We have just entered the “brown snow season” in Minnesota; that time when we start seeing warmer temperatures (above 25F) and some of the 4 feet of snow that fell over winter starts to melt. This false sense of hope makes us almost giddy but if we’re honest we know that we likely to get about 2 more feet of snow before we see green grass emerge………yay!
So to perk up a little we undertake some spring cleaning. We will take a warm Saturday (for MN) and drag out rugs, and beat the fool out of them to get the dust out, we will furiously vacuum things, clean bathrooms, mud rooms, laundry rooms, man caves, and sleeping dogs.
We will walk into our kids rooms with a large cardboard box and begin filling it with toys that are either broken or have fallen from favor. The broken toys get thrown out and the toys in good shape go off to charity.
I will choose a replacement project that is purely cosmetic like a light fixture, door hardware, or some painting and bang it out with ferocious speed, all in the hopes of freshening up a home that has suffered from 6 months of winter.
Many of the items that get replaced are still somewhat useful but are just tired and out of date. And while some of the broken toys could be combined with parts from other broken toys to make a really cool ‘Franken-Toy’ my wife says we do not really need a Barbie doll with a machine gun arm so off she goes to the trash.
Old light fixtures and other hardware can be sent off to the county recycle depot for someone to reclaim and use for their home; and at the end of the weekend the house smells like fresh paint and has a sense of newness and vitality to it.
Your content collection is likely suffering from a long winter as well. More than likely you have some content that is old and worn down. You may protest a little on this topic but here is a quick test to put your content through to see if it is time to go.
1. The content was written by someone who left your company over a year ago.
2. The content has lived on your web page for at least one web redesign.
3. The content was all the rage during Y2K discussions.
4. The content talks about those”new computer punch cards”.
5. The content is for a product model that you no longer offer for sale.
6. The content has a Barbie Machine gun arm.
Customers are crawling through your web pages folks; they are not always talking to sales people but they are looking for fresh content to fuel buying decisions and they think that if you are not talking about something new, that you must have stopped innovating and they move on to another companies page.
For the month of March we at DCIG are offering our “spring cleaning package” we will offer you a package of a blog and executive white paper (see example) for $2500.00. If you would like to take advantage of this offer, please email me, or call me, I’m happy to help.
Here’s to a great spring season folks