How to “Kondo” Your Marketing: Declutter, Refresh & Reenergize

What do New Year’s and spring have in common? They’re both times when we think about starting off with a fresh, clean slate. This is why we’re revisiting one of our most popular posts from earlier this year, which relies on wisdom from organizing consultant Marie Kondo to help marketers re-energize their marketing toolbox. Good reading before the new year.

Originally posted 3.7.19
With February winding down, most of us are looking ahead to spring. For some reason, warmer temperatures tend to bring the desire to clean. Perhaps it’s the excitement of putting away our heavy winter coats or the extra hours for activity that daylight saving time brings. Whatever it is, there’s something refreshing about decluttering and organizing.

Tidying expert Marie Kondo, a Japanese organizing consultant, Netflix star and author, developed the KonMari Method™, a way to transform your home by gathering possessions by category and keeping only those items that “spark joy.” Kondo’s advice is taking the world by storm. But what does all this have to do with marketing?

Maybe more than you think.

Last year, we shared our recommendations for your marketing toolbox and discussed the importance of understanding what’s inside. But when is the last time you dusted off your toolbox? Is everything inside still applicable to your business? Does it still bring joy? Like your home, perhaps your marketing could benefit from a little spring cleaning.

Now more than ever, marketers are held accountable for developing targeted programs that generate qualified leads and increase revenue. It’s important to set yourself up for success by making sure the right tactics are in your toolbox and are in tiptop shape. Here are some tips for “Kondoing” your marketing efforts:

Don’t Tackle the Entire Marketing “Room,” Tackle by Category

Part of the KonMari technique is to gather all of your belongings by category and ask yourself if it sparks joy. If the answer is no, the item goes. Sounds pretty straightforward, right? For marketers, it’s important to map out each program and activity to get a complete visual of your marketing strategy. For example, instead of just looking at digital marketing as a whole, dig into the specifics. Have you decluttered your customer list? Is your copy updated? Are your social media channels optimized? Going through this exercise will give you a bird’s eye view of your marketing initiatives, help identify any that are missing and eliminate those that aren’t driving the results you want.

Get Personal with Your Customers

Another of Kondo’s principles is to “respect” the belongings you most cherish by giving them the attention they deserve. While customers certainly aren’t possessions, they should still be highly valued if you want to keep them. One big way to give your customers respect is to personalize your communications. Gone are the days where a customer feels appreciated simply by seeing their name at the top of a mass-sent email. To this end, a recent CMO Council/SAP survey indicated that 47 percent of respondents would abandon a brand that delivers poor, impersonal or frustrating experiences. And, by the year 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator.

We all know it costs more to acquire new customers than to keep existing ones, so marketing tools that help to personalize and improve the customer experience are becoming increasingly essential.

Believe the Hype About AI

There is little denying that Marie Kondo has become a household name. She’s all the rage and her presence is ubiquitous, from reality television to commercials to bookstore shelves. Even the name Kondo has become a verb, as in “I can’t meet you this weekend, I’m Kondoing my garage.”

Artificial intelligence (AI) has reached this level of recognition, too. According to the latest Salesforce State of Marketing Report, the adoption of AI has grown by 44 percent since 2017. I recently attended the TAG Summit and had the opportunity to hear Tiffani Bova from Salesforce speak. One of the points she made about the impact of AI in marketing really resonated with me. She said that “human plus machine equals the most powerful thing we have.”

Using AI, marketers can now more easily analyze collected data to effectively determine customer insights and predict their responses—again taking us to more personalized experiences and greater ROI for marketing campaigns. Think about adding AI to your marketing arsenal.

It’s easy to put certain pieces of our marketing toolbox on a shelf and forget about them, or use the same tools by rote. But after a while, we realize some of them aren’t getting the results they used to. So, while you’re in the spirit of the season, take a good look at your marketing toolbox and make sure it’s truly working for your business.

It’s time to Kondo your next marketing campaign.