Last week, we put the foundation in place for creating your business marketing calendar for the year to come. If you aren’t up to speed, you can check it out here.
This week we’re taking it further by merging last year’s insights with planned activities for the year to come. In today’s post, we’re creating your business marketing calendar draft.
Ready? You need 25 minutes or so to read this post and schedule some activities for yourself, so let’s go. And you’ll also need a calendar. Use gcal, go buy yourself a shiny new planner, or download a year at a glance calendar freebie.
Your unblemished year-at-a-glance calendar is in front of you. A world of possibilities is waiting to be dumped from your brain onto that blank-ish sheet of paper. I also advise a collection of colorful Sharpie pens to help make this even more fun, but not everybody loves colorful pens the way that I do.
Step 1: Put last year’s winners on your business marketing calendar
The first thing we’re going to do is put all of the winning campaigns and activities from last year on the calendar for the year we’re planning. You want to be sure that the programs that worked well for you in the year we’re wrapping up get first dibs on calendar space, energy, and attention in the year ahead.
The New Year’s Resolution email campaign that outperformed your wildest sales goals? That’s going on this year’s calendar.
The investment in print advertising for a local tourism publication that resulted in your best spring traffic ever? Yep, we’re gonna do that again (with new creative, of course).
Your annual Labor Day Weekend party? Save the date, baby.
Step 2: Layer on this year’s activities to fill in the gaps
If you only do what you did last year, and you do that over and over again, your customers are going to catch wise, and engagement will plummet. Bring back your big winners, sure, but also plan to mix things up with new programming, products and services that build on the success of years past.
Need some inspo? Here’s what I take a look at:
Key holidays, seasonal themes, and customer mindset drivers
There are certain days and dates that drive customer behavior and also impact your business calendar. Make sure these are clearly marked on your business marketing calendar! Valentine’s Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Halloween… get ‘em all on the calendar! Even if you didn’t have a winning campaign last year that centered on those themes, they might represent an opportunity for the year to come.
If your business is impacted by changes in the seasons and weather, make a note of it.
I’ve written before about how our local tourism industry is significantly impacted by the change of seasons. If your business is impacted by foot traffic, you’ll want to make note of these on your business marketing calendar. These seasonal shifts represent opportunities for your business to capitalize on the uptick in tourism.
But they also make excellent opportunities for you to get creative, embrace constraints, and come up with something remarkable to drive visits when traffic is down. Collaborate with a few other local businesses to create an off-season event worth making a trip for. Or put together a “Locals Month” campaign to give the customers in your own backyard a taste of your best without having to compete with all those tourists hogging your real estate.
Changes in the seasons and weather also impact what we eat, drink, and wear. Be ready with lifestyle-driven content that aligns to these shifts:
“Our top three outfits for fall”
“We have the ingredients for your perfect spring menu!”
“Summer Essentials to help you keep cool”
If you operate in the B2B world, you might want to consider business planning cycles that are seasonally driven. While many businesses operate on a traditional calendar year that aligns to their fiscal year, others (such as school districts or some retailers) shift their fiscal year to align with their business activities. Maybe budget planning for your ideal business customer happens in June and July… be sure you’ve planned your own marketing activities to help your target business clients know what you have to offer when they’re planning how to allocate resources in the year ahead.
Other customer mindset drivers to be aware of include current events, your community, and your vertical.
“Back to School” themed campaigns can work whether you sell products, services, or education and professional development.
In the wine industry, bud break in the spring and harvest in the fall are important to the winemaking endeavor. They also represent an excellent opportunity to create engagement and share with their customers a behind-the-scenes look at the care and effort that goes into the product.
The Masters golf tournament captures the attention and imagination of far more than just the sports world in early April. It just so happens that advertising for the Masters commands a pretty hefty price tag (because people who are into golf are apparently also rich). Pick a golfer to root for, and offer one of your flagship products at the price of whatever they score in their practice round. Mix up a few golf-themed signature cocktails to serve during the tournament, and make sure your audience knows to drop in and try them all (on separate occasions, of course #responsibly).
This can be as creative and off-the-beaten-path or as straightforward and no-nonsense as your business demands.
Events & Product Releases
Does your business host or attend events throughout the year? Make a note of these on the calendar. These events potentially impact your business operations. For instance, being short-staffed during a big event might mean limited support for your customers during that window of time. Or your team might be improving their own knowledge and skill set at a professional development conference. Letting your customers know about this important investment in their experience is a great communication touchpoint to share. If they’re events specifically for your customers, help them easily plan ahead, purchase tickets, and/or RSVP.
Product launches are important to get on the calendar here as well. Some products have very strict release schedules, while others are released “as available” or “once the beta wraps up”. Regardless of your product release timing, having a general idea of when in the year you would like to introduce new products is of vital importance. If you know you want to release a product sometime in Q3, put it on your calendar in July and plan marketing activities in the preceding quarter to support the launch. It’s better to plan ahead and have to push back than to not plan at all, and try to rush a launch!
Planned content creation
This is your time to document all the other things you’ve dreamed up, or previously planned, that didn’t fit in above. Do you know you’re doing a photoshoot or video series in spring? Get that baby on the calendar. Did you dream up a blog series on holiday entertaining? Make sure to put that down as well.
A word on cadence:
Are you intentional about how frequently you broadcast on behalf of your business? If you haven’t been to this point, it’s time to start. You want to know how frequently you have been publishing marketing content, because cadence directly impacts your reach and effectiveness.
Do you blog weekly? Daily? Whenever you get around to it?
Do you send an email campaign every month, or every quarter?
Does social media get love every day, every week, or just whenever you grab a cool picture?
If you don’t have a preset cadence to start from, that’s okay. I’ll recommend one. Assess against your budget and resources and then adjust accordingly.
The EWW Ideal Minimum Cadence:
Daily – social media
Weekly – blog posts, podcast episodes
Monthly – email, print
As needed – events, website content updates
Summing it up:
To create your draft business marketing calendar, start by taking last year’s top performing activities and giving those priority on your 12-month calendar. Then, layer in the year ahead, considering seasonal and date-driven programs, events and release schedules, and other business marketing activities you’re dying to try out. With all of this on a 12-month calendar, you might see too much or too little in a specific month or quarter. Wrap up your draft by assessing your marketing cadence. Adjust if necessary.
With your draft business marketing calendar in place, it’s time to finalize and execute. Next week, I’ll share step-by-step instructions on how to execute the last piece of the puzzle!
After reading through these past two posts and (hopefully) getting your own start, are you feeling the magic start to kick in? Or are you feeling overwhelmed or just too busy to undertake this process? If you’re falling into the latter camp and want a hand to hold through this process, give me a shout. I’d love to support you in creating your business marketing calendar – it’s one of my all-time favorite projects.