Getting Set-Up: A Marketing Checklist for Retail And Consumer Startups

This is a guest post by Araminta Sheridan from Araminta Marketing.

In recent months, due to COVID, businesses of all sizes and target markets have been forced to up their game, digitally. For many people, this has been the only way to keep in touch with their customers and employees. 

Others have found themselves with more free time to experiment with ways to generate new leads and create new content. 

As we settle into our new ‘normal,’ we have observed changes in digital marketing for long enough to know that consumers in all industries, especially retail-to-consumer brands, are more open to connecting with companies through digital platforms than ever before.

On top of this, consumer expectations have risen when it comes to the quality and consistency of their experiences online and offline.

In 2020, we have all learned lessons relating to resilience and adaptability.

We have also learned about the importance of slowing down and focusing our efforts. With this in mind, below is a checklist of actions that new retail and consumer brands and startups MUST take when starting, or realigning their marketing efforts for the remainder of this year, and beyond.

This marketing checklist will be particularly useful for:

  • Small brand owners who have a lot of different plates to spin, and not a lot of time.
  • Marketing Managers working with small retail-to-consumer brands and start-ups.
  • Marketing freelancers looking for a way to simplify and align routines for multiple clients.

Like any good routine, your marketing should be split into the following 5 Steps to ensure its effectiveness:

  • Research
  • Set-up
  • Plan
  • Build
  • Review

By planning SMART goals, your brand will benefit from the fact that your marketing efforts are driven towards an objective. Without this mindset in place, it is very easy to end up trying to keep up with feeding the amount of content you feel you need to reduce. 

What’s better is to keep feeding your marketing goals. You are then left with the time to build genuine relationships with your audience and to experiment with creative ideas such as live-streams, IGTV videos or gamified content to increase your engagement with your customer.

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Once your ‘set-up’ is in place, you can repeat and reuse the rest of the checklist as you see fit. I repeat some of these steps monthly, others quarterly and most of them annually.

If you do need help implementing these steps the first time around, with an outside perspective or coming up with creative ideas for your retail brand, feel free to contact me over at araminta@aramintamarketing.com.

Your Brand Marketing Checklist:

Research

  • Identify your target audience
  • Identify the platforms they spend time on
  • Keyword research for website SEO (this will also come in handy for future blog content).

Set-up

  • Facebook
    • About
    • Shop
  • Twitter
  • Instagram Business Account
    • Feed
    • Stories
    • IGTV / Livestream
    • Shop
  • LinkedIn
    • Your Profile
    • Company Page
  • Pinterest Business Account
  • SnapChat
  • MailChimp
  • Google Analytics
  • Google My Business
  • Facebook Pixel

Plan

  • Set SMART goals and objectives for your company and for each platform
  • What content can you create to achieve these goals?
  • Plan this months’ blog articles
  • Plan this months’ email marketing themes
  • Plan your social media content (1-4 weeks at a time, in advance)
  • Schedule social media content using a planning tool

Build

  • Request Google Reviews
  • Request LinkedIn Recommendations
  • Invite people to follow you on LinkedIn
  • Invite people to like your Facebook page
  • Build your Instagram Audience
  • Create conversations with your target audience
  • Follow-up conversations with interesting insights or useful information

Review

  • Google Analytics
  • Email Marketing Insights
  • Social Media Insights
  • Content Marketing Platforms – how is each page looking? Have you created a consistent journey and messaging this month?

This is a guest post by Araminta Sheridan from Araminta Marketing.