Your Virtual Online Marketing Workroom Guide

How a Japanese business methodology can be used to shine up your online marketing efforts

BY WELTON HONG

In the middle of the 20th century, leaders at Toyota Industries in Japan developed a series of efficiency and quality methodologies that would later become popular in a wide range of industries. They were the root of popular methods such as Six Sigma and Lean Process Management, which help businesses of all types and sizes do more with less, increase customer satisfaction and decrease error rates.

The principles of 5S apply to virtual work spaces and processes as well. Anytime you’re involved in a virtual process—such as online marketing—that involves disparate resources, people and workflows, it can be a good idea to use 5S to streamline things and ensure everyone has what they need to get the job done. Here’s what 5S might look like in your online marketing process. One of the methodologies developed by Toyota was 5S. In English, the Ss stand for Sort, Set in Order, Shine, SORT In a physical situation, sort involves going through all the inventory, supplies or tools in the space, keeping only the ones you need to get the job related to that space done. In an online 1In inventory, Standardize and Sustain. It’s a visual management marketing situation, sort can take on several meanings: concept that focuses on organizing, cleaning and maximizing efficiency within any type of work space. • Reviewing all the pages on your site to find ones that are no longer relevant or performing. Do you have a landing page You might be using it in your workrooms, warehouses for a product you no longer offer? Is one of your blog posts or office spaces—or even leaning on some of the drawing little or no traffic? Identifying these pages helps you fundamentals without being aware they come from 5S. know where work is needed on your website.

• Researching keywords and trends. Are the keywords you use in your content and ads still what people are looking for? If not, you probably aren’t showing up for people when they search for home improvement products online. • Auditing your marketing channels. How much time and money are you spending on website and content marketing, ads,

SEO, social marketing and other channels? Are you putting in time that isn’t driving ROI? Those channels may need to be abandoned or rethought. Online marketing benefits from standardization, too, especially when it comes to consistency. Many people ask how often they should post new blog content on their website, send out email newsletters or make posts on social media. But how often is less important than following through.

If people get used to hearing from you via email once a month or via blog once a week and you suddenly go missing, they aren’t likely SET IN ORDER In a workroom, this step involves organizing all tools and resources so they’re easy for anyone to find when needed. In online marketing, set in order can refer to using the right project management and communication tools to ensure everyone knows what needs to be done and you and your marketing partners have to come looking for you. They are, however, more likely to forget about you when it comes time to make a purchase, which means they could choose the competition instead. SUSTAIN Once you do all the work to set up an efficient environment, you have to ensure everyone works to keep it that way. And once you start seeing success with home improvement marketing, you want 2SET In resources so they’re easy for anyone to find when needed. In 5have oversight over the process. to maintain that success and reach for more. At the very least, your online marketing “workroom” should have an editorial calendar that lets people see what type of content you want to publish and when.

You should also have a way to assign various aspects of that content creation to different members of your team or freelancers. If you work with an online marketing firm, chances are they have tools to set things in order for you and help you stay up to date on progress.

SHINE Here’s where physical spaces and tools get polished up with a good scrub or sweep. Cleaning and maintenance are the mainstays of shine, and that’s true physically or virtually.3Here’s scrub shine,

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Sometimes, you shine your online marketing by taking items identified in sort that aren’t performing well and making them better. But this step can also refer to the ongoing generation of high-quality content, advertising and social posts that keep your business fresh in the minds of potential clients and help them find you online.

Another area that you might need to “shine” is your business’s online reputation. Online reviews are an important resource for many consumers, who are much more likely to trust what others say about your business than what you say about it.

You can’t afford to ignore negative reviews; instead, shine them by reaching out to the unhappy client to see if you can resolve the issue and convert the review to a positive one. If that’s not possible, respond to the review honestly and tactfully to ensure potential clients see your side of the story.

STANDARDIZE This one’s pretty self-explanatory in a physical environment. It’s where you create rules about how the workroom is kept organized and clean—such as the hammers hang from certain hooks or the nails go in certain drawers. You can sustain and even gain results in online marketing through continuous testing. Never assume, for example, that the ad campaign that worked well last week will work again exactly the same way, or that your content can’t be improved upon. Continue to tweak things and test them to see if you can get more traffic, higher conversion rates and increased revenues. V

Welton Hong is the founder of Ring Ring Marketing and a leading expert in creating case generation from online to the phone line. He is the author of “Making Your Phone Ring with Internet Marketing for Window Covering Companies.”

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