As a business owner or executive, it can be tempting to operate from a week-to-week, or month-to-month mindset. And while you’re doing that, you run the risk of your competition passing you by.

If your business finds itself in a slow period — whether that’s due to seasonality or other factors out of your control — it’s also the perfect time to be proactive about controlling where you’ll be six or 12 months from now.

What’s does that like for marketing? It’s not unlike a tune up! It starts with taking a look under the hood and doing a content audit.

Take inventory with a content audit

Step 1 is to take an inventory of what you have now:

  • Marketing collateral — in print or PDF form
  • Pages on your website
  • Any of your other public-facing sales or marketing assets

After you’ve done that, ask yourself: Is any of this helpful? Does it put the customer first and address the problems THEY have? Or is it more sales-y and speak more to how great YOU are?

9 ways to perform a marketing tune up

Now, Step 2. Think proactively about the things your business can do during a slow period to come out ahead and position yourself for success in the future. Here are nine ways you can perform a marketing tune up:

  • Take a look at your brand positioning and messaging. Is it helpful? Does it address your customer’s pain points? Or is it too sales-y?
  • Buyer personas – Does your business have customer personas? How long has it been since they were updated? Has anything changed?
  • Updates to your website
  • SEO can be time consuming, and it’s definitely a long-term marketing strategy. If things are slow, this is the time to get a jump on working to rank organically for your target keywords
  • Content creation — This includes blog posts, white papers, how-to guides, infographics, videos and more. All of the great HELPFUL marketing content that will position you for long-term success.
  • Updates to your marketing collateral like brochures, one pagers, and other tools your sales team needs.
  • Social media management — How long has it been since you refreshed your company’s social media pages?
  • Reporting — improvements in what and how you report, or connecting disparate systems to make reporting easier in the future. What’s working? What’s not working?
  • And of course, the back burner or wish list projects that always get bumped due to a lack of bandwidth!

Need help with a marketing tune up?

Take a look under the hood and determine the areas where your marketing can use a tune up. And if you need help from a “mechanic” that’s well-versed in marketing, give us a shout. Let’s explore how we can help you!

LET’S TALK!