It’s January 4, and some people are glum and grim.
It’s supposed to be cold and bleak. It’s supposed to be sad and depressing after the wonders of the holiday season. And it’s supposed to be a miserable time at work.
But for me, it’s none of these things. Outside my window, it’s a bright and sunny day in Austin, Texas. I’ve taken down all the holiday decorations so that’s done. And I’m sitting at my desk, working hard to move forward in the New Year. Good times.
Moving forward. On January 4th, that’s a preoccupation for most of us. Personally, we have ideas about how to move forward. Perhaps you’ve come up with resolutions. Maybe you’ve entered into a new relationship? Maybe you’re just going to be nicer, or drink less, or intend to buy a new house.
On that theme, I’d like to offer a sweet, gentle, peaceful New Years message that should help you find new potential and new opportunities in your business life, as well as your personal life.
Audit your *&%$ product content!
Phew. I feel better.
Here’s why. I took a look at a few clients and ex-clients this year, and, with one exception, they’ve done a poor job of auditing their content. Here’s what I found in an hour of checking:
- Stilted, dull, boring content.
- Obsolete content mixed with new content.
- Relevant content that needs to be updated with new product specs, new messaging, or new quotes.
- Huge amounts of content for one part of the sales cycle, and gaps for another part of the sales cycle.
I got queasy taking a look.
So folks, please take some Dramamine,™spend some time in January reviewing your existing content, andclean up the mess.
Here are a few ideas you can steal from me to make improvements:
- Move all your old content into an archive or old product section
- If a piece of content is more than ten years old, delete it.
- If a piece of content hasn’t gotten any hits in six months, find out why and do something.
- Put the ten most important pieces of content front and center.
- Map your content to your sales cycle.
And finally, thing about your content calendar and how it overlaps with your existing content. There’s something to be said for building an update cycle instead of a “rip and replace” cycle – if nothing else, you’ll save budget and time.
Now get out there and starting organizing!