Marketers have a lot on their plate, regardless of the marketing you do or the size of your team. Between scheduling email blasts, balancing PPC budgets, launching social campaigns and cranking out content, keeping track of your company’s overall marketing efforts is no easy task. That’s why marketing calendars are essential. But you might be making two common mistakes that are holding you back.
More Than One Calendar
How many calendars do you really have? Do you have a separate calendar for each team, client and individual? Or separate calendars that map out email blasts or promotional events? Chances are that you’re navigating between too many calendars and will never catch up. Not to mention a huge headache. Try using one calendar that everyone can access. This will keep everyone on the same page.
Flexibility
Your calendar is supposed to help plan activities, not set them in stone. If you can’t use your calendar to move things around, you’ll never use it at all. People are naturally visual, which is a big reason why we use calendars to plan. Once you’ve laid everything out on a calendar, gaps and overlaps will become significantly easier to spot. You can even try allowing your calendar to set placeholders for your marketing programs without “going live.” If you can’t easily add, subtract and rearrange, you’ll miss out.
Being in the marketing or advertising industry, there are many things to juggle at once. Having a calendar will help you map out your month or year. It will give you a visual idea of what you can expect to come.
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