How to “Marie Kondo” your Content Marketing

Can you believe we are already in the second half of 2019? How are those New Year’s goals coming along? Yeah. Thought so. Well, here’s a chance for a mid-year reboot. If we’ve learned anything from tidying master Marie Kondo, it’s that organization can go a long way to help put goals within reach. 

So who’s Marie Kondo you say? Marie is a Japanese organizing consultant, author of “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing”, and the host of a very popular Netflix program. She literally transforms lives.

Her philosophy is pretty simple:

1. Tidy by category, not by location
2. Follow the right order
3. Ask yourself if it sparks joy

So while you’re cleaning up your workspace, it’s a good idea to start thinking about your content marketing as a whole to see if there are areas you can streamline or rework. Here are three simple steps to get started:

1. Take stock of what you have (content inventory)

Marie says to sort belongings by category. Gather all clothes into one pile, all shoes into one pile, all books — no matter which room they’re in.

Use a similar approach with your content. Clean up your content not by platform, but by type. Are you posting presentations from 2005 or what about videos that are still in 720p spread across your social platforms? Are you using four logos, two different taglines, and disparate messaging? Now’s the time to create cohesion not confusion. Update and upgrade your tools, messaging, images, and graphics accordingly.

2. Decide what to discard and keep

“Effective tidying involves only two essential actions: discarding and deciding where to keep things,” Marie says in her book. “Of the two, discarding must come first.” Get rid of items that no longer bring joy.

It’s time to declutter your content. ONLY KEEP useful content — content that solves a problem or answers a question — brings joy to the user. Decluttering might be tough, since your biases will want to hold on to your favorites. It will be hard to let go of these, especially after putting time and money into them, but it will be better to focus on what’s best for your business. Taking shortcuts will not create better returns. Delete. Delete. Delete!

 

3. Spark joy for your audience

The KonMari method of “keeping what brings you joy” could turn into “keeping what brings you results”. Your content should be fun to read, great to look at, well organized, digestible, and as a result of all of those things—it needs to inspire the recipient/reader to want to take some form of action. Make sure when you’re building joy inducing content that it has a clear goal, audience, message, and call to action. People love clarity and direction. And we love sparks and clicks!

Tidying creates space for new ideas and inspiration! See if you can push yourself to find innovative ways to spread your story(joy) and get people’s attention. 

Happy Kondoing!!