Don’t worry about getting behind your refrigerator or moving the furniture around, that is not the type of cleaning I’m talking about. This is spring cleaning for your marketing strategies and campaigns.
Now is a good time to stop and take a look at what you’ve done so far this year, what has and hasn’t worked and plan your next moves. Before you start cleaning things out and changing strategies, take a look at your past programs and strategies and their outcomes. Take note of all the things that worked and also how your audience has changed. Consider the current market trends and how your past programs can be incorporated into your current plan.
This is also a good time to reflect on changes in your customer behavior and reconnect with them. How are they responding to your newsletters? Review your content and make sure that you are sending engaging material and the right value message. You may also want to try putting a survey on your site to get a better idea of what they are looking for and how you can make your site more valuable to them.
Which leads into the next area to clean up – your web site. How recently was your content updated; is this something you do on a regular basis? Also make sure that your messaging is aligned with company branding strategies and meets your audience’s needs and fulfills their needs and keeps them coming back.
How functional and user-friendly is your web site? Try to make the purchasing path as fluid as possible and run through how easy or difficult it is to navigate your site. Take a look at your layout and design – are there any obvious areas for improvement? This may be a good time to revamp it a bit or add some new graphics.
In addition to “cleaning” out your web site and reconnecting with customers, you may also want to consider adding some new marketing channels to your strategy, such as social networking or blogging. This is a great way to stay in touch with current customers, attract new customers and help to further brand your company or product.
Once you have sorted through your strategies, customers and websites, catch up on the latest online marketing trends and take a stab at something new. This is also a good time to make adjustments to your budgeting and look for places to cut back on spending or where to put more money.
Once your marketing strategies have been reorganized, you may want to take a look at your work space and see what clutter you can remove from there as well.
