If you’ve even glanced at social media, Netflix, Youtube or the news lately, you’d have seen mention of Marie Kondo and her KonMari Method™. This method claims to sort out your life, not temporarily, but permanently, by only holding onto items you cherish.
Kondo’s book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, has sold upwards of 10 million copies and has even been turned into a Netflix series, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo. Her method has been so popular, Kondo has been listed as one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People. So, it must work, right?
Inspired by Kondo and the KonMari Method™, we took to thinking how it can help business owners sort out their digital marketing. Using our expertise, we put together this step-by-step guide to take you from late nights in the office to doing whatever it is you enjoy doing.
The 6 Steps of KonMari for Digital Marketing
Step 1. Commit to cleaning up your digital marketing.
Kondo advocates allocating a block of time to clean everything up at once. It aims to stop other things piling on top of the problem while you’re trying to get it done. However, as a business owner, you probably don’t have even a few hours you can set aside if its not directly making you money.
Here’s the thing, your digital marketing could be either making you money or flushing it down the drain. To save you time, put together this list of things BEFORE allocating a few hours to go over everything. It will save you time so you can get straight to the point.
Collect the below and put everything in one place so you can easily grab it when it’s time. Oh, and when you do make a time, turn off your phone, emails and ensure you have no disruptions.
Your pre-tidy up list:
- How much it costs you to produce each product or provide your service.
- Every place you’re marketing/advertising your business (including social media, paid ads, reputation management software, email marketing, etc.).
- How much you invest into each platform.
- Recent reports for every campaign and platform.
Step 2. Devise what you want your digital marketing to do for your business.
The KonMari Method™says your second step should be to visualise what your dream life looks like after your tidy up. You should do the same for your digital marketing; although instead of dream life, it’s what you hope it will achieve for your business.
Your marketing should either be building your brand (inadvertently making you money) or directly bringing you new or repeat business. There are many ways each of these things can be achieved and what results they create, however you may not value each achievement equally.
For example, some businesses have no trouble with foot traffic, but their lack of online reviews* is cutting their online sales potential. While others have grown their social media following easily but their website is lacking website visitors.
Create a list of areas you’d like your digital marketing to improve your business. Then, have this with you when you sort through each of your current strategies.
By the way, if you do need help getting more online reviews, or preventing negative feedback reaching online, here’s some handy tips for you.
Step 3. Sort through each area individually.
When following the traditional KonMari Method™, there is a specific order you should go through:
- Clothes.
- Books.
- Papers.
- Kimono (miscellaneous).
- Sentimental.
For sorting your digital marketing, we recommend the following, excluding what you don’t yet have:
- Website.
- Search engine optimisation.
- Search engine marketing.
- Blogging (if outsourcing).
- Email marketing.
- SMS marketing.
- Social media (in order: Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, LinkedIn, Snapchat, miscellaneous).
- Review management.
- Miscellaneous.
While it’s a long list, don’t be deterred. Remember the lists you prepared earlier? You’ll be able to go through each pretty quickly—and you may not even have each of the above!
Step 4. Does it bring you joy AKA a result you want.
Okay, so here is where we break away a little from the KonMari methodology. Kondo advises to hold each item in your hands and discard or donate anything that does not bring you joy. You should also thank each item for its service before ridding it from your life.
HOWEVER, for tidying up your digital marketing, we suggest breaking each strategy into two stages. Remember, go through each stage for each strategy (website, social media, etc.) before moving onto the next.
Stage A:
First, put each strategy into one of these two lists:
What gives you a good return on investment.
What is not giving you a return on investment.
The easiest, and quickest way to do this is by using an ROI calculator.
Stage B:
Next, put anything you do not enjoy doing into a third column. What you enjoy doing and gives you a good return on investment is your ‘keep’ pile. You should now have two piles left; negative return on investment and those you don’t enjoy doing.
Step 6. Discard or outsource.
Okay, so outsourcing is definitely not one of the KonMari™ steps. But it’s just as valuable for a business owner.
As a complete digital marketing service, Localsearch can help you with every strategy listed above. One of our consultants in your area can come and sit with you, see where you’d like help and get you the return on investment you need. Then, by only focusing on profitable or reputation-building services, you’ll never be in a pickle (well, for your digital marketing) again!
What digital marketing can Localsearch help with?
We’re not kidding when we say we say we offer a full service. Select the product you’d like to see prices and information on below:
To book, fill out an enquiry form telling us which services you’re interested in or call us on 1300 36 0867 today.
Disclaimer: This article is not endorsed by Marie Kondo, the KonMari Method™ nor any part of. For more information about Marie Kondo or the KonMari Method™, please visit konmari.com/.