How Planning Calendars Take Your Marketing and Advertising to the Next Level

Does it feel like you never have enough time for marketing and advertising? Does it usually feel like a mad dash to come up with promotional ideas or marketing content?

You’re not alone.

Many business owners and managers fall into this trap because there are just so many responsibilities and priorities in a given day. Marketing and advertising goes on the backburner to deal with immediate business operational issues. However, if you want to grow your business, you need marketing.

So how do you get out of this trap so you can start expanding your business with marketing and advertising?

It starts by developing planning calendars.

 

What are planning calendars?

Planning calendars allow you to stay organized and on top of important advertising and marketing initiatives. They are living documents that outline company content and promotions. They provide you with a roadmap so you stay on top of things. Below is an example of a planning calendar for a home security company blog.

It’s important to note that planning calendars are not limited to blogs. This is just one example.

Depending on your situation, planning calendars can be yearly, monthly, weekly or even daily. The more detailed you are in planning, the better prepared that you’ll be.

With a planning calendar, you won’t feel as overwhelmed when it comes to advertising and marketing because you have a guide to follow.

You should set up planning calendars for:

  • Promotional sales and deals throughout the year – This should include all promotional sales items for holidays and other planned sales events at your business. Also contact your vendors to brainstorm great promotional ideas.

 

  • Advertising calendars by channel – If you’re planning on doing any type of advertising, you’ll want to have a calendar for each channel that lists promotions and other important information. This can include website, blogs, social media, direct mail, print, radio, etc.

 

  • Calendars for content marketing – A planning calendar can help you outline all of the content ideas that you have for the given year. This can include white papers, case studies, articles, blog posts, webinars, podcasts, videos, infographics, etc. If you have any type of content designed to attract website visitors and sales, you’ll want to put it on your calendar so you can prepare for it.

 

  • Social media marketing planning calendars – Map out social media posts and other content ideas for every business social media channel.

With planning calendars, you can slice a huge marketing or advertising project into smaller daily tasks so it doesn’t feel like you’re trying to do the impossible. Plus you can assign tasks to your employees and outside marketing support team so you’re not doing it all alone.

 

What are the benefits?

Besides making things more manageable, there are several benefits to having planning calendars for marketing and advertising.

  • Benefit #1: More Sales – Planning calendars force you to sit down and strategize. You’ll make smarter decisions because you have to actually plan and think. It will be a lot easier to increase sales.
  • Benefit #2: Better Promotional Offers – By planning ahead, you have more time to work with vendors to come up with special pricing and offers that actually sell. No more measly 5 to 10% discounts. You can really brainstorm some sales-driving offers.
  • Benefit #3: Time Savings – Because you have everything planned ahead of time, you’re not scrambling to come up with content or promotional ideas on the fly.
  • Benefit #4: Money Savings – With planning calendars, you have a roadmap to follow, which makes you more efficient and saves you money.
  • Benefit #5: Things Get Done – You’re better organized with a planning calendar, which means important things won’t fall through the cracks.
  • Benefit #6: No Finger Pointing – Assignments and responsibilities are outlined on planning calendars so everyone at your business knows their job.

 

How do I develop planning calendars?

Developing planning calendars can be done by following these simple steps.

  • Step #1: Set aside time to plan – If you want to do it right, you need to carve out time to develop these calendars. Find the time even if it’s afterhours or on the weekend.
  • Step #2: Create goals – What are you goals for the year? Are you looking to increase online sales? Do you want to build a following on Facebook to increase sales? Start by writing down your goals.
  • Step #3: Identify advertising and marketing channels – Find channels that will help you reach your goals. You will want to develop a planning calendar for each marketing and advertising channel that you choose. You’ll also want to create a promotional calendar that lists all potential sales promotions throughout the year such as Black Friday, Fourth of July, etc. Depending on your situation, you’ll want to plan by year, month, week, day or all of the above.
  • Step #4: Lay out content and promotional ideas for each calendar – An easy way to start filling in content and promotional items on your calendars is to create themes for different time periods. As an example, November/December would probably have a holiday theme to it. By doing this, you’ll be able to easily create individual topics and promotions for given days and weeks of the month.
  • Step #5: Assign responsibilities to people on the calendars – You don’t have to tackle all of the content and promotional copy by yourself. Assign employees or even outside help to different responsibilities on the calendar.
  • Step #6: Make the calendars shareable – Make it easy for everyone to have access to the calendars at your business. Consider using an online calendar program like Outlook, Google Calendar or iCal.
  • Step #7: Measure and revise calendars – Throughout the year, check to see if you’re on track with meeting your goals. Make adjustments to your calendars if things don’t seem to be working out. These calendars are live documents. Nothing is set in stone.

You don’t have to develop all of these calendars on your own. At Right On – No Bull Marketing, we have years of experience developing planning calendars and creating sales-driving content and promotions.

Find out more about us by visiting www.RightOn-NoBull.com. We’re offering a free 30-minute business growth strategy session to help you generate more sales leads. You can find out more here.

 





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