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This is the only checklist you'll need if you're a marketing manager.

Running a marketing department is challenging, especially when you are a team of one (or two). There are so many pieces to a cohesive marketing operation, and everything is always changing.

You want to deliver results for your company while juggling everything at once. 

Need some help to make sure you're not forgetting anything? We got you -- here is the ultimate marketing checklist you need.

1) Email Marketing

Email marketing can be automated or outbound, depending on what your campaigns, your personas, and objectives are. Some things to pay close attention to include:

• Contact List: Segmenting your lists and the quality of contacts

• Email Distribution: Sending emails at the right time and frequency

• Subject Lines: Keeping your subject lines short and engaging

• Templates: Leveraging templates for efficient and scalable marketing efforts

Here are some KPIs and metrics you should keep an eye on:

• Open Rate

• Click-Through Rate (CTR)

• Source of Traffic via email (Google Analytics)

• Goal Completions (Google Analytics)

• Unsubscribe Rate

• Spam Score

2) Social Media Management

We all know social media is important for your brand, but which platform does your buyer persona use? What type of content do they want to see? Understand your buyer before you build your social media program, and consider the following:

• User Preference: Preference of platform and content types, all based on your buyer persona.

• Cost vs. Value: You're looking for impressions and results. Ask yourself the following questions; Is your acquisition cost worth spending? Do other platforms offer an opportunity to generate equal or higher qualified leads, for less cost?

• Formatting and Messaging: Again, this is dependent on the social platform your posting on. For example, LinkedIn generally gets better engagement with longer post copy, where Twitter has a character-count limit.

Here are some KPIs and metrics you should keep an eye on:

• Cost per Click (CPC)

• Cost per Result / Cost per Lead / Cost per Conversion

• Cost per thousands (CPM) - Price for 1,000 impressions 

• Days and Times when most followers are online

• Organic reach and engagement

3) Blogging

Blogging allows you the opportunity to answer prospect's questions, address pain points during the buyer's journey, and establish yourself as an industry expert. When blogging, it's important to consider the following:

• Keywords: Research what search phrases will connect the user intent with the purpose of your blog post.

• Formatting: Your blog should be easy to follow, with main points clearly outlined as headers and important information bolded.

• Content Gaps: Your blogs should be purpose-driven, based on the buyer's journey of your ideal prospect. It should address their pain points and questions, guiding them from an awareness of their need to the selection of their solution.

Check out this E-commerce case study our team wrote to see how we leveraged blogging for massive organic growth. 

Here are some KPIs and metrics you should keep an eye on:

• Page Views (per day, per week, month, etc.) 

• Sources of Traffic

• Your CTA (call-to-action) Conversion Rate

4) Content Creation

Content is crucial for many reasons. It helps your site establish credibility and relevancy in the eyes of Google, and it is the start of a conversation with your prospects. To do it right, some questions you should ask when creating content  include:

• What questions does it answer for your prospects?

• When viewing this content, what stage of the buyer's journey would your prospects be in?

• Is it clear and easy to consume? How do graphics, design, and formatting impact this piece of content?

• Does your tone accurately represent your brand? Does your tone resonate with your intended prospect?

• How many similar content pieces will this compete against?

5) Search Marketing & Paid Media

Search marketing is often an underappreciated and overlooked component of a company's marketing strategy. Your visibility in search results has a direct impact on the leads and sales generated from your website.

Here are two aspects to consider when implementing search marketing: 

• Google AdWords

  • Be sure to use single keyword ad groups for lower costs and higher conversion rates. SKAGs allow you to have highly targeted messaging and bids, providing for all around better performance. If I only had one suggestion, this would be it.
  • Run experiments to test different bidding strategies every few months. Depending on your audience, Google may be more efficient at managing your bids than a human, and vice versa. If you like to be in control, try manual CPC.
  • Leverage "Similar Audiences" if you find a re-targeting (or prospecting) audience that responds particularly well to your advertising.
  • Create a visualization that depicts long-term trends for your most important metrics; You can do this directly in the new AdWords interface.

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

  • When optimizing your site, focus less on keywords and more on topics. Google is now advanced enough to understand what a page is about, without having to rely on meta titles or keyword frequency.
  • Use internal links to quickly and easily push pages up in the rankings. Find the pages on your site that carry the most authority, then link from them to the pages you want to move in the SERPs!
  • Use data from sources like Google AdWords to help optimize your content. Their search queries report is an absolute gold mine for SEO, be sure to leverage it!
  • Set up Google Alerts for your brand name, then check to make sure you receive a do-follow link where you're mentioned in the content.

Sometimes you need to take a deep dive into your website to uncover problematic areas. This is an opportunity for a comprehensive SEO audit. 

6) Creative Design & Development

Creative elements make your brand stand out; whether it's planning and editing your social posts, designing print materials, or website design-- there's a lot to consider. You don't have to be an arts major to make appeasing content. There are certainly enough free tools on the Internet to help you achieve the basics. Here are some things to keep in mind:

• Have a Brand Style Guide
  • This should include proper logo usage, typography (have a header hierarchy), color palette. This ensures you keep your brand consistent across print and web materials.
• Engagement is higher on content that integrates visuals
  • Can any of your information be shown visually? (think infographics!)
• Incorporate video whenever necessary!
  • It's the most engaging form of content out there.
• Make sure your website navigation / UX is easy to follow
  • There should be a set user path, leading the visitor to convert! With that being said, be sure to properly incorporate calls-to-action.

8) Offline Marketing

Traditional marketing can be a great addition to any digital marketing campaign, but making sure they compliment each other is the key. These examples are billboards, radio, print advertisements, TV ads, etc. Keep in mind are:

• Leveraging unique phone call tracking, with services like CallRail
• Driving traffic to a dedicated landing page with specific CTAs
• Integrating promo codes into your marketing campaigns
• Tracking the effectiveness of each channel

Here are some KPIs and metrics you should keep an eye on:

• Unique phone calls
• Web traffic and landing page conversions 
• # of coupons or promo codes processed
• Traffic source from each campaign/channel

9) Sales Support

Sales collateral is crucial part of client acquisition. Providing the right materials, messaging and marketing at the right time can make the difference between a sold opportunity and a lost opportunity. You can use tools like HubSpot's 'Documents' that allows you track opens, how long they view the document, etc.

• Being fluent in graphic tools like Adobe Creative Cloud to design and create marketing pieces

• Having intimate knowledge of all product and service offerings

• Having a clear understanding of the buyer persona and all their pain points

• Having have the ability to attribute specific sales outcomes directly to marketing

Here are some KPIs and metrics you should keep an eye on:

• Number of opens and avg duration of reading documents
• Number of leads generated
• Managing the quality of leads and move them from Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) to Sale Qualified Leads (SQLs)
  

10) Public Relations 

A Press Release is a great opportunity to promote or announcement big news from your business that you'd like your industry or community to take note of.
Make sure to:

• Have the right PR strategy that aligns your brand, your area, and audience
• Combine the right message with the right CTA
• Don't just announce; provide value that is newsworthy
• Choose the right PR partner that will get you the exposure you deserve
• Track the number of publications that picked up your Press Release and utilize it for a SEO content strategy

11) Reporting & Metrics

Reporting doesn't have to be a task you and your team dread every month. In fact, reporting is an opportunity to discover quick, easy wins to make your job easier. It's also an opportunity to win over key stakeholders, earn more budget, and even toot your own horn a little bit.

To do this, you'll want to assess the performance of your earned media (referrals, brand mentions, etc.), paid media (Google AdWords, Facebook advertising, etc.) and your owned media (website traffic, blog, etc.). Bottom-line metrics our agency is most concerned with include:

• Earned Media:
  • Backlinks (quality, quantity, context)
  • Brand mentions (reviews, PR)
  • Social Media (followers, engagement)
  • Traffic from referral sources
• Paid Media:
  • Conversion volume (form submissions, phone calls, contact page visits)
  • Conversion rate (percentage of those who converted out of those who engaged)
  • Cost-per-conversion (the cost to acquire a conversion action)
  • Reach (number of unique prospects receiving an impression)
• Owned Media:
  • Visits to the blog
  • Website engagement (bounce rate, time on site, pages/session)
  • Website conversions (form submissions, phone calls, newsletter sign-ups)
  • Website conversion rate

And if you're looking to automate your reporting every month, check out a tool like Klipfolio, which will allow you to build custom dashboards based on virtually any data source. 

Conclusion

As you can see, marketing today has multiple moving parts and can be overwhelming for a small team. Some things can be handled in-house, but you may find it more effective to partner with a marketing agency. Our clients partner with us to access our team of specialists at the cost of one full-time generalist. We are here to help! To learn more, check out our marketing retainers.