Does your content spark joy, or is it time to let go of the things that are cluttering your editorial calendar? We have some spring-cleaning tips that’ll leave your content strategy unburdened by the old, and working for you in the months to come.
What’s the (content) life you want?
Marie Kondo’s KonMari method starts clients off by asking them what their life’s wishes are, and the motivation behind those wishes. We talk about the “why” in business a lot, so this should seem familiar! If you haven’t already, think about the goals that inform your content marketing: from social media to podcasts to video to blogs. (Hint: the goal should never be something that sounds like “have a podcast.”)
Put it all on the “bed”
Do a complete inventory of all the campaigns, ongoing touchpoints, and odds and ends you’ve released in the last year. This could mean a collaboration with multiple staffers or even across teams – you’re looking for a fulsome picture of everything that you’re up to content-wise. Go back to your answer to the above, and see if these fit with your strategy goals in purpose, execution, and success.
For example, if one of your goals is to increase inbound leads to the “Free Quote” area of your website, how many of your content pieces trying to achieve that goal are talking about pricing?
Use the head and the heart
KonMari is about asking both quantitative questions (“when was the last time I used this?”) and qualitative ones (“does this object make me excited to own it?”). We’re used to thinking of our content in terms of quantitative performance analytics (views, clicks, conversions). You also need your gut feeling to guide you, especially when acting on those analytics means putting a stop to a content piece.
Going back to our hypothetical “Free Quote” page, you might see that your last promotional video had a ton of views and comments, but you remember several recent customers requesting a quote mentioning the Facebook Live session you did about it. Even if that session didn’t have a lot of viewers at the time, it’s clear that the people who did turn up took a lot from it.
Thank it (and your employees) for its service
A huge part of the KonMari method is thanking your old items for what they did for you, and with content, it’s no exception. Make it clear to the staff involved that you recognize the hard work that went into an ongoing piece when retiring it. Use the lessons you gained from what did go right to fine-tune future initiatives.
How do you intend to spark a revitalized content strategy? Share your goals with us @mediaface on social media.
Feature photo by Francesco Paggiaro from Pexels.