Marketing Checklist = Social Media & Email Marketing for Small Businesses

• Email Marketing – 43% ROI – most valuable tool out there

• Use Constant Contact – https://albertkaufman.constantcontact.com
• Consistent Branding
  • Stick with 2-4 colors
  • 1-2 fonts
• Relevant Message – short and Sweet
  • Welcome Email: What to expect, how often you send and a special offer
  • Newsletters: Blog posts, press releases, events, announcements
  • Promotions: New and compelling offers, clear call to action
• Consistent “from” name
• For mobile-friendly emails (which should be all you do at this point) stick to one column and keep logo left-justified or centered
• Contact information in the body of the email
• Add in social media links
• Clear call to action
• Quality photos
  • Link your logo/photos back to your website
• Links, Links, Links
  • Give a short description or teaser line and link the rest of the info.
• Join My List button (always!)
• Social Share Bar (in header options)
• Web page version option (in header options)
• White space is your friend!
• Use the “Share this email with your friends” option
• Be yourself… use conversational text!
• Don’t forget the Humor!

Social Media Suggestions

• Learn about Hootsuite, Buffer and Sendible (pick one and use it)
  • Buffer has a great daily newsletter
• Make sure all accounts are filled in
• Think about a different voice for each type of account
  • LinkedIn – business casual
  • Facebook personal page: personal
  • Facebook fan/business page: about the business
  • Twitter – short and sweet
  • Google+ – think about keywords and SEO
  • Always be thinking about keywords and SEO 🙂
  • Pinterest/Instagram – pictures pictures pictures
• Double-check your spelling
• Think ahead – editorial calendars are great!
• Are there holidays, other events coming up, tomorrow, a year from today!
• Follow your competitors – what are they posting?
• Err on the side of over-posting – with the new algorithms, it’s likely followers won’t see much of what you post (see why Email Marketing is a preferred way to spend your time/$$$)
• Try things – make mistakes
• Everyone is learning social media together – no one is an expert – try something clever and your post may go viral
• Upload native video to Facebook and elsewhere.
• Be prepared in case anything ever does go viral (have all accounts filled in with website URLs – landing pages where you would like people to get to
• Think about the what, why, who, kinds of questions often – who am I trying to reach with what message?
• What would success look like?
• Consider trying FB advertising – boosting posts vs. advertising

Feel free to keep in touch. I love fielding questions about social media and email marketing. Don’t get discouraged – this is a new field and it’s a constant learning curve! Good luck, Albert Kaufman