Does your agency have this simple tool?
There’s a simple and effective tool that is missing from most agencies. It’s a tool that pulls together all of your marketing efforts and helps you identify gaps and even strengths. The best news? It’s really easy to get started. The tool we have in mind is a simple marketing calendar.
A marketing calendar should show every day of the month and maps out any marketing that your agency has planned for those days. It’s easy to set up in Excel using the format below.
You can create a column for each day of the month. Then have a row for each month that can also be split into different types of media. The sample below doesn’t include content, but you’d add each marketing initiative on the day or days that it occurs.
In many agencies marketing is a series of unrelated initiatives. It happens. But when and why a marketing campaign starts is often not tied to a bigger picture. Marketing gains strength when all of your marketing is working together. A marketing calendar helps you identify gaps in your current marketing strategy. It also allows you to tie all your marketing efforts together creating a stronger brand image.
For instance, if you have a direct mail ad that asks a prospect to visit your social media pages will the experience be cohesive? Will the message be the exact same? Will it be the next step in creating their curiosity? Or will they see a different product/service than what was in the direct mail piece?
All of your marketing should play together. It’s hard to do when you offer so many different services and products. Which is why a marketing calendar helps your agency focus on the bigger picture.
To get started on a marketing calendar follow these simple steps:
- Add any standard events, holidays, and seasonal marketing ideas to your calendar. This could include local fairs, races, federal holidays, your business anniversary, employee birthdays or work anniversaries, and seasonal events such as the typical start of wintry weather or even when people in your area tend to take vacations or celebrate life events such as graduations or weddings. This will help you piggyback your marketing ideas off what is going on in the lives of your clients and prospects.
- Start with three months. Don’t try to plan the entire year right now. As we know, things can change very rapidly and cause your marketing calendar to become out of date. Instead, start with three months and at the end of every month add another month to your rolling three. At the end of this year you’ll then have a template to start every year with standard events, holidays, and seasonal marketing ideas.
- Add additional topics. After you’ve added your events, holidays and seasonal marketing ideas, you will then be able to identify gaps in time that you need to fill with other marketing ideas. Refer to your Growth Strategy to identify your marketing goals. For example, is your goal to post on social media once a week or even once a day? Use your marketing calendar to map out when and how often you need to be marketing your brand and products/services.