As a business owner, priorities tend to shift and your upcoming marketing initiatives may end up at the bottom of the list or forgotten completely. You want to ensure your marketing plans are fully implemented in order to keep your business successful, especially for this upcoming year as more & more people are spending more time online than ever before. In our industry, planning ahead will ensure you stay ahead, especially for your marketing strategy. In order to prevent forgetting those important upcoming marketing plans or ideas, consider creating a Content & Promotions Calendar for your marketing strategy.
A content and promotions calendar is a living document or schedule of when & where you plan on posting upcoming content. This calendar can be created on a platform such as google calendar, or even google sheets, as long as it works for you and your team. This calendar-based plan for your content provides your business with a view of how & when your content will be published over a course of time. Its purpose is to help remind you about any marketing responsibilities in the future, while also keeping track of details & timing of what has been completed in the past. Where you post your content or promotions can range from your google my business, social media, to even your website. It’s a vital method of ensuring your online presence is consistently effective.
Our industry has an advantage for this type of calendar as services provided to your customers go according to each season. For example, providing an aeration service in the spring, or lawn fertilization in the fall. Being able to know what services will be provided, and when, allows you to plan ahead accordingly with posting any promotions, blogs, new services or even a showcase of your newest work. A content and promotions calendar is essentially a resource to ensure your marketing plan is moving forward in the right direction. Below are 4 benefits of creating a content & promotions calendar for your business:
1. Deadlines
A straightforward benefit from having a content and promotions calendar is having the ability to plan and track upcoming marketing content. When you assign tasks or deadlines for yourself or your team, it makes it easier for your business to drive your marketing plan forward as it sets expectations of when the content needs to be prepared. As mentioned before, knowing what services are provided for each season is an advantage in our industry. For example, if your business is planning to have a new spring fertilizer promotion, or a new pump winterization service for the winter, schedule to have any marketing material for that promotion or service prepared a month or more in advance. This can consist of a designed post, newsletter, or a blog post highlighting that announcement. Staying consistent with this method will ensure your business has an effective online presence.
Also, scheduling to have your content prepared in advance will also provide you or your team with additional time to go back and make any adjustments or corrections. Setting deadlines will also help you notice any overlapping scheduled content, and will help you avoid posting too much content in a certain amount of time. Â
2. Accountability
Having an organized content and promotion calendar will also help clarify who is responsible for each content, or promotional post. If it’s solely you taking care of the marketing, this calendar will still help you keep track of what needs to get done. If you’re working with a small team, having this calendar can help assign tasks and keep everyone aware of who’s responsible for which task. For example, you can assign tasks to separate people on your team to work on gathering photos/videos from a completed job, to focus on completing blogs, or even designing a graphic visual for a post. Whichever way you plan to assign tasks for your team, it will be beneficial as it helps keep everyone on track with what needs to be completed for the marketing plan, and when.
Assigning content and promotions for your team will also help give you an overview of how much work each person is handling. You don’t want to overwhelm one person with too much content to prepare in the same week as this won’t allow them to focus efficiently on getting tasks completed. It’s important to understand who is handling which task in order to have accountability, and if anyone on your team has questions about a marketing initiative, they will be able to know who to get in contact with.
3. Clear Messaging
Another benefit from this calendar is clear messaging for your business. Every upcoming content or promotional post will have a sort of headline, subject line, or title. If your sales team isn’t aligned with your marketing team, now is the time to do so with this calendar. When your sales & marketing team work together, they’re able to close 67% more deals. Having clear messaging posted on your calendar will allow the sales team to be aware of what’s new, and be able to communicate any upcoming promotions, or new services with your customers. This will help create awareness, on top of the marketing material that will be posted in the upcoming months.
Also, it’s important to keep old activities. In the future, it will be helpful for your business to refer back to any previous content to determine if any messaging, timing, or content needs to be pushed differently.
4. The Big Picture Realized
Once you have your calendar assembled, it will provide you with a full picture of your marketing activity over the next few months. It will show how all the marketing efforts work together for your business, whether the marketing is done by you or your team. You’ll be able to have a better understanding of what, and when to post content or promotions. With a little practice and consistency, creating this calendar for your marketing strategy will ensure your business reaches the next level of success.
Finally
Rely on Central to help, whether it’s questions about marketing strategy, strategic purchasing, or business planning during COVID-19. Central is the right partner for your business. We stay at the leading edge of the industry and we’re ready to help you grow!