In our weekly blog posts, we usually provide tips, tricks and trends on activities you can do to get the most out of your small business marketing efforts. It recently came to our attention that we never really discussed how to organize your marketing efforts and avoid any pitfalls or “marketing emergencies”. This week, we’re going to provide some crucial insights and suggestions on how to keep your marketing efforts organized and on track. While some of these suggestions might be basic, a few should serve as gentle reminders and will hopefully save you grief should you run into an unexpected situation with your marketing efforts.
Keep track of those passwords to keep marketing efforts organized
I don’t know about you, but we have hundreds of passwords that we must keep track of at any given time, not only for our own internal marketing efforts but for our clients’ marketing efforts as well. We won’t bother mentioning that you need to vary your passwords and update them regularly (you should!) but what we would suggest is that you utilize one of several great resources to keep those passwords organized. Handling marketing for any size company requires numerous passwords and it’s a sad day when you try to access a marketing account and realize you’ve been locked out or somehow forgot your password. Here are a few great resources to wrangle all those passwords and keep prying eyes out.
- Keeper
- LastPass
- Password Boss
- LogMe Once
See what PCMagazine has to say about these tools and which is the best for you.
Make sure you have multiple ways to access any account
Have you ever used a phone number to log into an account, and then down the road, you no longer have that phone number, or the cell phone is out of reach? It’s a bummer. Many marketing tools, including social media accounts, give you the option of adding multiple email addresses or adding both a phone number and email address as options to access your account. Do yourself a favor and add an alternate way to log in. If your only access to an account is an email address you no longer have or can’t access, you may find yourself unable to access tools. Not only that, should you forget a password (see above!) and the only way to reset it is to send you a text message or email address, it’s a really good idea to have options on where you want that password reset info sent. While you’re at it, your social channels usually want a cell phone they can text to, so if you have your office line or other landline listed for password recovery, again you may be out of luck. Take a moment to check that now before you actually need it!
Change your passwords whenever there’s a change in personnel
Whether you have employee turnover or use a third party to manage your marketing accounts, it’s a good idea to change those passwords whenever there’s a change in personnel to keep your marketing efforts organized and protected. If someone departed on less than friendly terms, you want to ensure you can access your accounts. However, even if the parting was friendly, the fewer people who have access to your accounts the better. We’ve spent A LOT of time with new clients we onboard who have no idea how to access their accounts and no contact with the person who used to have access. This little step is well worth the extra effort.
Use 2-step verification on your accounts whenever possible
We get it: your busy and having to receive an email or text whenever you log into an account can be a big huge pain but trust us, you’ll want to do this! Fraud is rampant and having a social media or other marketing account hacked is nothing short of a complete nightmare. We’ve heard from companies who had ex-employees lock them out of accounts and they never even knew it until that person was long gone. We ourselves experienced this first-hand recently when our domain was accessed without our knowledge. Why? We didn’t have a 2-step verification that alerted us a change had happened with account access. Trust us when we say, we immediately added it! We’re still recovering from this but luckily, we kept good records of all passwords so we were able to react quickly to keep the marketing emergency to a minimum and business completely uninterrupted. Still, what a nightmare. Learn from our mistake! We’ve been doing this for a LONG time and are diligent about security and being organized yet this one account slipped by us. Never again! Here are a few other ideas to keep your company website safe.
Have a good webmaster on speed dial
If you are your own webmaster, then you’re in the clear here! However, if you have a challenging technical issue with your website or domain, you need professional help fast. Hosting companies don’t always react with the same sense of urgency you need, so having a competent, professional webmaster is critical since websites are so important to small business owners. A big shoutout to the team at ROI4My and WPSitehelpers who immediately jumped to action when we had domain issues.
Handling marketing for your small business can be a lot of work. Be sure you’re following the suggestions above to keep your marketing efforts organized and on track, not to mention protected!
- Marketing Tactics That Your Small Business Can Do for Free - January 10, 2024
- How to Create Images for Your Small Business Website - December 6, 2023
- How Small Businesses Benefit from Referrals - November 6, 2023
