The Small Business Owner's Digital Marketing Checklist

Digital marketing uses digital technologies including websites, social media, blogs, email, and mobile apps to reach new customers and engage with current customers. The strategies you'll use will have many components, depending on the type of business and how you interact with your customers.

Digital marketing can be complex and time-consuming, and your small business might not have a dedicated employee to handle the job. If you are not experienced in these areas, consider outsourcing them so you can focus on growing your business.

• Digital marketing helps your business connect with current and prospective customers through digital technologies.
• It's best to begin by securing a website, which will be like a digital home base for your business.
• Other digital marketing strategies involve using social media, email, and content to reach your audience with an effective message.
• Optimizing your business for search engine traffic (also called search engine optimization) will help people find your business and offerings online.

Content Marketing

With content marketing, you'll create and share valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience and to drive profitable customer action. 

• Create a content calendar: Executing a content marketing strategy without a plan is likely to waste a great deal of time. Create a monthly calendar that outlines what content you will create and how you will distribute it.
• Share via social media: Your content will be wasted unless you can get the eyes of your target audience on it consistently. Have a plan for how you will share your content on your social media platforms.
• Leverage your content: You can use (and reuse) your content in many different ways in order to get more mileage out of each piece of content. For example, create a series of blog posts on related topics, then combine them together to create an ebook.
• Consider guest posting: Two-way guest posting—allowing guest posts on your blog and writing for other blogs yourself—is a great way to expand your audience and get more traffic to your website. 

Social Media

Posting links to content on your social media channels increases traffic to your website and blog and gives you a way to communicate directly with customers and potential customers. Follow some basic suggestions as part of your social media strategy:

• Choose one to start: Don't try to create a presence on every social platform at one time. Explore the benefits of each, then choose one or two that are best for your company and your customers, then focus your time there.
• Claim your brand on all platforms: Register your brand name on each network to prevent someone else from using it. While you're at it, claim your business on Google.
• Be consistent: When setting up your social profiles, use the same profile image, bio, banners, and colors to strengthen your brand presence.
• Focus on conversation and engagement: Social media is about the conversation. Aim to create a thriving community on each social site as opposed to inundating your audience with promotions.
• Create a social post calendar: Incorporate a social post schedule into the content calendar you already created, or create a new one that outlines what you will be sharing, where, and when.
• Collect and review metrics: Use the analytics tools available on different social platforms to see what types of posts perform best so you can increasingly engage your audiences 

• Facebook: A Facebook page is a great way to talk with your customer base in real time. When you post something, people can leave comments, raise concerns and start conversations. As the business owner, you'll be able to jump into those threads and converse with your customers on topics that are important to them. Share ideas, photos and updates about your business with the goal to create a more personal relationship with your audience.
• Instagram: If you use an Instagram page to market your business, it's important to be consistent in your posting habits, think about the layout and look of your grid, and have photos at the ready so you aren't scrambling for content. Being prepared will let your customers know that you care about the way you present your business and lead to a higher-quality Instagram page. This can all increase the number of people who want to follow you and engage with your content. Instagram also allows for influencer marketing, which can benefit the right type of industry.
• YouTube: If making videos is appropriate for the type of business you own, YouTube is the way to go. Videos of activities like cleaning carpets, detailing cars and making soap have gone viral because they are satisfying to watch and the end result is worth sticking around for. Look into channels of other businesses in your industry to gauge how well they're doing on the platform and help you decide if it's worth pursuing.
• Twitter: Twitter for business is interesting because, unlike Instagram, its primary focus isn't photos, and unlike Facebook, the goal isn't always to start conversations. But many businesses have had success on Twitter with their witty comebacks to customers as well as competitors; think fast food chains ribbing on each other about the quality of their respective burgers. Twitter is more casual than Facebook and lends itself well to quick notes about your business. You can include a link to your website or another resource in these notes.
• TikTok: TikTok offers businesses a way to create and deploy short video content in a more casual environment. TikTok lends itself well to brand building and audience engagement, rather than direct sales. Much like Instagram, consistency in tone and style of content is key to building a loyal followership. 

Email Marketing

Successful email marketing communicates with customers on a regular basis. The key is sending relevant and interesting messages on a consistent schedule. It takes time to build a quality email list, but it is well worth the time and effort. Start using email marketing by following these steps:

• Choose the right platform: Pick the email marketing platform that has the features you need at the price point that works for your business. Some emphasize reaching broader audiences, while others provide greater tools to aid with the design of your emails.
• Create a newsletter template: Most email marketing platforms provide ready-to-use templates you can customize easily with your logo and company information. Take the time to do this initially and you can reuse the template every time you send a newsletter.
• Actively encourage sign-ups: Promote your newsletter on your website, on social media, and in your email signature to grow your email list. Consider offering an incentive, like a free download or discount, for signing up.
• Collect and review metrics: Use the analytics tools available in the email marketing platform you chose to see how many people opened your message and clicked on a specific link.

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plays a big role in digital marketing by making sure your business is positioned well in Google searches and in other online searches. If the content you create isn't optimized, you will struggle to get the right people to see it at the right time. Get started with these steps:

• Do your research: Get to know how your website and your competitors' websites are performing first. Use Google and other search engines to see where you rank.
• Choose the right keywords: Based on your research, choose the most appropriate keywords for your website, blog posts, and all of the other content you create.
• Use SEO tools: There are many free SEO tools available that will help you optimize your content. Pick the tools that are more relevant for your business.
• Collect and review metrics: Use Google Analytics and the other SEO tools you've selected to watch how your optimized content performs so you can improve it over time.