7 Ways to Spring Clean Your Small Business

Spring has sprung — the season of new beginnings is in full swing, and now is the perfect time for small businesses to consider spring cleaning. 

Sure, you could (and should) clean up your office, pick up your workspace, and clean out the breakroom fridge. However, you should also review your business software, marketing strategies, and everyday workflow and look for opportunities to improve your company. 

In this post, I’ll share seven spring cleaning tips for small businesses. We’ll review how to increase your productivity, grow your online presence, and improve your marketing strategies. Let’s get started. 

1. Clean up your CRM. 

Your CRM is the central hub for customer information at your business. It records conversations and interactions with your company. For example, if you email a customer, that message and their reply are automatically recorded in your CRM. You can revisit it later and add notes for each customer. 

Sometimes, your CRM gets cluttered. Outdated, incorrect, and duplicate data makes finding information more challenging. The time you spend searching for data adds up and costs your business money. 

Duplicate contacts are a great example. If you incorrectly upload a file, multiple contacts may be created for the same customer. That gets confusing quickly because some information is recorded on one card and not on the other. It’s best practice to merge these contacts, so all your information is in one place. 

*Featured Resource: For more ways to organize your CRM, check out this CRM cleanup guide here. 

2. Refresh local listings.

Local listings are online profiles for sites like Google, Yelp, Angi, and more. They’re one of your most important digital marketing channels because most people use them to find businesses in their area. In fact, 71% regularly use local listings to research new brands. Customers can see where your business is, compare reviews, and look at your products and services. 

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of business listing websites. It’s important to add your company to as many as possible and keep your listings updated over time. If information is inaccurate or outdated, customers won’t find your business.

Using an enhanced local listings tool is the best way to manage multiple business listings simultaneously. This software connects everything to one place and identifies websites where you haven’t claimed your profile. You can add all of your company information, and this tool will automatically update your local listings across each site. It’s quick, convenient, and ensures accuracy over time. 

3. Polish up productivity.

When you run a small business, every minute counts. As the old saying goes, “time is money;” if your workflow is inefficient, your business is leaving dollars on the table.

Adopting business automation software for email and SMS (text message) communication will significantly improve productivity. These tools speed up communication by automatically messaging customers using personalized templates. For instance, if a customer books an appointment through your website, email automation quickly follows up and shares their appointment details. It also reminds customers about upcoming bookings, reducing no-shows and cancellations.

Business communication is another area that contributes to productivity. Whether internal between team members or external with customers, communication plays an important role in your company’s success. 

Your business needs the right communication tools. A shared inbox keeps all messages in one place, while TeamChat makes it easier for employees to collaborate. You should also use webchat to talk directly with customers through your website. It makes booking appointments easier, and chatbots can monitor your site 24/7.

4. Reorganize your website.

When we talk about spring cleaning, most people think about cleaning their homes. Your website is like the digital home for your business. You have to tidy it up every now and then to ensure it’s organized and optimized for search engines. 

This is called SEO, and it helps you get discovered on sites like Google, Yahoo, and Bing (yes, Bing is still a thing). It also helps you appear in AI searches, like when people use ChatGPT to find local businesses. These searches are becoming more popular and are important for small businesses to pay attention to.

SEO doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a long-term investment that pays off over time. Here are a few guides to help you optimize your website for search:

• How to Do SEO
• Local City SEO: How to Rank in Your City
• What is Local Search?
• What Is a SERP Analysis & How Do You Conduct One?
• 9 Local SEO Tips to Help You Rank Higher in Search Results

5. Clear up your reputation. 

Spring cleaning your online reputation means getting and responding to customer reviews. It’s not enough to have good reviews; you need to be active on your online profiles and respond to comments, good and bad. 

Let’s start with positive reviews. Always thank customers for their feedback and let them know you look forward to working with them again soon. Here’s a free template you can use: 

Thanks, [Customer Name]! We really appreciate your feedback and enjoyed working with you, too! We’re looking forward to doing business with you again soon.

Tip: You can solicit good reviews using this Google Review Link Generator. 

For negative reviews, start by validating the customer’s feedback. Let them know you appreciate their honesty and tell them what you’ll do to improve in the future. That will make them feel like their feedback is heard and show them what you will do to create a better experience next time.

Take this a step further by adding this conversation to your CRM. The next time this customer reaches out, you’ll remember this experience and be able to use it to your advantage. Or, you can set a reminder to follow up with the customer later if you don’t hear from them soon. 

6. Dust off old marketing campaigns.

Spring is a great time to start thinking about new marketing campaigns. Seasonal marketing is very effective and can promote new deals, products, services, and offers. 

For example, car dealerships have new sales in spring because the weather warms up, and people spend more time outside. Customers are more likely to tour a parking lot in nice weather than in the freezing cold. This creates a timely opportunity to launch seasonal sales and re-engage the brand’s audience. 

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Social media is another place where you can freshen up your marketing campaigns. #SpringCleaning has nearly 2 million uses on Instagram, making it a popular topic for businesses to post about. Show customers what you’re doing to improve your business, like how this pet groomer does on their account: 

7. Tidy up your online store. 

If you have an e-commerce business, look at your online store and update products that are out of stock, discontinued, or contain inaccurate information. If a sale has expired, remove old advertisements and replace them with current deals. Consider touching up your web design, including your page layout, fonts, and colors. It’s good to change your site’s look every now and then to keep visitors engaged and interested in your content.

Most website builders make it easy to change these elements. You can drag and drop new features onto your pages and change site settings like colors and fonts from one place. You don’t have to be a web developer to build a professional-looking site. Most of these programs provide pre-built templates you can customize in minutes. 

Spring Cleaning for Small Businesses

Change is a good thing, and spring is a great time to embrace it for your business. Use these spring cleaning tips to tidy up your small business and improve operations. Refresh your marketing campaigns with new ideas, and automate communication to maximize productivity. Whether spring, summer, or any other season, these strategies will increase your output and set your business up for success.