Halloween is coming, although 2020 has already given it a tough act to follow. In the spirit of this holiday, let's look at four ghoulish gremlins you want to exorcise from your marketing content and strategies.
The Cobwebbed Website
Countless horror stories and films place a spooky old abandoned house at the center of the proceedings. You've seen the characters shuffling up creaking stairs, pushing cobwebs out of the way with every step. (Who knew spiders could be so industrious?) The house presents a cold, dead, unwelcoming environment. Does your ancient website do the same? Many of the old-school sites built in the days before mobile shopping took over the world can seem as ugly, antiquated, and hard to navigate as any haunted house.
If you have an old static website, you need to get that relic brought up to code, so to speak. Invest in a new responsive design or dedicated mobile site that looks just as good (and works just as well) on small devices as it does on large monitors. At the same, pull up all that creaky old web content and refresh it with new, better-optimized verbiage.
The Ghosts of Content Past
Your website may not be the only part of your marketing array that suffers from a case of the cobwebs. If you haven't updated your LinkedIn bio, company brochure, sales letters, direct mail offers, or other marketing pieces in a while, those pieces could be haunted by the ghosts of long-dead, long-irrelevant features, benefits, and brand messaging. No matter how frequently you issue and reissue this marketing content, it will miss the mark because it represents the past, not the present.
Set a new goal to keep all your marketing tools consistently up to date. Make sure that they all complement each other with relevant, congruent information that supports what you are now, not what you were once upon a time.
The Invisible Call to Action
Congratulations -- your marketing content has lured your prey into your parlor. As your prospective buyers absorb that print or digital marketing piece, their eyes inevitably reach the point where they're supposed to receive a command to do something: the call to action. But where is it? you've somehow managed to exclude it or make it unclear, leaving your audience adrift and releasing them from the spell you created.
Don't suffer the effects of an invisible call to action. Clothe it in clarity by placing it at the end of your spiel and issuing clear, simple, easily-obeyed instructions to your readers.
The Blog of the Undead
Legends tell of an ancient blog -- a blog page that once thrived, only to hover lifelessly in an uncertain state today. Is it alive, or is it dead? It still exists on your website, but it hasn't seen any fresh blood (in the form of updates) for months or years. Does this lack of interest and information mean that its owner is equally moribund? Has your brand joined the ranks of the undead?
You know full well how to breathe life back into your blog and other forms of inbound content marketing. Create content. Write articles. Create videos. Post news updates. Do these things on a regular basis so that your clientele can see that your business still has a pulse. If you need help, hire a freelance copywriter or other qualified marketing professional.
Have a happy -- and profitable -- Halloween!
