Plan your marketing year
How to Create a Marketing Calendar
You don’t need to use any special type of calendar to create your marketing calendar. A regular wall calendar will work fine or even a handheld planner. If you are more of a visual type you many want to use a large wall calendar so that you can see the entire year at a glance.
Once you have selected the calendar you will use, you should begin filling it in with holidays and important dates so that you can see how these will affect your marketing campaigns. Once your important dates have been added to the calendar, you should begin adding business specifics. Is one month consistently busier than another? Do you offer an annual sales event? Are there any upcoming training events? These are the items that you should add to the marketing calendar next.
With some basics already added to the calendar, you can plan your marketing campaigns and find the best way to fit them onto the calendar. You should block off your marketing campaigns. Color coding works great for a marketing calendar. You should mark off the entire time frame of the marketing campaign and add campaign goals and important notes to the calendar.
How to Use Your New Marketing Calendar
Once your new calendar is filled in, you now have a powerful tool under your control. You should first be using the calendar to make sure that you know what marketing strategies and tactics you should be working on. There are also certain tasks that you should be completing on a weekly, monthly, and annual basis.
Weekly
Your calendar will tell you what marketing campaigns are happening which weeks. Every week you should be checking the calendar to make sure that your campaigns are beginning and ending on schedule. You should also be making sure to add the budget and actual expense of each campaign.
Monthly
On a monthly basis, you should be making sure that the funds needed for the marketing campaigns are available. You should also look over the month and decide if you need to hire any additional support for the proper execution of your campaign. By looking at this at the beginning of the month, you will be sure to have all the staff needed to support your marketing efforts.
Annually
Annually, you will be reviewing the calendar for patterns and trends. Never throw away a past marketing calendar. It holds so much information about the upcoming year. You will be able to gather a very accurate estimate of your current marketing costs. You will also be able to combat cyclical income by reviewing your past marketing calendar.
Your task for this week is to set up your marketing calender, as you have seen above, it is a simple and easy process and will keep you on track for the next twelve months.
