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The sun is shining, the daffodils are blooming and we’re feeling like Spring is in the air (although we are in the UK, so it could be snowing next weekend…)
As the days get longer and the weather gets warmer, the windows get pushed open, marigolds get pulled on (if they’re pink fluffy ones, we’re not judging) and the house gets spring cleaned.
It got us thinking, what better time to get your marketing house in order too!
So, roll up your sleeves, get that metaphorical feather duster at the ready and join us as we spruce our way through some of the marketing spring cleaning tasks you could get started with today, to get your marketing sparkling ready for the new financial year.
(We’ve even got Mrs. Hinch, Marie Kondo and Kim Woodburn into a B2B Marketing blog… impressive right?)
Contacts gathering dust? Chuck them!
Now we’ve deliberately put this one first, because as marketers it’s easy to get pulled into more creative directions. But, when it comes to your marketing spring clean, you should eat that frog… get that job you want to tackle least done first!
If a good old tidy of your CRM and Marketing lists is well overdue, then start here.
Cull those contacts that haven’t been engaging with your brand for months (or even years!) If they haven’t opened an email from you in the last 9 months, is your next email blast really going to get their attention?
Don’t forget vanity is insanity (which you can read about here) and if those huge numbers of (irrelevant, or completely out of market, never to be interested again) contacts in your database aren’t adding up to sales, get rid.
Plus, if you needed any extra motivation, just remember, if you’re not using consent as a legal basis for processing, keeping hold of all those unengaged contacts isn’t exactly GDPR friendly!
Marie Kondo your content
If you’re not familiar with ‘Tidying up with Marie Kondo’ (you’re clearly not watching as much Netflix as us), we’ll quickly fill you in.
Marie is a Japanese tidying sensation – her style, known as the ‘KonMari method’ (see what she did there), is all about organising by category, not by room. If you were tidying your house, you’d organise your socks, then your books, then your sentimental bits and bobs. One of her main mantras is ‘keep only those things that speak to the heart, and discard items that no longer spark joy’.
This same mantra can be easily applied to your content. If you’ve old out of date content sat on your website that just doesn’t ‘fit’ anymore (speak to the heart i.e. your customers), it’s time for a sort out.
Now, we’re not saying just chuck the content in the bin like those zombie contacts. You could well find there’s still some golden nuggets in the older content that could be re-purposed. Because, we wouldn’t be marketeers if we didn’t love repurposing. Extract the useful bits, re-skim them and add more value for your customers and prospects where you can.
When we say repurpose, here’s a couple of simple ideas to think about.
- Why not break up that 18 month old whitepaper into a few short to digest or easy to read blog post series?
- Or, if you’ve got a report from a few months ago that’s still relevant, pop those insights into a visually exciting series of graphics and create a LinkedIn slideshare.
The ultimate stress test before you create or re-purpose any content in your Marie Kondo mindset should be – what value does it provide? If your content isn’t delivering value (whether that be education, insights, entertainment or useful information) then it should be chucked out.
Hinch your social channels
She might be an Instagram cleaning sensation, but there are actually many lessons that B2B marketers can learn from the now £1 million+ worth influencer Mrs. Hinch.
With several books and brand deals galore, she’s made cleaning ‘relatable’ and even ‘aspirational’… all through the power of social media.
And, the trick to it… consistency, authenticity and personality.
If you brand posts once a week or even less from your Twitter page, it’s unsurprising that your engagement is low. Similarly, if you’re relying on posting from your LinkedIn company page once in a blue moon to promote ‘hero’ content or your latest blog, it’s probably not surprising when engagement sucks.
While you’re in spring cleaning mode, go through your existing social posts – see which posts have performed well for you to give you a steer of what you should be doing more.
But experiment too. And ultimately, be consistent. Build a content plan, invest in a social scheduling tool like Hootsuite and get your social media publishing schedule in order.
When it comes to injecting personality, there’s also opportunities for you to explore while you’re auditing your current socials too. Whether Mrs. Hinch is talking about her Dave the Duster or singing the praises of Zoflora (essentially a cloth and a disinfectant), she makes cleaning fun. If dusting and disinfecting can be engaging, social-worthy content, then no matter how dry you think your B2B offering is… you can definitely have some fun with it.
Why not think about bringing some fun brand ‘characters’ into play? Or get people in your wider business team, clients and partners to get involved with people-focused content, like video interviews, photo introductions, team member success stories. Putting that face to a name and to your brand brings real opportunity to engage with your customers and prospects on a human-level.
Polish up your brand presence
Another lesson to be learnt from Mrs. Hinch, is that it’s important to have a strong brand aesthetic and to stick to it. Yes, she’s been trolled about how ‘grey’ her house it, but she owns it. Her silver, greys and sparkles are synonymous with the ‘Hinch’ brand.
If you looked at your own social channels, whether that be your LinkedIn or Twitter (or even Instagram if it’s relevant to your client base), can you honestly say you’ve got a strong brand style to your social media presence?
Is your posting visually synonymous with your brand colours? Does the style of your LinkedIn page flow seamlessly to your website?
The more disconnect between the style and tone of your social channels to your website, your email signatures, your presentation decks (we could go on…) the more disruptive to your users’ brand perception and your prospects’ brand recognition.
Check out your prospect / customer journey from your social channels and work your way through. Get your designer or agency to support you in creating a strong visual brand style for your social media that compliments your existing house style, or use this as an opportunity to refresh everything!
We could go on… as there’s so many social media lessons to be learnt from the clean queen, but these are a good starter….
How not to tackle your spring clean…
Don’t go fully Kim Woodburn, circa Big Brother 2017 on your colleagues. Gently does it. Get your initial plans down on paper and then bring everyone into the loop. Make sure that everyone is on the same page and get a joint consensus and input on the areas of your ‘spring clean’ to prioritise.
