Right now, consumers are drowning in content.
Promotional emails, webinar invites, newsletters, ads from the random website you went to x 20-30 companies trying to target them. Regularly cleaning up old programs or content is not just a nice thing, it’s imperative to staying relevant and out of trash folders.
At Solomon Solution, we have just gotten over some big cleanup projects and wanted to share some ideas to help you declutter your marketing instance. So before you add more content, consider pulling stuff out.
We are jumping on Marie Kondo’s lifestyle cleaning bandwagon with 5 ideas to declutter the content in your instance.
1. Be regular, systematic, and methodical
Take it from us, you can’t just go in and start turning off smart campaigns and archiving folders. Things tend to break. People get mad. And you get blackballed from making big changes in the future.
Meet regularly with stakeholders and establish a set of cleaning criteria that everyone can agree on as the first step. It is important that it doesn’t seem arbitrary when someone’s cherished program hits the chopping block.
Pick metrics like:
- Minimum or maximum times live
- Minimum traffic
- Minimum conversion numbers
- Topic relevance or timeliness
You also want a checklist to run through when you actually decommission programs. Don’t forget to turn off the smart list, or redirect any audience to a new program. And don’t forget to move it to an Archive folder! Being systematic will save you the headaches from forgetting to disable an important campaign.
And most importantly, be methodical. Sometimes things get added and you can barely keep up with the new stuff, let alone go through the old. If you don’t have consistent behavior, you will miss or overlook some real stinkers (say…0% click rate).
2. Set a maximum limit on the number of active programs
Across the industry, there is a shift towards a “less is more” approach to marketing automation.
Set a maximum amount of assets that can be live at any given time. If the content team wants to add something, they have to take something else out. Provide the data for them to make an informed choice.
NOTE: Even if you don’t always follow this idea, it’s a good way to make sure content is always monitored and regularly improving.
3. Schedule regular content debriefs
Marie Kondo’s ‘KonMari Method’ suggests audibly thanking objects for their service as you discard them. Although it may work for last year’s button-down in the privacy of your own home, it may be weird to overhear the operations department thanking last year’s campaign for the 5:1 ROI.
Instead, remind everyone of the content that is coming down, and have a discussion on what it did or didn’t do well. This can make turning off programs feel informative and routine.
Don’t forget to keep a ‘greatest hits’ collection of the stuff that gets decommissioned. Maybe the campaign was a success past its prime, or maybe cool but overambitious. It’s a great way to keep the old content around for inspiration and put a positive spin on what is otherwise a funeral for content.
4. Does the program spark joy?
Yup, the most obvious one. But it’s a good one.
Keep programs that excite!
Does anyone actually love this program? Does anyone at your company own the success and development of it? Are they regularly checking in and interested in it’s well being?
Behind any successful campaign should be a marketer carefully watching the numbers and ready to jump in to improve it. If no one owns it, maybe it is time to move it along.
If content does not excite you, then it won’t excite customers. We have so few opportunities to make an impression – don’t waste it on anything less than exceptional.
5. A little mess is okay.
Marie Kondo may not be on-board with this idea, but a little mess is okay!
Developing new and creative campaigns can get a little messy. Remember, you are making room for big and exciting things! And that means, at times there will be a bit of clutter.
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If you are interested in some ways to make cleaning your instance easier (tools that automatically check content for freshness, or your very messy instance needs a little help) reach out to Solomon Solution for some ideas to get started.
We promise we’ve seen worse.
