Best Practices, Business, Strategy 10 mins read

Spring Cleaning: Reduce Digital Clutter and Optimize Marketing Strategy

Is this year moving at a dizzying pace for anyone else? We just barely put our holiday decorations away and now it’s time to break out the pastels and allergy meds because spring is here!

You’re probably already planning on organizing spaces in your home. Maybe you want to clean out the garage or the closet, or that one drawer that seems to hold a little bit of everything.

Maybe you’re one of those people who can’t focus on getting anything else done until the house is clean. We’re here to help you get organized with a space that may be blocking your creative flow without you even realizing it: your digital space. 

When it comes to your business, you should be combing through these digital spaces at least quarterly. These tips will help you get organized, cut unnecessary costs, and understand how to optimize your digital marketing strategy.

Cleaning Out Cyber Clutter

Your digital clutter can build up just as quickly as your junk drawers. Too much cyber clutter can cause your computer to load slowly, max out your email inbox, and keep you from optimizing your workflows. 

It’s even more vital to optimize your digital workflows when you work from home, and your office is wherever you set down your laptop.

Without realizing it, your digital footprint has probably become pretty widespread. We want to help you break down the digital spheres that need the most attention to get you started on the right foot this season.

Image features cleaning supplies and the title "Spring Cleaning - 4 checklists to help you reduce your cyber clutter."

 

3 digital spaces to organize

  • Computer desktop
  • Online applications and tools
  • Digital marketing campaigns and channels

 

How to Clean Up Your Computer’s Desktop

Let’s start with the first screen you see when you log into your computer: your desktop. If you’re like us, it’s covered in random screenshots, some dating back several months.

Throw them in the trash.

Check off these additional steps when cleaning up your desktop:

  • Delete apps you aren’t using anymore
  • Move large files you want to keep to an external hard drive
  • Move documents into labeled folders and move old documents to the trash

Cleaning up your computer’s desktop will clear up space on your hard drive, make you feel lighter when you log in to start the work day, and create a clean canvas for you to fill with the files and documents you really need.

Digital spring cleaning checklist for computer desktop. Includes delete old screenshots, uninstall unused applications, offload large files, organize documents, and empty the trash.

 

How to Organize Your Apps + Online Tools

The apps you spend most of your time on during the workday have the potential to fill up along with the rest of your spaces. And as you move on from projects, it can be difficult to go back and sort things out.

Digital spring cleaning checklist for online tools and apps. Includes clean out email inbox, resurface forgotten tasks, delete old tasks, organize document collaboration tools.

But once you have a clean slate, organized app interfaces can be easier to maintain. Here are some tools and apps to clean up:

Clean out your email inbox

Zeroing out your email inbox doesn’t have to be a hopeless goal. You can implement this organizational step into your daily workflow by cleaning out all the junk and old email threads you no longer need.

One way to speed up this process is to search for a certain sender (i.e. a newsletter or brand), select all emails from this sender, and batch delete.

Next, unsubscribe from any newsletters you no longer wish to receive. You can use an app such as Unroll.me to make this process easier, or manually click unsubscribe. When you start with a cleaned-out inbox, seeing how many newsletters you receive in a day or week might shock you. Unsubscribe from irrelevant ones as they come in.

Organize your file-sharing tools

Whether it’s Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, Canva, or something else, it’s time to clean it up. Use folders and subfolders to organize documents by project. Archive old projects and delete documents your company no longer needs.

Pro tip: search your document collaboration tool for ‘copy of’ and delete everything that comes up (double-check it’s not something you actually need first). We can’t be the only ones who have made a copy of a document intending to recreate it for a new project and ended up abandoning it completely.

Another way to sort through what’s relevant and what’s not needed is to filter by “date last opened” or “date created.” Delete what you know is no longer needed from the results.

Update your project management tool

Things move fast in business and it’s easy to let old projects fade into the background when you’re onto something new. These old projects and tasks take up space on your project management software, and space is vital when you’re scaling your business. Plus, you don’t want to pay to upgrade your storage space when what you have is full of old information. 

Delete old tasks to make room for new ones, but don’t be surprised if you discover an old project that should be revisited this year. Give those tasks a new life by updating the due dates and project timeline in your freshly organized software layout.

 

 

How to Optimize Digital Marketing Strategy

Now that your workspace is less cluttered, it’s time to take a DEEP dive into your digital advertising channels and marketing plans. Identifying areas where your brand can be saving money is an important aspect of cleaning up your digital footprint.

Digital spring cleaning checklist for digital marketing channels. Includes update target personas, review social channels, update content calendars, conduct a PPC audit, and optimize your website's SEO.

Here are the digital advertising pieces you should include in your digital spring cleaning overhaul:

Update target customer personas

Your business, what’s trending, and user expectations are constantly evolving. Who you have identified as your target audience should be updated to keep pace with cultural changes. If your brand has added a service that solves a problem for a different customer than who you have been targeting, it’s time to create a new persona. On the other hand, if your brand has removed a segment or service, you may be wasting time and ad spend targeting a customer who is no longer relevant.

Review social media channels

Now that you have an updated idea of who you’re speaking to, examine whether you’re using the right social media platforms to reach them. The users who spend time on each social media channel vary in age, socioeconomic status, and the content they resonate with the most. Align the social channels you devote the most resources to with the ones your target audience uses to optimize your brand’s social media marketing.

Update content calendars

If you haven’t built a content marketing calendar for 2023, it’s not too late to get things planned out. A monthly and weekly calendar view for upcoming content and distribution channels can help you maintain a proactive content strategy.

Conduct a PPC audit

Unnecessary spending, increasing campaign costs, and keyword gaps are all part of digital advertising clutter. Identify and clean up these pieces of your marketing strategy with a PPC audit. PPC audits should be conducted at least twice a year to make sure campaigns are running in an optimized manner.

Pro tip: We recommend using click fraud protection software ClickCease to eliminate wasted spend PPC spend, without having to lift a finger!

Optimize your website’s SEO

If you’re following along, here’s what you’ve done so far:

  • You locked in your target audience
  • Organized your content plan
  • Streamlined the channels through which you’re distributing content
  • Audited your pay-per-click advertising campaigns
  • And now you have valuable traffic to your website

The last step is to make sure the website users are reaching is at its best. Revamp your brand’s website for search engine optimization by updating blog content, adding relevant keywords to web pages, increasing resource center content, and verifying the user experience (UX) is optimal.

Bonus Checklist: Evaluate Current Vendors for Relevancy

Digital spring cleaning checklist for reevaluating vendors. Includes review agency partner, ditch unused tools, and check for monthly subscriptions.

Have an agency you’re working with that seems to only respond to your emails when they need an invoice paid? Still paying a monthly subscription fee for a digital tool your company is no longer using? 

Move into Q2 of this year with a refreshed business plan that aligns with your current goals. Spring cleaning is about clearing out what no longer fits; keeping what you need, and leaving the rest behind. Your vendors shouldn’t be weighing you down. 

If you find one of your brand partners adding more baggage than value, it may be time to break up. Spring is all about growth; your brand should seek out vendor partners with a growth mindset and actionable plans for scaling through the remainder of 2023.

Need Help Optimizing Your Digital Marketing Footprint This Quarter?

When we partner with your brand, we start by creating an organized plan that takes into account all aspects of your marketing mix. Our digital marketing strategy starts organized and stays optimized. That means less wasted spend for your brand and more valuable traffic sent to your website.

Let us know exactly how we can help you clean up your cyber clutter or help you break into the digital advertising world at info@crimsonparkdigital.com.

 

FAQs

Which digital tools can help keep your company organized?

Digital tools that can help keep your business on track include Asana for project management, Google Drive for file collaboration, Canva for design collaboration, Semrush for SEO optimization, and Sprout Social for content scheduling and calendar creation.

What is wasted ad spend in digital marketing?

In pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns on Google Ads or another platform, wasted spend refers to flaws in the ways your campaigns are set up that are causing you to spend more than you should. Wasted spend could be caused by high bids, gaps in identified keywords, targeting incorrect keywords, and poor location targeting.

How can you limit wasted ad spend in Google Ads?

The best way to limit wasted spend in Google Ads and optimize campaign results is to hire an agency that will conduct a comprehensive PPC audit and provide recommendations with actionable insights.

Photo of Alexa Parker
About the author

Alexa Parker launched Crimson Park Digital in 2018 with an entrepreneurial spirit and a passion for digital marketing. With nearly ten years in the industry, she's been fortunate to learn from the best mentors, work on inspiring campaigns, and fine-tune her craft. Now, along with my team, she provides expertise to clients across the country and enjoys every day of it.