Marketing

Marketing is where you plan the year, put on events, grow your lists and write to them. A message only ever goes to people who agreed to it, and every one carries a way to stop.

Its tabs: Plan (the Calendar, the Pipeline and Reports), Events, Design (Studio, Mailers, Social, and the AI studio's Pictures, Presentations and Short videos), Campaigns, Audiences (your audiences and the sign-up lists) and Grow (getting found, and your Social accounts). A tab with more than one view shows them under it.

The calendar

Calendar is the marketing year: your campaigns and events, the federal holidays, and the retail and gifting days (Mother's Day, Small Business Saturday). Switch on Christian, Jewish or Muslim holidays if they matter to your clients. Tap a day to plan something on it.

It is also your content plan. Every piece you mean to put out (a social post on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest or Google Business, an email, a blog post or a change to the website) shows on the day it goes out, by its channel and where it stands: an idea, drafting, ready, waiting for approval, scheduled, posting, posted, or did not post. Show a Month or a Week, and narrow it by channel, status or whose it is. Drag a piece to another day to move it; it keeps its time. Pieces with no day yet wait under No day yet, ready to drag onto one.

A social post

New post writes a post once and sends it to every platform you pick. It opens over the Calendar or the Pipeline.

1. Give it a title, and tap the platforms it goes to. A platform with an account connected posts through it; one without is still planned, and a person posts it there when the time comes.
2. Write the words once, with the hashtags and the link. Write it with the assistant drafts them in your brand voice from your knowledge boards.
3. Add its pictures: a new one, one of your pictures, a design from the Design tab drawn to a picture, or one of your website's videos (TikTok and YouTube need a video).
4. Give it the day and the time, or tap Best time to take one of the times your posts there have done best at (until there are a few, the middle of your morning or afternoon on the days you are open).
5. Look at each platform's tab: how the post reads there, and what the platform cuts or refuses, each said in a sentence. Instagram leaves a link out of the words (say "link in bio"), X takes 280 characters, Pinterest needs a board, Google Business takes one picture and a button, YouTube needs a video with a title. Tick Change the words or pictures for this platform only to give one platform its own, and fill in what it asks: a first comment on Instagram, a title on YouTube or Pinterest, the board, the kind of post and its button on Google Business.
6. Schedule it, and the app posts it on every connected platform at that time. Post now posts it this minute. A platform that refuses says why on its tab, and nothing else is held up.

Where a post stands shows on the Calendar and in the Pipeline: a draft, waiting for approval, scheduled (the app posts it then, or you do when no account is connected), posting, posted, or Did not post with the sentence that says why. When a platform is having trouble, the app tries again about an hour later, three times; when the platform refuses the post outright, it stops and waits for you to change it or choose Try again. A post you put up yourself is marked posted with its link, as before.

Once a post the app made is up, its results (impressions, reach, views, likes, comments, shares, saves and clicks, as the platform counts them) come back once a day for 28 days, on the post and in Reports. Pull them now asks this minute.

Approval

Under Grow, Social accounts, switch on Posts wait for approval before they go out. Then anyone with Marketing writes a post and chooses Send for approval; someone with the Approve social posts switch (owners always have it; an owner gives it under Settings, Logins) opens it and chooses Approve, which schedules it, or Turn it down with a word on what to change. A post that is reworded after it was approved is asked again.

A piece of content

1. Choose New piece, give it a title and pick its channel: email, the blog or the website. A post on a platform is written with New post.
2. Give it the day it goes out, and the time once you know it.
3. Write its copy, or choose Write it for me: the assistant writes it in your brand voice from your knowledge boards in Memory, and you edit it.
4. Add its pictures and hashtags, who owns it, the campaign it belongs to and what it promotes.
5. Choose Save.

Each piece says how it reaches its channel. The app publishes a blog piece itself: Publish now, or schedule it and it goes up by itself at its time. An email goes out as a campaign: Send it as a campaign opens Campaigns with its words, and the piece is marked posted once the campaign starts. The website is changed under Website: when it is up, choose Mark as posted with the page's address.

Once a piece is out, enter what it did (reach, likes, clicks) from where it went. For a social post the app made, the platform's own figures come back by themselves.

Pipeline

Pipeline is the same pieces as columns: Idea, Drafting, Ready, Scheduled and Posted. A social post's card says where it stands beyond its column: waiting for approval, posting, or did not post. Drag a card to move it on. A piece needs its day and time to go to Scheduled. Dragging one to Posted publishes a blog piece, opens a social post (to post it now, or mark it posted), or asks for the link of a piece you put up yourself.

Reports

Reports counts what went out each month on each channel, over the last 6 or 12 months, and adds up the reach, likes and clicks for each piece: pulled from the platform for a post the app made, entered by hand for the rest. By Platform adds up everything each platform gave back for the posts the app made there.

Events

An open house, a launch, a workshop, a pop-up. Under Events, add one with a picture and a description. Each event gets a flyer and its own page anyone can open to reserve a place, and you see who is coming. Share the link on Instagram and Facebook, add it to your Google Business Profile as an event, and print the flyer for the front desk.

Lists people join themselves

Under Audiences, Sign-up lists are three lists: the Newsletter (news and tips by email), the Mailing list (offers by email) and the Text list (offers by text). Nobody is ever added without saying yes.

Join the list is one page where anyone picks the newsletter, offers by email, offers by text, or all three. Put its code at the front desk, on receipts and in your Instagram bio. From a list, write a newsletter or an offer to everyone on it.

Audiences

An audience is a set of clients picked by rules from your records: their last visit (more than so many days ago, or never), what they have had, a birthday in a month, new in the last so many days, what product they last bought. Some are ready-made: Everyone, Not seen in 60 days, New in the last 30 days, Regulars (5 visits or more) and Never visited. Under Audiences, choose New audience for your own, set the rules, and see who is in it. An audience keeps its rules, not a list of names, so it is always current when it is used.

Campaigns

1. Under Campaigns, choose New campaign.
2. Pick the Audience.
3. Choose to Send it as a text or an email, and for an email, A plain message or A designed email from your layouts.
4. Write it, or say what it is about and let the assistant write a first version for you to edit. Add their first name puts each person's name in.
5. Check How it reads, then send it.

Each person only gets it if they agreed to that kind of message; those who asked to stop are left out and counted.

Studio: flyers, mailers and posts

Studio makes print and social designs from your logo and colors: flyers, postcards, posts at the right size for each network, with a code to scan that lands people on your page. Words shrink on their own when they would not fit. Download the print file for a print shop, with bleed added.

Mailers walks you through Every Door Direct Mail: the Postal Service delivers one piece to every address on the carrier routes you pick, with no mailing list and no permit. Pick a size marked EDDM, design it, switch on the postage box, print it, pick your routes, pay and print the paperwork, and drop it off.

Pictures, presentations and short videos made for you

Beside the Studio, three views make material with AI on the Design studio add-on: Pictures from a few words in your colors, Presentations written from a brief and your knowledge boards, and Short videos shot by shot. Each costs credits from a monthly allowance. The design studio says how it works and what it costs.

Email layouts

Email Layouts lays out a designed email with blocks, your look and ready-made templates. Keep it under Templates, and the team picks it when writing a campaign.

Social accounts

Under Grow, Social accounts, connect the accounts the app posts through: Connect sends you to the platform's own page to say yes, and brings you back. One sign-in with Meta reaches your Facebook pages and the Instagram accounts tied to them; one with Google, your YouTube channels and Google Business locations; TikTok, X, LinkedIn (a company page) and Pinterest each reach their own. Connect the same platform again for another account. Pause an account to stop posting through it for a while; Disconnect forgets its sign-in at once (the posts it made keep their record). Until this server has a platform's own app set up, its button says so and waits.

The same screen keeps the @names your website and emails show for each network, filled in by the connected account unless you type something else, and the approval switch.

Grow

Grow lists what gets a local business found, in the order that pays back fastest: claim and complete your Google Business Profile and post to it every week, ask every happy customer for a review, list the business on Apple Maps, Bing and Yelp, publish your website with a title and description, answer the questions people ask, put your sign-up page everywhere, and write to people you have not seen. The ones the app can see for itself tick on their own; tick the rest as you do them.

Best practices

• Grow your lists before you write to them. The Join the list code at the front desk is the cheapest marketing you have.
• Write to an audience, not everyone. "Not seen in 90 days" with a reason to come back beats a blast.
• Plan around the calendar a month ahead: Mother's Day, the holidays, back to school.
• Keep every piece on the content plan, even the ones you post by hand, and mark each one posted with its link. Then Reports shows what works.
• Write a post once and let each platform's tab tell you what it cuts: a shorter version for X, the link in the bio on Instagram, a board on Pinterest.
• Schedule posts at the best time once a few have gone out: the app reads it from the results that came back.
• Fill in the Brand voice board in Memory before you ask the assistant to write. It writes the way the cards say.
• Let the assistant write the first draft, then make it sound like you.
• Use the Grow checklist from the top. A complete Google Business Profile brings more clients than any campaign.