for team whenever possible
• Finding new clients with large enough demands
• Expanding into other regions
Challenges • Competing with larger fencing businesses
• Understanding the latest technology that is used to market their fences
• Good talent leaves his company for businesses with more name-recognition
• Provide resources to help Marty find more customers, adjust pricing, and retain tale
What can we do?
• Gather feedback from agencies to keep content relevant for them
The “Why”
• “I love managing my team, but I am overworked and wear a lot of hats.”
Real Quotes
• “Bigger companies have the budget to buy insane software, and we don’t have that
• I have worked in marketing for my whole life, I know a lot about this industry
Common Objections • I’m skeptical of getting help for free
• I’m too busy with my own clients to think too much about improving best practices w
6
COMPETITOR ANALYSIS

No matter the industry, you need to know what your client’s

competitors are doing and what they’re not doing. A working
understanding of your client’s industry will enable you to create
targeted, attention-grabbing campaigns and initiatives.

Enter your annual planning meeting with this competitor analysis

completed. This way, when you present the findings to your client,
you can make conclusions based on your research together. And,
you can move more quickly to compose a plan of action. If your
client is in a highly competitive market, this may feel overwhelming,
but fear not! We’ll break it down into simple steps.

Take time to visit competitors’ websites, social media pages,

YouTube Channel, and blogs – it may take some legwork but it will
pay off. Just as you used HubSpot’s Website Grader for your client’s
website, you can run competitor’s sites through it too. HubSpot’s
social monitoring and listening tools allow you to track posts with
specific hashtags or users all in one place. Doing this can help you
quantify the engagement level of a competitor’s content and the size
of their social media following, as well as their “buzz” factor.

Here are a few additional tools to use for competitor research:

SEOMoz, WordTracker, SEMRush, Buzzsumo, Mention, Talkwalker,
Meltwater, Followerwonk and Tailwind.

7
Questions to Ask your Client:
Agency’s Client: Competitor 1

Targeting ABC Manufacturing Co. XYZ Manufacturing Co.

• Can you identify any buyer personas that are relevant to your industry, but your
Targeting Land developer Larry School Board Sandra
competitor is ignoring? If so, how can you capitalize on this?

Key Messages
Our metal fencing is the
Our metal fencing is the best
Key messages highest quality on the
• Which key messages are your competitors hitting? Which ones are they market
price on the market

ignoring that could be on your list?

Shifts in Strategy Transitioned from targeting

Shifts in strategy ranch owners to land Provides fences for schools
developers
• Did they make any sudden shifts in their marketing recently?

Billboard advertising,
Campaigns White paper on metal fencing
Campaigns e-book on why it’s important
prices
to fence your property

• Have your competitors ended any long-running campaigns?

» How long did those run?
ABC Wood Company for
• Are they promoting marketing campaigns in new distribution channels? Partnerships collaboration on product None
• Have the topics of their marketing campaigns changed recently? If yes, how? line

Partnerships
Changes to Increased pricing because
None
product/pricing of new durable material
• Did your competitors start any new partnerships?
» Was it predictable or indicative of the competitor moving in a new direction?

E-books, webinars, new

E-books, radio
Content Content
advertisements, newsletter
podcast. Informational video
on materials

• Are they producing something new instead of their typical offerings. For
example, are they creating more e-books recently rather than webinars? Like
e-books rather than webinars?
• What type of content does the best for your competitor?
» Which topics do they focus on?

8
Continued...

Social Platform ABC Manufacturing Co. XYZ Manufacturing Co.

• How much engagement does your competitor receive on social Twitter - none
media? Instagram - 100 followers
» How does that compare to yours? - Posts high quality pictures
of finished projects
» Are they repurposing or piggybacking on someone else’s content? - Not much engagement
Social Platforms
» What topics are they talking about? Are they gaining traction?
Facebook - 500 likes
» What platform do they receive the most engagement on? - Business page
- Posts updates
• How many followers do they have? - Posts pictures of past
» How does this compare to your follower count? projects
Twitter - 1000 followers
- Lots of comments/retweets
- Best tweets are
conversations prompts
- Dabbles in funny content
aimed at school-aged kids
Instagram - 500
- Does not post a lot
- Not as much engagement
- Facebook - only posts
updates

SERP Ranking
SERP ranking 2nd for “Fencing in Houston 1st for “School fencing”
• Where do they rank in search results for different keywords or topics?
» Is there an opportunity for you to outrank them on certain key
topics?
Blog / Frequency 2/month 1/week

Blog/Frequency

• Does your competitor segment their blog?

Marketing Tools HubSpot Unsure
» For example, HubSpot has a marketing, sales, and services blog
with posts relating to each topic in their respective segment.
• How often do they post?
• What content topics do they post about most often?

Marketing Tools

• How sophisticated is their marketing technology?

» Do you know if they use marketing software? For example, do they
have SurveyMonkey or forms embedded on their website? If you
are subscribed to their email, do they use marketing automation
software? Software logos are often in the footer of the email or
website.

9
GROWING FOR THE FUTURE

Now that you have a comprehensive picture of your client’s

business, it’s time to get your creative juices pumping for the
upcoming year!

As an agency, you know the importance of understanding your

client’s entire business and their upcoming strategic plays. You
need to understand how the C-suite executives as well as sales and
marketing leaders are planning for the future. Agencies should
consider and incorporate these long-term plans into the marketing
strategy recommendation.

Once you’re aware of big picture goals and business plans, start
outlining your client’s path to success. This is your chance to explain
how your agency can deliver services the client needs for their long-
term success. It’s also an opportunity to explain the amount of work
that will go into accomplishing what they envision.

Creating this framework for each quarter illustrates to your client the
tactical ways to achieve the success they want. However, life doesn’t
always go according to plan. If things need to change, that’s ok.
Having an outline means that you’re prepared and can alter aspects
of it when the unexpected happens.

10
Questions to Ask your Client:
Business Goal Project Deliverables How to Measure
Examples Examples Examples this Project

General Business Goals] Brand Social • Finalize color Traffic, Impressions,

Awareness Advertising, scheme, font list, Shares, Reach,
Direct Mail, and feel your Community
Website brand is going for (Followers), Visits,
Here is a list of business goals that your client may want to focus on in Rebrand • Advertise on Downloads,
social Mentions, Media
the coming year. They may want to focus on different goals for different • Blog Coverage
• Send out print
segments of their business, that’s okay! Allow them to see the type of work advertising
that each goal needs. They may be surprised with how much goes into each
campaign or project. (To see full table, download the blank Workbook Generate Leads Content • Decide on Average #
Campaign content type Generated on Daily,
Templates file.) • Create Weekly, Monthly
conversation path Basis, ClickThrough
(landing page) Rate, Conversion
• Decide on Rate
Use the following questions to help set a direction for the upcoming year. distribution plan
These are questions that should be asked to your client’s management team. (paid, social,
email, blog post

• What are the main components of next year’s business strategy? How
Improve • Outline email Number of Follow-
does the company plan to grow and what are the main areas of focus for conversion rate Lead nurture path(s) Up Touches/
Nurturing • Build X (number) Engagement,
the next year? of Leads to
of emails Percentage to Sales,
MQLs • Create workflow Time to Sales, Close
• What are key business initiatives planned for the year? to trigger Rate
nurturing
• Are you rolling out any new product or service?
• Are you entering any new geographic markets?
• Do you plan to prioritize any market segments? Improve SQL to Customer • Write email Average Lead Close
Close Rate Acquisition follow-up Rate, Customer
• If you client generates leads for a sales team, talk to them about their templates for Acquisition Cost,
sales reps Time to Customer,
service-level agreement (SLA) between Sales and Marketing. • Build reporting Average Sale
process to Value, Raw Monthly
Here are the questions to ask: determine which and Quarterly
email templates Numbers, Revenue
are performing Fluctuations
» How many sales qualified leads does sales need each month to best
meet revenue goals? How many marketing qualified leads are Improve Customer • Incentives for Retention Rate,
Customer Retention repeat business Lifetime Value,
needed to generate enough volume of qualified leads for the sales • Continually send Customer
Retention Rate
educational Acquisition Cost,
team? content Percentage of
» Do you have resources in place to quickly engage these leads? • Check in to Revenue from
ensure happiness Current Customers,
» Is lowering the cost of acquisition a priority? Do you want to with product/ Churn Rate
service
shorten the sales cycle?
» Are the sales reps happy with the quality of leads being passed
to them?

11
Roadmap:

Business Goal: Generate Leads

Business goal

• What is one of the business goals your client wants to focus on this
year?

Project: Content campaign - e-book

Project

• With all of the knowledge you have gained, how would you solve
for this business goal?
» The project is an overview of the marketing work that will be • Brainstorm content based on buyer personas/their interests
Deliverables: • Copywriting for e-book
completed (ebook content, social media campaign, website • Design e-book
redesign, etc.). Use your creative expertise to recommend a • Create a conversion path (landing page, thank you page, kickback em
• Draft a blog post
project that will impress your client! • Run a social media campaign to promote e-book
» Draft copy for Tweets, Instagrams, Facebook posts, and LinkedIn p
» Make the creative that will be inserted into these posts
Deliverables • Paid social media promotion (Facebook and Instagram)
» This includes copywriting, image design and input into social med
• Build email list and draft promotional email to database
• What steps would you take to complete this project?
» Explain to your client the work that’s involved in executing this
project. It’s important that they are aware of the commitment
needed to get this project right. It’s also an opportunity for you to
explain that you’re an expert and can ensure a high standard of Budget: Time Predicted Impact:
Commitment:
work as well as deliver the impact they need. $1500
60 Hours • Generate 400 leads
• Acquire 100 net new contacts
Predicted Impact • Close 75 deals
• In 4 months

• What does the client hope the outcome of this project/business

goal is?
• What are some SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable,
Relevant, Time-bound) goals they can expect?
• What are some stretch goals to strive for?

12
 CONCLUSION

The aim of the workbook is to help you prove the impact you can have on your client’s business and
improve your agency-client relationship.

It was designed to help you audit your client's existing strategy and build a marketing roadmap for the upcoming year. We provided tactical
questions and templates to help you to understand your client and build out a plan for their future.
So congrats, you’ve completed this workbook and built your client’s annual plan!

We hope you found this resource helpful.

13
 BECOME A BETTER AGENCY

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