Welcome to mktg.directory, the modern marketing operating system designed to centralize all your marketing tools, data, and workflows. Whether you're a solo marketer, small team, or enterprise organization, this guide walks you through initial setup, key features, and best practices to maximize your investment.
Why mktg.directory?
Most marketing teams juggle 5-10 different tools: email platform, CRM, analytics, content calendar, project management, asset storage. This fragmentation causes:
- Data silos (lead information scattered across systems)
- Manual data entry and integration headaches
- Lack of unified visibility into customer journey
- Wasted time context-switching between tools
- Higher costs (paying multiple vendors)
mktg.directory consolidates your essential marketing functions into one platform, eliminating silos and improving team efficiency by 30-40%.
Step 1: Account Setup (Day 1)
Create Your Account:
- Sign up at mktg.directory
- Verify your email
- Choose your workspace name (visible in your URL)
- Set your timezone
- Invite team members with appropriate roles
Define Your Team:
- Admin: Full access, can manage workspace settings
- Editor: Can create and edit campaigns, audiences, content
- Viewer: Read-only access to dashboards and reports
- Analyst: Can create reports but not edit campaigns
Start small (2-3 people) and add team members as needed. Each person should have the minimum permissions required for their role.
Step 2: Connect Your Data (Week 1)
mktg.directory is most powerful when connected to your existing systems. Start with these core integrations:
CRM Integration:
- HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, or other CRM
- Syncs customer data, contacts, deal stages, properties
- Enables lead scoring and qualification within mktg.directory
- Allows marketing to see which leads convert to customers
Email Platform Integration:
- Mailchimp, ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign, or other email service
- Syncs email lists, subscriber engagement, campaign performance
- Enables email automations based on CRM data and behaviors
Analytics Integration:
- Google Analytics, Mixpanel, or other analytics platform
- Syncs website traffic, conversion rates, user behaviors
- Enables targeting based on website behavior
Ad Platform Integration:
- Google Ads, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads
- Syncs campaign performance, spend, and conversions
- Enables unified reporting across all paid channels
Start with your most critical integration (usually CRM or email) and add others progressively.
Step 3: Set Up Your Audience Framework (Week 1)
Define who you're trying to reach:
Create Audience Segments:
- Demographic: Company size, industry, location
- Behavioral: Website visitors, content downloaders, email openers
- Firmographic: Revenue, growth rate, technology stack
- Psychographic: Values, concerns, priorities
Example segments for a B2B SaaS company:
- High-intent prospects (requested demo, viewed pricing)
- Content consumers (downloaded guides, attended webinars)
- Existing customers (paying users)
- Lapsed customers (stopped using product)
- Competitors' users (identified from email domain)
Use these segments for targeting and personalization in your campaigns.
Step 4: Create Your Content Calendar (Week 2)
Use mktg.directory's content calendar to plan and track all marketing activities:
- Calendar View: See all campaigns, content, and events across channels
- Create Campaigns: Blog posts, email sequences, paid ads, social content
- Assign Owners: Who's responsible for each initiative
- Set Deadlines: When campaigns should launch
- Track Status: Draft, scheduled, live, completed
Start with mapping your next 30 days of planned marketing. This creates visibility and prevents bottlenecks.
Step 5: Build Your First Campaign (Week 2)
Let's build a simple email campaign to get familiar with mktg.directory:
Campaign Setup:
- Name: "Welcome Email for New Subscribers"
- Type: Email
- Audience: New email subscribers from last 30 days
- Goal: Introduce product and drive demo request
Email Creation:
- Use email editor or import HTML
- Personalize with recipient's first name, company
- Include clear call-to-action (Request Demo button)
- A/B test subject lines
Automation Rules:
- Send when someone joins audience: New subscriber
- Best sending time: Tuesday 10am based on engagement data
- Follow-up: If no open, send reminder after 3 days
Tracking:
- Track opens, clicks, conversions
- Link demo requests back to CRM
- Measure email's contribution to pipeline
Step 6: Set Up Your Dashboard (Week 3)
Your dashboard should show the metrics that matter most to your business. Typical dashboard includes:
Top-Level KPIs:
- Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) this month
- Cost per Lead
- Lead-to-Customer conversion rate
- Marketing pipeline influence
Channel Performance:
- Email campaign performance (open rate, click rate, conversions)
- Paid ad performance (spend, impressions, clicks, conversions, ROAS)
- Content performance (page views, time on page, conversions)
- Social media performance (engagement, followers, conversions)
Audience Insights:
- New audiences added this month
- Audience growth rate by segment
- Engagement rates by segment
Customize your dashboard so it reflects your business priorities. Check it daily or weekly to stay aligned on performance.
Step 7: Establish Reporting Cadence (Week 3)
Set up automated reports to track progress and identify trends:
Weekly Report:
- Leads generated and cost per lead
- Top-performing campaigns
- Any metrics significantly off target
Monthly Report:
- All KPIs vs. monthly target
- Channel performance comparison
- Audience growth and engagement
- Recommendations for next month
Share these reports with stakeholders automatically. Create accountability and visibility.
Step 8: Optimize and Scale (Weeks 4+)
After the initial setup, focus on optimization:
- Review: What's working? What's not?
- Analyze: Why did certain campaigns outperform?
- Optimize: Increase budget to high-ROAS channels, pause low performers
- Test: Run A/B tests on messaging, timing, audience targeting
- Scale: Expand winning campaigns to new audiences or channels
Most of your value comes from continuous optimization, not just initial setup.
Best Practices for Success
1. Clean Your Data: Garbage in = garbage out. Spend time cleaning email lists and CRM records before importing. Remove duplicates, fix invalid emails, standardize company names.
2. Use Proper Segmentation: Don't send the same message to everyone. Segment by behavior, demographics, and interests. Personalized campaigns have 3-5x higher engagement.
3. Establish Clear Naming Conventions: Use consistent naming for campaigns, audiences, and reports. Makes it easy to find things later.
4. Document Your Processes: Create guides for team members on how to build campaigns, manage audiences, and interpret reports. Prevents knowledge from living in one person's head.
5. Review Regularly: Weekly or monthly reviews ensure you're hitting targets and learning what works. Don't set campaigns on autopilot and forget about them.
6. Connect to Revenue: Always measure marketing's impact on pipeline and revenue, not just lead volume. This changes priorities and budget allocation.
Common Beginner Mistakes
Over-complicating setup: Don't try to integrate everything on day one. Start with CRM and email, add others gradually.
Poor audience segmentation: Sending wrong message to wrong audience kills engagement. Invest time in building quality segments.
No success metrics: Track something meaningful (pipeline, revenue) not just vanity metrics (impressions, page views).
Inconsistent follow-through: Campaigns are only effective if executed consistently. Set up automation so campaigns run without manual intervention.
Getting Support
- Check mktg.directory help center and documentation
- Join community slack for questions and best practices
- Schedule onboarding call with mktg.directory specialist
- Review case studies to see how similar teams use the platform
Final Thoughts
Onboarding to mktg.directory is straightforward when taken step-by-step. Start with core setup (account, integrations, audience definition) in the first week, then move to campaign creation and optimization. Within 30 days, you'll have unified visibility into all marketing activities, better data, and stronger insights to guide strategy. Most teams see 25-40% improvement in marketing efficiency within the first 90 days.