Just as we give our homes a thorough clean and sort out this time of year, tidying room by room and boxing up unwanted items ready to be re-homed. Have you considered doing the same with your marketing?
Giving your marketing efforts an annual audit and refresh can breathe new life into your brand and attract more customers.
Here’s our spring cleaning list to spruce up your branding, website, SEO, email marketing, and social media presence this spring:
Polish your branding.
Much like dusting those neglected corners of your home, your branding needs regular attention to maintain its shine. Take a critical look at your brand identity, really look at it.
Start with your logo and brand elements. When were these last updated? Do they still represent what you do and what you stand for?
Consider asking people who aren’t familiar with your brand what impression they get looking at it. This can be quite an eye-opening exercise as any feedback you receive could help inform any future branding changes.
Next, mind your language. How do you talk about the brand, and is this consistent across all the channels and media you are using?
Just like an unmatching item in your home, simple inconsistencies like the use of words, colours, fonts, and punctuation can stand out, but not in a good way. Tidying these areas can go a long way to ensuring your branding is all neatly aligned.
Remember, a cohesive brand image helps customers recognise and trust your business amidst the clutter of competitors.
Get your website looking fresh.
Freshening up your website is a great way to keep things up-to-date and looking their best.
Is your website looking tired and outdated? Do you still have a page on your website telling people about your COVID-19 policy or your Christmas bake sale from 2017? Like a fresh lick of paint, making sure your website is up-to-date will ensure you leave a good first impression with potential customers.
And besides, we all love a bit of out with the old and in with the new! Removing old and stale information gives you extra room for new and exciting content that’s more optimised for your current strategy and trends.
As you’re updating your website, make sure you consider what you learnt whilst checking out your branding; how can this apply here?
Despite the appeal of a shiny new website, putting it through a full-redesign cycle may not be necessary – a spot clean might just do the trick.
A well-oiled SEO strategy.
Just as you move from room to room in your home, users click through your website seeking information.
Slow-loading pages create a sense of delay like a door reluctant to open, whilst missing pages cause a complete dead end in the digital hallway. Both disrupt the flow of exploration and are likely to cause users to bounce.
Focus on making the user journey as fast and smooth as possible, with no broken links to where they want to go. Letting loose an SEO crawler on your site will identify missing pages or broken links.
There are plenty of free tools online to help you get started or ask your website team or agency to perform an SEO audit for you. An SEO audit should identify any issues with crawlability, indexability, rankability, page speed, user experience, and on-page optimisation.
SEO isn’t just about the complicated technical side. On-page SEO is all about quality content and targeted keywords that put your brand on the digital map.
Doing your keyword research and planting these words and phrases naturally into your headings and site content will help your website climb the search engine results page.
Deep clean your data.
Like decluttering your inbox, cleaning up your email marketing list is essential for maintaining engagement and deliverability.
Segment your subscribers based on their interests, preferences, and purchase history to personalise your email campaigns effectively.
Tend to your community to keep them engaged and grow your email marketing success. Weed out inactive subscribers, as they can decrease your email marketing performance and cause deliverability issues when sending to new subscribers.
You should also consider sending an email now and then to ask people if they still want to receive updates from your brand.
Scrub up on social media.
Your social media strategy needs regular care and attention to keep your channels performing at their best.
Taking a step back and addressing your social media strategy each quarter allows you to sweep away old strategies and replace them with shiny new ideas. Realigning your social media strategy ensures you’re ahead of the curve – keeping up with industry trends and changes or important algorithm updates.
Spring is also the season of new beginnings, so maybe it’s time to try something new. Experiment with different channels and formats such as videos or podcasts; see if these are right for you and your audience.
Make sure whatever you are posting is fresh and relevant. Engage with your followers, respond to comments, and share user-generated content to sow the seeds for conversation.
We hope you embrace the spirit of spring cleaning whilst auditing your marketing efforts and now have lots of fresh ideas for the new season.
If you’re ready to breathe new life into your marketing and need a helping hand, let’s start a conversation. It all starts with a hello@nutshellcreative.co.uk
P.S. We are currently offering FREE social media audits to help you get the best out of your social media channels. If you’d like to receive a FREE social media audit please email victoria@nutshellcreative.co.uk
