Spring is almost here, and that means one thing: spring-cleaning. It’s the perfect time to dust off the cobwebs in your house, declutter your garage, and purge items you no longer use or need. The same approach to spring cleaning your home also works for your marketing efforts.

Six Spring-Cleaning Tasks for Marketers

Here are six ways to spring-clean your marketing programs and breathe new life and energy into your marketing endeavors.

1.  Make sure your home page clearly communicates your corporate distinction.

Your website is often the first impression prospects have of your business. Within just a few seconds, a visitor should be able to answer three questions:

• What products and/or services do you offer?
• How will it make my life better?
• What do I need to do to buy it?

If the content on your home page doesn’t communicate the answers to these questions, it’s time to spring-clean your home page’s messaging.

2.  Look at your website with a fresh set of eyes.

To keep visitors engaged on your website, it’s critical that your site is appealing, user-friendly and easy to navigate. Technical issues like slow load time or broken links can cause a poor user experience and may even contribute to the loss of business. Google’s Page Speed Insights is a free tool that evaluates a website’s speed and even makes recommendations for improvement. While spring-cleaning your website, clear spam comments, fix broken links and delete content that is no longer relevant, such as outdated events. If it’s been six months or more since your last website update, consider refreshing it with new content and updated calls to action that drive prospects to take action on their first visit.

3.  Declutter your computer.

If you do only one thing on this spring-cleaning list, do this: back up your hard drive. This simple task will ensure your hard work is protected if faced with a computer crash. To help your computer run smoothly, clear out the trash folder, browser data, downloads folder, cache, and junk mail. Update frequently used apps and programs and uninstall any unused ones. Clean out your email inbox and unsubscribe from any irrelevant communications. Spring-clean files by organizing documents, photos, spreadsheets and other files, so everything is easy to find.

4.  Evaluate automated emails.

Automated emails are a great way to quickly and easily send email messages when a prospect or customer takes a specific action, such as placing an order, signing up for a newsletter, or downloading a white paper. Review and refresh the copy and design for these automated emails to ensure they are engaging and accurately reflect your brand.

5. Clean up your email list.

Email marketing is the go-to channel for many B2B marketers. A clean email list is the foundation of a successful email marketing program. Review your email list and remove hard bounces, duplicate emails, spam email addresses, and anyone who has unsubscribed. Maintaining a clean email list is a proactive way to avoid having your emails reported as spam. As a bonus, an updated email list will boost your open and click rates.

6.  Revisit your marketing plan.

Your marketing plan should be a living document. It’s meant to be used, not filed away and forgotten. Spring is a perfect time to revisit your marketing strategies and tactics. Reflect on what is working so far and what’s not yielding the results originally predicted. Don’t be afraid to make adjustments where needed. Even if you change directions completely, it’s better to start now than to wait until it’s too late.

Spring-Cleaning Creates a Productive Summer, Fall and Winter

The start of spring signals new beginnings. As you take time to declutter and clean the house, tidying up your marketing efforts can help your brand grow and flourish in the coming year. Spring is the perfect time to revitalize your marketing efforts, but it shouldn’t be the only time. After you have performed our suggested spring-cleaning tasks, mark a time on the calendar for later in the year to revisit your strategy again. If you want to chat about the best ways to spring-clean your marketing strategy, schedule a call with one of our experts.