A Marketing Calendar is a Must!
By Jody Gabourie

Okay, you’ve sat down and created your marketing plan. That’s great! But there’s still one more important step you need to take to ensure success.

You MUST transfer the information in your plan to a marketing calendar. You can use your Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a big whiteboard on the wall, a paper desktop monthly calendar, Outlook or anything else that works for you. Just make sure the end-result is in a prominent place where you can see it every day. This will lessen the chances of missing something, feeling overwhelmed, procrastination and falling behind on your plan.

The point is that you need to have some place where you can schedule all of your marketing activities. With a marketing calendar you will be able to:

• Know exactly when you need to begin working on a specific marketing tactic.

• Clearly see the steps you need to take to implement a specific strategy.

• Identify gaps in your marketing schedule throughout the year.

• Schedule for any seasonal ups and downs in your industry / business.

• Work around holidays, vacations, out-of-town events you’re attending, etc.

• Identify and incorporate any national holidays into your marketing communications and content.

There are 3 general types of marketing activities that you should put on your calendar:

1. Regularly occurring activities

   These are marketing tasks that you do on a regular basis, such as: write your ezine, submit articles to online directories, hold bi-monthly seminars, send out monthly assignments to your membership group, do blog posts, add articles to your website, record your podcasts, and so on.

2. Once-off activities

   Many marketing tasks usually occur only once during a calendar year. Some examples are: design a new business card, launch a new product or service (you may do this several times a year), set up an affiliate program, create a referral program, conduct an annual 3-day workshop, write and publish a book, do a joint venture with someone, etc.

3. Marketing administration tasks

   There are many administrative activities associated with marketing that you also need to schedule into your calendar. Many people mistakenly think of these as unimportant, but they’re crucial to the success of your marketing.

   Some examples are: check your "numbers" (visits to your website, sign-ups to your ezine, attendees to your seminars); take a look at your website copy and marketing materials to ensure they’re still relevant, fresh, targeted and valuable to your audience; set up your tracking mechanisms for each marketing tactic; stay current (read and research) on your industry / competition / possible Joint Venture partners / workshops / resources; review the upcoming quarter of your marketing calendar (is everything on track, does anything need to be changed, does anything need to be added?) and so on.

As you can see, there are many important tasks that need to be scheduled into your marketing calendar. Don’t let all the work you’ve done on your marketing plan go to waste because you haven’t put it on your calendar!

Read more ZA Tips! articles »