Marketing “Spring Cleaning”
Spring cleaning isn’t just for your house, it’s also for your business! Just like going through your kitchen and deciding what dishes and pans need to go every spring, you should also be going through your company's marketing strategy to see what needs to go. Today, we’re talking with our head marketing strategist, Cynarah, to see what tips she has for getting your marketing in order for the rest of the year!
What should businesses be doing to “spring clean” their marketing?
Websites:
The easiest thing to start with is to do a deep dive on your website and clean it up. Fix or delete any broken links, delete past events and offerings, anything that makes your website look neglected needs to be deleted or revamped. Consumers notice when you aren’t keeping up with your website and it can affect their perception of your company and it also negatively impacts SEO. Going hand in hand with this is making sure your website is up to date and representative of your company. Add any specials, offers, or seasonal things that may be going on. If you haven't already choose a consistent font and color scheme that goes through the website, and add alt text to photos to help boost SEO.
Social Media Channels:
Go through every social channel your business is on. Are all of these channels being updated regularly? Do the social channels you’re on make sense for your business? If the answer is no to either or both of these, it might be time to delete the profile. It’s better to not have one at all then have it be inaccurate or out of date. PLus, not every business needs to be on every social channel. Stick to one or two that make sense and be consistent. For the social channels you do use, try taking a screenshot or looking through it from the perspective of a customer and answer these questions: Is it cohesive? Are common questions answered and found easily? Is it appealing? Does it reflect who the company is and what they do? If you can;t answer yes to these, it’s time to restructure.
Keep, Start, Stop:
The idea behind this method is that once a year, do an audit on your business. Look at the data and see what is and isn’t working for your company. Start doing more of what’s working, stop putting time into what isn't. Look at social channels and open rates on email newsletters and see if it’s serving your business in the best possible way. With newsletters for example, should the template be updated if it isn't getting a lot of clicks? Or does it just make sense to stop investing time in it? It it is getting a lot of clicks, keep it as is. If something that isn’t doing well can’t be improved any more, just stop doing it. It can be frustrating to get rid of something you spent time developing and working on, but it will serve your company best in the long run.
Project Management:
Project management is one of the most important things businesses can implement in their “spring cleaning”. A lot of businesses, especially small ones, have lots of their company knowledge and processes in their employees' heads, rather than documented. This isn’t great because there’s nothing physical to reference for new hires, and if someone leaves the business, they're taking all the company knowledge with them. There are free and paid project management softwares and tools and implementing one of these is essential to keeping your marketing organized and grouped together. Initiatives and campaigns have a million moving parts and people involved, without proper project management people don’t have clearly defined roles and things slip through the cracks. It’s also harder to imagine the final product when you don’t have the steps to get there outlined. People contribute more when it’s clear what they should be working on! Without proper project management, your marketing initiatives will constantly not be reaching their full potential.
If learning how much “spring cleaning” there may be to do for your business stresses you out, contact us! We offer two different kinds of business audits to help get your companies marketing in tip-top shape. Learn more about our audit packages here, and contact us here to learn more!