Have you ever felt overwhelmed with your marketing options? Have you struggled to know what to market and when? Felt overwhelmed by the possibilities but in complete inaction because of the fear of getting it wrong?

Then creation of your own unique marketing calendar could be just the answer.

Your marketing calendar could just be the first step to getting a clear head about what you’ll be marketing and when in the next 3, 6 or 12 months. This will essentially help you to plan the marketing strategies that best support your business and get your message out to your ideal clients.

Every six months I create my own Web Chameleon marketing calendar. I map out what I will launch & promote in the next 6 months and the exact timeframes of what I will be marketing within specific months. In fact, I map it down to the day.

For me, this marketing calendar provides me with clarity on time frames, program launches, product promotions, workshop planning and more.

It also provides clarity on how we will achieve our financial plans and goals, as well as helping to plan my own and my team’s time.

If you like to make planning complicated then it may not be for you. But if you appreciate keeping life and business simple and making things work then you might like my plan for creating your marketing calendar…

Here’s the Three Steps I personally use to create my own Marketing Calendar:

1) Post It Notes. An essential component!

You’ll need a heap of small size post it notes and a clear space to work through this process – I suggest clearing your desk or using a clear wall in your office.

Brainstorm your potential launches for new products, programs or services. Write these and any other ideas you have for workshops, promotions etc on a seperate post it note. One post it note per promotion, workshop etc.

Lay these out on your work space so they are all in front of you.

2) A calendar.

There are two main options here. If you use Word I suggest using a calendar template and just print the next 6 months, 2 months per page. This is what I do.

Alternatively purchase a whiteboard 12 month calendar.

You could also use an online calendar but I find having something tangible in front of me to be my preference. I also use online for everything else so it’s nice for a change to hand write some things!

3) Creating your Marketing Calendar. The fun part.

You’ll need to have your calendar in front of you, and mark on it any dates that are already scheduled such as workshops, events etc that are already in your diary. Next go month by month and decide where to place the post it notes.

The beauty here is that you can move them till you get it just right. It’ll quickly become apparent if you’ve got too much going on in one month and so you can spread the launches and promotions evenly across the available time.

The End Result…

It’s amazing that once you start to map out when you will do what, and what you will be promoting when, that you’ll see the gaps in your calendar, as well as the potential overwhelm due to too many things going on in a short space of time.

Seeing the visual of your upcoming promotions and timeframes will enable you to become clear on what you need to do step by step to implement your marketing calendar.

The above is just a simplistic guide and forms the basis of how I create my own Web Chameleon marketing calendar. It’s also the basis of how I work with clients to create theirs. Sometimes having two brains is better than one, so hook up with a friend to do this or contact Web Chameleon for assistance!

Want to add your feedback or suggestion? Your comments are welcome below.