Basic Checklist for Your Local Boutique’s Online Presence

So you own a local boutique or shop and you want to get the best marketing bang out of your website and your social media? Good for you! Even though you are a brick and mortar store, you should be online and on social media. You are missing some huge opportunities for local boutique marketing if you are not. Ideally, you will hire a social media manager to do this for you but if you are like many startups or small local businesses, you might not have the funds to make that happen. Don’t worry, you can easily take care of this yourself. It will take some time and patience but you can do it!

If you own a local boutique, clothing or otherwise, the following is what I recommend for your online presence

1. A mobile friendly website that looks modern and fresh (you need a website whether you sell online or not)
   1. it should capture emails that filter to email marketing software
   2. and have a blog
2. A Facebook account
3. A Google+ account
4. A Yelp account
5. An Instagram account
6. A Pinterest account
7. A Twitter account

Additionally, you will want to think about your target market before you nail down your social plan. Facebook appeals to an aging crowd so if your customers are mostly teens you might want to pick up SnapChat as well. If you love making videos use YouTube and Vine.

It sounds like a lot right? It is but don’t worry, you can often use the same content for several of the social outlets. For instance, you can write a blog post that will interest your target market (I’ll give you some suggestions to get the ideas flowing) then post a link to it on Facebook, use one of the photos on Instagram, and pin straight to Pinterest from the blog post.

Of course, it would be awesome to have your hand in all of the social media outlets out there but lets be honest, you probably don’t have time to manage but a select few if you are both the store owner AND the social media manager. You are running an entire business after all! Before you decide not to use all six of the social media outlets I mention above, read my post outlining the best social media outlets for local boutiques. I’ll tell you the benefits of each one.  For the best chance of success, give them all a chance!

In my next few blog posts I will walk you through setting everything up and then give you plenty of ideas for filling each social outlet with awesome content that will gain followers and bring your customers to your website. Once they arrive at your website, you will capture their email and tell them where your store is. Then using your extremely valuable email list, you will market your products to them, tell them about store events, sales, and more!

Let’s get started.

Here is an ordered check list of the tasks you need to complete to get your local boutique marketing socially up to speed:

1. Define your target market (don’t skip this step!)
2. Set up your website and blog
3. Capture emails on your website
4. Post a blog post that will interest your target market (tips for blogging for search engines included)
5. Set up your Facebook Account
6. Set up your Google+ Local Account
7. Set up your Yelp Account
8. Set up your Instagram Account
9. Set up your Pinterest Account (I recommend not skipping Pinterest…click to read why)
10. Follow our Pinterest board for local boutique marketing
11. Set up your Twitter Account
12. Make a master list of blog post ideas
13. Create boards that those blog posts will fit into on Pinterest
14. Start blogging, start posting, start pinning
15. Make a social calendar
16. Start email marketing