It’s a good idea to dust and inspect your marketing efforts occasionally, and spring is a perfect time to polish and de-clutter your social media, your website, and your email lists.
Tidy up your social media
Social media can feel like a perpetual experiment. With so many major and minor platforms to choose from, it’s easy to try a little of everything and see what does or doesn’t work. Over time, clear winners may shine through, but that doesn’t mean you should leave your other experiments to wither and die. While they might not have the results you had hoped for, these social media pages are still a part of your web presence, and an abandoned or malnourished page may reflect poorly on your overall branding. Delete these pages and devote your full energy to the pages that work.
Cleaning up your remaining social media pages is a similarly important task to preserve your branding. You can do this by replacing your profile picture with a professional headshot, or with a cleaner version of your logo. Update your cover photo with a fresh image of your storefront, your office or a group photo of your team. Check the About section of your page to make sure all your information is complete and accurate, and add any other pertinent details you want prospective customers to know about you.
Update your contacts
Your email database is a constantly shifting list of new, expired or unused addresses, as well as subscribers who have just grown apathetic to your emails. If you’ve noticed a decline in engagement in your email campaigns, this can be a sign that it’s time to purge your database of unengaged subscribers. Not only will this save you money, but it’ll also allow you to focus your efforts on those who actually want to receive your emails.
Revamp and optimize your website
Building and launching your business’s website is no easy feat. Depending on the complexity of the site, you were probably incredibly relieved when it was finished because that meant it was one less thing for you to worry about. If you haven’t kept up with maintaining your site, it can start to grow stagnant, both in terms of content and design. This time of year is especially important for revamping and optimizing your website because it’s a time when people are becoming more active in terms of shopping and spending money.
Optimize your website by running it through a webpage analysis tool like Google Optimize. This will show you what parts of your site are affecting load times and performance. Some images might be larger than they need to be, or plugins could be outdated and slowing the site down. You may even want to look at your web hosting plan and see if it’s still appropriate for the scale your site is operating at. You might have far more visitors to your site than you did when you first launched it, and your hosting plan should reflect your website statistics.
Check your goals
Now is the time to look back at the past year and chart whether you’re reaching your marketing goals or not. While you’re in this spring cleaning mindset, understanding the status of your marketing goals and objectives will allow you to triage your cleaning efforts. If you’re struggling with certain goals, research what tools are available to help you reach them. For instance, if your social media presence has grown and spread to multiple channels and you’re finding it difficult to keep up with them all, try using a scheduling tool like Sprout Social. You can schedule a month’s worth of social media posts in under an hour, freeing you up to focus on other things.
Spring isn’t the only time to be concerned about cleaning up your marketing. Ideally, the best marketing plan is one that you maintain year-round. If you’re struggling to find the time to keep up with it all, we can help. Dream Local Digital’s marketing strategists are experts in building engagement and promoting businesses. Contact us today to find out how we can help you take control of your marketing.
