Could your marketing use a refresh? Is it time to audit your assets, do a digital declutter and manage your messy marketing?
If you’re anything like me, you need a reason, a milestone or a trigger to put better habits in place.
Just like it’s almost impossible to launch a health kick on any day other than Monday (I know I’m not hte only one), it’s also hard to get started on those much-needed organisational and admin tasks that keep your marketing in tip-top shape on any ordinary day.
So let’s use the change of season as the perfect reason to spring clean your marketing.
1. Audit and tidy up the admins and access to your marketing assets
Often we’ll have worked with agencies, freelancers or other people over the years – and some (or all) of these might still have access to some (or all) of our important marketing tools and platforms. Or maybe you’ve had team members leave and not yet cancelled their access.
Many of these tools contain sensitive information. Not only that, having unnecessary admins can create some security risks. Earlier this year a client got in touch, stressed and distressed. Their entire Meta Business Manager and Ads account had been shut down (and they couldn’t access it) because of a security breach on a former agency’s linked Facebook profile. My client had to spend so many hours (over about 4-5 months) to gain control of their account and be able to advertise again. This of course had a huge impact on their sales and bottom line.
So take a quick look at the admin/user access on these tools and remove any users who aren’t currently working with you:
- Google Analytics
- Google Search Console
- Meta Business Manager / Ads Manager
- Facebook Business Page
- Moderators in your Facebook Groups
- Google Ads account
- Email marketing platform
- LinkedIn Page and Advertising Account
This is also a good opportunity to make sure you have full admin access and ownership of each of these accounts.
2. Check your website users’ access
If your website is built on a Content Management System (CMS) like WordPress, Shopify, Squarespace etc, you might have given user access to other people who work on your business. Now’s a great time to review the Users and make sure only people who are currently working with you have access.
The more people who have access to your website, the greater the security vulnerability. If any of those users have their email hacked or passwords compromised, it exposes your website to some risk.
So give your users a clean-up – you can always add them back later if they need access for any reason.
3. Perform all WordPress Software, Theme and Plugin Updates
If your website is built on WordPress, you need to perform regular software updates to keep it secure and reduce vulnerabilities.
WordPress is updated regularly by developers to improve performance and plug any security risks. Theme and plugins developers then need to update their software to remain compatible with the WordPress changes.
If these updates are ignored for too long, your website can glitch, forms can stop working or other issues can arise – plus hackers can exploit the known vulnerabilities.
I recommend having a recurring appointment in your diary to perform the updates at least monthly, but this marketing spring clean is a great reminder to do a quick check and make sure you’re all up-to-date.
(Maybe your web developer or IT team perform these updates for you – lucky you! But still, use this opportunity to make sure they’re still on track).
4. Check that you have a current website backup
While we’re talking websites – do you know if you have a current (and regular) backup of your website? Many web hosting platforms will perform regular automated backups, or maybe your web developer has scheduled backups organised. But don’t leave it to chance – ask the question and make sure you’ve got those backups handy so if the worst happens you can restore it all as quickly as possible.
5. Review your subscriptions and memberships
Anyone else have over 160 apps on your phone? (Nope? Just me?)
While many are free, some are annual subscriptions, and many are just collecting cyber-dust and are rarely used – forsaken for the few favourites that capture my attention.
And if you’re anything like me, it’s only when the renewal fee appears in your accounting software that you realise you’re still paying for some of these subs.
So as part of this spring clean, take a good, hard look at your subscriptions, apps and memberships and ask yourself:
- Am I still using the app? (Or participating in the membership)?
- What is the ROI of that investment (in terms of hours saved or money earned)?
- Is it worth renewing, or is it time to let it go?
For bonus points, keep a spreadsheet of every subscription, and their renewal dates, so you can do a regular check to see where costs can be cut.
6. Cleanup your email database
While it may feel good to have a hefty number of subscribers in your email database, if they’re not opening your emails at least *sometimes*, then it’s time to let them go. There are a couple of reasons for a good database declutter to make sure only truly interested people are on your list.
Firstly, with most email tools the cost depends on the number of subscribers – so paying for subscribers that tuned out a long time ago is just costing you money.
Secondly, the health of your email list is linked directly to the percentage of people who open and interact with your emails. If your open rate is very low, the deliverability of the emails can be affected and some email services might mark your emails as Spam.
So even though it’s hard to let them go, a good pruning of your email list can keep it healthy and help it grow.
Don’t just go heavy-handed with the delete button, though. If your system allows it, filter the list by people who haven’t opened any email for the last, say, 6 months. Then send them one last email letting them know you’re giving your email list a spring clean, and give them an option to stay on the list with a simple click.
If they don’t take the action – well then it’s time say goodbye.
7. Audit your social media accounts
It’s a good idea to give our social media platforms a check and spring clean to make sure they’re still aligned with our brand and supporting our business goals. While you might be posting consistently, when was the last time you checked each profile to see if you can make any improvements.
Consider it a quick tidy-up for guests who might pop into your profiles to find out more about you. Here are a few prompts for the most common social media platforms:
- Facebook
- Is your Cover Photo (at the top of your Facebook Page) up-to-date and communicating what your brand is all about?
- Is your profile photo recent and eye-catching?
- Are your business hours correct?
- Does the description accurately reflect your business – who you work with, how you help them and the transformation you offer?
- Does your call-to-action (the button under your profile photo) support your business goals – eg promote your lead magnet for more email subscribers, or make it easy to call you to enquire about your business?
- Are all the contact details correct (including your phone number and website)?
- Instagram
- Is your profile photo up to date?
- Could your bio do with a refresh?
- Does it let people know what you do and who you work with?
- Does it have a clear call-to-action?
- Does the link take visitors to a high-conversion page, or if you use Linktr.ee or a link service, are the links all still relevant and up-to-date?
- Do the most recent 9 photos showcase the best of your business?
- LinkedIn
- Is your profile picture professional, and does it look like you?
- Do you have a Cover photo that lets people know what you do?
- Does your headline accurately describe what you do?
- Does your Summary About section clearly articulate who you work with and how you help them?
- Are your contact details up-to-date?
- Is your Experience section up-to-date? (And for bonus points, does each role note your achievements and how it helps you serve your clients today)?
- Do you have recent Recommendations? (And if not, can you ask some recent clients for a recommendation?)
- Do you have any recent Activity? (Your own posts/articles, and engagement on other people’s posts?)
- TikTok
- Does your profile picture/video reflect your personal brand / business brand?
- Is your name and username clear and easy to recognise?
- Does your bio reflect who you work with and how you help them? (max. 80 characters)
8. Update your Google Business Page
If you have a brick-and-mortar or service business, your Google Business Page is an important cornerstone of your search engine strategy. So it’s important to check that all the details are current, especially your opening hours and contact details.
It’s also worth adding posts, promotions or special offers to your Google Business page regularly, and having a strategy to attract consistent Google reviews from customers.
9. Declutter the accounts you’re following on social media
Your enjoyment of social media is influenced hugely by the accounts you’re following. (Thanks, Captain Obvious!)
But how often do you audit the accounts you’re following. Now’s a good opportunity.
Before you get trigger-happy, take a step back and think about what you want from your social media experience. Think about the content you want to consume, the people who inspire you and the relationships you want to foster.
Once you have that overview in mind, scroll through the accounts you follow and unfollow any that don’t fit within those criteria.
Some will be easy to cull – the accounts you followed as part of a giveaway; “gurus” you followed who no longer align with your values; media accounts that only bring bad news or drama into your feed.
Others will be harder. While you might not be interested in their content anymore, you might not want to offend friends or colleagues by unfollowing. That’s when the Mute button comes in handy. It stops you from seeing their content, but they don’t know that you’ve muted them.
This not only cleans up your feed, and gives the accounts you DO want to see a better chance of making their way to your feed, but it also lets the algorithms know what you’re most interested in. So when they show you the “you may be interested in” posts, you might ACTUALLY be interested in them.
10. Review your lead magnet (and update where needed)
If you have a lead magnet on your website (free, high-value content that people can access by signing up with their email address), is it still performing well? Is it attracting the right type of leads, and are they going on to open your emails, engage with your content and eventually buy from you / work with you?
If it’s getting old or a bit tired, can you freshen it up, or think about a new lead magnet?
Remember, when developing the content, make sure it aligns with the products/services you want to sell, and that it helps to build trust with potential customers and shows them what you can do.
11. Review your reports
Are your marketing reports giving you the information you need to make great business decisions? Are they highlighting the key metrics that let you know if your marketing is performing?
Or maybe you don’t have consistent reporting in place?
It’s hard (if not impossible) to know where to put your time, money and attention if you’re not measuring the results of what you’re doing now.
It might seem boring, but as the saying goes, you can’t manage what you don’t measure.
Get some monthly reports in place – and let the data guide your strategy and decisions.
12. Have a think about your password security
One last thing to think about – are your passwords secure?
If you’re still using the same password for all (or many) of your accounts, you’re placing each of these accounts at risk – along with so much of your personal and financial information.
Even if you think the password is impossible to guess (hint: it’s not!), there are other risks. If someone gains access to one of your accounts (and security breaches happen to websites all the time), they can then use that email/password combination on any website to see if they can access other accounts.
I know of people whose Facebook account was hacked, and the hackers also got access to their mobile phone, banking and other accounts – because they all used the same email/password combination..
So I recommend using a password manager. I use Lastpass. It generates unique, secure passwords for every account I use, and stores these passwords so that I don’t have to remember them. Then there is just one master password that accesses the Lastpast account.
So you still only need to remember one password – but you can sleep soundly at night knowing that your accounts are secure.
It’s not expensive (about $4 dollars per month) – but to me it’s worth it.
Go through each of these steps and you’ll have decluttered, streamlined and organised your marketing foundations in a way that lets you focus and concentrate on the next phase of growth for your business.
