Cleaning House

This time of year is a really good time to not only reflect on the year past, look forward to the year ahead but also clean house. What I mean by this is update your network [address book], update your website, update Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and write a new blog if you haven't in a while. Check out new trends in the industry, review your business and marketing plans and make sure you are on track with your business relationships in 2011. I pride myself on being the Martha Stewart of business. Organization is the key to success!

1. Update your Networks
Now is a good time to go through your address book and make sure all your connections are clean. This became most apparent to me with a client recently who gave me his address book to clean up for some eMarketing. I was appalled. A business that I had worked at years ago was still in his address book along with several others as we sent out the mailing. I asked him when the last time was he cleaned up his address book. You know what the answer was? Never. As someone who prides herself on my connections I was appalled. Not keeping up with your connections says that you don't care. So many businesses are all about bulk. But the really positive connections that will bring you results are the ones you form and grow. I was once given the advice my a trusted colleague to go through and call or email [or Facebook or Linkedin or Tweet] at least one of your connections a day and keep notes on the response. Favorite restaurant, kid's names... literal notes on this person. It shows them you are personal and above all keeps you in the forefront of their mind and most importantly their business radar.

2. Update your Website
When was the last time you checked the traffic of your site, updated press news and searched for your business on Google to see the results? Now is a really good time to do this. Search engines are constant. In the old days marketers went looking for customers. Now it is the customers that come looking for us. You need to constantly optimize, measure and modify. Make sure your keywords and page titles are what you want and differentiate from one another. Check your meta data, links and site architecture especially if your business had any sort of shift this past year. And if you don't know how to do any of these things, hire an analyst to do it for you. This is something you must have running at full throttle.

3. Update your Social Media
This should be updated at least daily but if you haven't been on your SM sites in a while, why on earth not? If you are too busy (which I can only hope for your business) hire a marketer to put together a plan and then hire an intern to implement the plan. The plan could be for the entire 2011 year. Build a group of news sources that you follow such as Advertising Age, Entrepreneur and HubSpot for daily news. Read articles of interest and post them to your Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook accounts. Use quotes, images, videos and your blog to post on other days. The more you do it the more you will have to say and the more your audience will see you. But be careful. Make sure this is relevant to your business and not intrusive or annoying. You want to grow your audience and have them interact, not make them mad and leave your page. You wont get them back.

4. Review your Business Plan and Marketing/Sales Plan
This is always good to do at least once a year if not quarterly to make sure you are on track. Make adjustments as necessary and follow-through. If you do not have a business plan or a marketing/sales plan please get one. This is a very important step for long-term success and consistent results.

Lastly, once you clean house and feel ready to face the new year with a solid business foundation send out a Happy Holidays email with a BRIEF recap of your year, your product/services and warm tidings. And don't forget to also let your employees know how much you appreciate them too. It doesn't cost anything to let your business backbone know how important they are to the success of your business.