A lot can change in a year—your business strategy, product or service offerings, and even the needs of target audiences.
Without regular updates, print marketing materials like brochures, flyers, and catalogs can quickly fall out of step with your current business position and customer expectations. That's why the start of 2025 is the perfect time to conduct a thorough audit of your print marketing collateral.
By giving your print materials this focused attention now, you'll ensure they accurately reflect where your business—and your target audience—stand today.
Keep reading to learn how to audit your print marketing collateral, sharpen your print strategies, and refocus your print materials on the opportunities that lie ahead.
- Step 1: Define Goals and Assemble the Right Team
- Step 2: Print Inventory Audit and Team Collaboration
- Step 3: Analyze Print Collateral for Relevance and Accuracy
- Step 4: Review and Enhance Print and Digital Integrations
- Step 5: Evaluate Print Design and Production Quality
Step 1: Define Goals and Assemble the Right Team
Before jumping into the print marketing audit, it’s important to first set clear objectives and assemble a diverse team of auditors who can bring varied perspectives to the table.
While goals may vary depending on your specific business needs, here are the four most common objectives for a print marketing audit:
- Determine which print materials need updating or retirement.
- Evaluate the effectiveness of different print marketing collateral types in achieving their intended goals.
- Identify areas to improve or enhance print materials.
- Assess brand consistency.
With your goals established, the next step is to assemble a cross-functional team.
Including employees from a range of departments is key, as diverse perspectives and input will strengthen your audit. Consider involving team members from areas such as:
- Marketing to assess brand alignment and messaging effectiveness.
- Sales to provide insights into customer responses and collateral usage in the field.
- Product teams to verify the accuracy of product information and specifications.
- Legal (if applicable) to ensure all materials meet legal and regulatory requirements.
Once your cross-functional team is in place, establish a clear process for evaluating your print materials. With so many different perspectives, a standardized approach can keep things organized and ensure everyone is on the same page when collaborating.
Pro Tip: Consider using a simple scoring system to assess each piece of collateral. For example, rate each item on a scale of 1 to 10 based on important factors like brand consistency, content relevance, design quality, and physical appearance. This ensures everyone evaluates the same criteria, making the results more consistent and less influenced by personal opinions.
Step 2: Print Inventory Audit and Team Collaboration
The next step is to take stock of your current print materials to understand what you’re working with. This part of the audit process ensures your team has a complete understanding of what materials exist, how they’re being used, and where improvements are needed.
Start by gathering every type of print marketing collateral your company has produced, including:
- Brochures.
- Flyers.
- Product catalogs.
- Business cards.
- Trade show displays.
- Direct mailers.
- Promotional items and swag.
Next, create a detailed spreadsheet of all print marketing collateral details, including:
- Item name and type (such as a brochure or catalog).
- Creation date and last update.
- Quantity on hand and reorder thresholds.
- Distribution channels and locations.
- Design and print specifications (paper type, size, special finishes)
- Target audience and buyer persona alignment.
- QR code details, including whether it’s present (yes/no), its type (static or dynamic), and the destination URL.
To round out your print inventory assessment, organize your print materials into strategic audience segments. By grouping your collateral by audience type, geographic region, or sales funnel stage, you'll spot patterns, redundancies, and gaps in your print marketing arsenal.
For instance, you might discover you have an abundance of awareness-stage materials but lack bottom-of-funnel pieces. Or perhaps your West Coast materials are outdated compared to your East Coast counterparts.
These insights will help guide your decisions on what to update, create, or retire in the next phase of your print marketing collateral audit.
Step 3: Analyze Print Collateral for Relevance and Accuracy
With your print collateral inventoried and organized, the next step is to take a critical look at the content. Every piece should align with your current business goals and meet the expectations of your target audience.
This phase of the audit ensures your messaging is accurate, relevant, and positioned to drive results.
Start by asking these key questions to quickly identify outdated or misaligned materials:
- Are product descriptions and pricing accurate and up-to-date?
- Does this content reflect our current brand voice, tone, and values?
- Are company information and contact details correct?
- Does this piece still address the current needs and pain points of our target audience?
- Does the call-to-action on print materials align with sales funnel strategies?
- Are any industry statistics, case studies, or market data included still accurate?
- Is regulatory or compliance information up-to-date (if applicable)?
For sales enablement tools and collateral, it’s a good idea to take this analysis a step further by gathering feedback from your sales team (if they’re not already part of the cross-functional audit team). These front-line insights are invaluable for understanding how well your print materials are functioning in real-world scenarios.
Ask questions like:
- How often do you use this piece in sales conversations?
- How effective is it in moving prospects through the sales funnel?
- What feedback have you received from prospects about this material?
- Are there any materials you wish existed to better address customer needs or close deals?
Pro Tip: If you discover your sales reps are frequently requesting customizations or struggling to find relevant materials, consider implementing a print marketing portal.
Step 4: Review and Enhance Print and Digital Integrations
As you evaluate the content of your print materials, pay close attention to how they integrate with your digital marketing efforts, particularly through QR codes.
When used effectively, they can:
- Provide real-time, updatable information without reprinting materials
- Offer interactive experiences that deepen engagement
- Track usage and gather valuable data on your print campaigns
When auditing your QR code strategy, ask these questions:
- Does the QR code lead to content that enhances the print piece's message?
- Are all QR codes working and leading to mobile-optimized landing pages?
- Is there a clear benefit for the user to scan the code?
- Are you effectively prompting users to scan the code with a strong CTA?
- Does the digital content pick up where the print leaves off, creating a cohesive story?
- Is there a clear next step or call to action once they've reached the digital content?
- How are you capturing lead information or encouraging further engagement?
Pro Tip: Use dynamic QR codes. Unlike static codes, these can be edited without changing the printed code, allowing you to update destinations or track performance over time.
Step 5: Evaluate Print Design and Production Quality
Now it's time to ensure your print marketing collateral effectively reflects your current brand aesthetics, resonates with your target audience, and maintains consistent print quality.
Begin by assessing how well each piece adheres to your brand guidelines:
- Are logos accurately presented in terms of size, placement, and color?
- Do colors match the approved brand palette across all materials?
- Is typography consistent in style, size, and usage throughout?
- Are layouts designed to highlight important information, such as headlines and calls to action?
- Do the designs guide the viewer's attention to key messages without confusion?
- Is the imagery in line with your brand’s visual style and identity?
- Does the overall tone reflect your brand's personality appropriately?
Going forward, consider implementing a formal review process where at least two team members must sign off on the brand consistency of any new or updated print material before it goes to production.
For multi-location businesses or organizations with dispersed teams, a print marketing portal can simplify managing brand compliance. A marketing portal allows you to:
- Centralize approved brand templates, assets, and materials in one place.
- Enable customization for local branches or field teams while protecting core brand elements (like logos or colors).
- Establish automated workflows that ensure team-created materials remain consistent with guidelines.
Next, review the printing techniques and special finishes.
- Are all materials printed at consistently high quality?
- Are colors consistent across all print and digital marketing materials?
- How does the print quality compare to competitors?
- Are similar items printed on the same paper stock (e.g., brochures or data sheets)?
- Could special finishes (like embossing, foil stamping, or spot UV) enhance the impact of certain pieces?
Pro Tip: If print quality or color consistency varies across print materials, it's often due to working with multiple print vendors with varying types of digital printing technology and color management expertise. Consider consolidating to a single vendor that specializes in both digital printing services and color management practices. This can help ensure greater consistency in color reproduction and paper quality across all your materials, regardless of where they're printed.
Turn Audit Insights into Action with Artisan Colour
Your audit has set the stage for a stronger print strategy in 2025. Now it's time to bring those insights to life.
Here's how Artisan Colour can help you maximize the impact.
Refresh Your Brand's Look
Did your audit reveal outdated or inconsistent designs? Our design team can update your brochures, mailers, and signage to reflect your current brand identity – keeping you relevant without losing your core character.
Print Smarter, Not Bigger
Need to frequently update print collateral? Our flexible print-on-demand model lets you adapt quickly to market changes, reducing waste and keeping your messaging current.
Streamline Your Marketing Management
Struggling with managing print materials for diverse audiences? OrderJet, our proprietary print marketing portal, enables your team to order pre-printed materials from inventory and customize pre-designed templates for local markets. This ensures your marketing materials are perfectly aligned with brand standards while adapting to specific needs in real time.
Integrate Print and Digital
Looking to make your marketing more effective by integrating print and digital channels? With our recent acquisition of the digital marketing firm MarComm, we now offer seamless print and digital campaign integrations under one roof.
Need a Dose of Print Inspiration?
Our 2025 print sample pack is ready to spark new ideas. Request a complimentary sample today so we can show what Artisan Colour can do for your business.
Have questions? Need guidance? Whatever you need, our team is ready to provide expert guidance and get to work for your business. Contact us today.
