Too early to be planning for the New Year? I don’t think so. In fact, making goals and creating structured plans to move forward is an ongoing process and a surefire way to ensure growth. I tell all clients that they should have an editorial calendar, covering all aspects of their marketing and sales efforts such as blog posts, social media updates, promotions and press releases. Not only does this let you plan more effectively but also allows you to plug into identified sales opportunities.
Here is an easy, step-by-step process for creating an annual promotion schedule.
1Create your calendar, whether this is 12 blank sheets of paper or an excel spreadsheet with a tab for each month. (You can get a neat interactive calendar from Demand Metric)
2List all time-sensitive events and holidays that can influence sales. Obvious ones include Valentine’s Day or Christmas, but think about what other factors are in your client’s lives at each time of the year such as weather or tax deadlines.
You can also browse lists of monthly, weekly and daily holidays on sites such as this one, which can identify niche – and often bizarre – events such as National Diabetes Week, Check Your Batteries Day and I Am In Control Day (30th of March.)
Now think about how your target audience can relate with these events. Are they positive events? Do they incur worry, costs or other pain points? How do your products or services help with or enhance these events?
For any blank months (or months with items that don’t tie in well with your brand) come up with your own ideas… perhaps a sale, special promotion or product launch.
3Now you have your primary promotions for each month, it’s time to get into the nitty gritty.
Plan out where and when you will market your promotion. For example, when does a blog post need to be written? Where and when will advertising go live? You can get as specific as you want here, even creating drafts of social media updates or other content. Having a tangible plan will give you a central place to store ideas that you can refer back to at any time.
What content can you spin from the promotional focus? Do you want to take an educational focus? Promote awareness of something? Encourage sales directly? Make people think? Do you want to show the more light-hearted or emotional side to your company by incorporating humour or a charitable campaign in your promotions?
This is a great tool for helping you stay on top of your campaign assets as well as providing an outline to help you instruct anyone such as staff, freelancers or media agencies who will be helping you.
The key is to continuously add to this calendar throughout the year. Pay attention to what other companies are doing. If you missed out on tying in with a promotion this year, pop it into the calendar for the following year to make sure you don’t miss out again.
Angela, we also hope you are doing better too. I just got out of surgery and know how it can really delay all the things you are doing.
We also are doing things around the house to make living a little easier, feeding the animals, and trying to keep our small home office Internet business going also with going to the VA hospital twice a week and getting over this painful surgery…
P.s. love your pics
Great article, Angela! As owner of a promotions company (and a guest blogger for Angela Neal Media), I heartily endorse the idea of special promotions. Tying promotions to a holiday other than Christmas will separate your company from the crush of holiday advertising. Sure, everyone sends out a Christmas card, but how many people send out Halloween or Independence Day cards? When writing your message, go for the creative approach, and in promotions, the cornier the pun, the more memorable it will be. Promoting a “Halloween Spooktacular Sale” will bring a smile to your recipient’s face and likely get your card passed around the office.
Angela’s advice to seek out offbeat or commemorative holidays is another strong marketing strategy. For National Chocolate Month (February), why not send out a mailer describing the “Sweetest Deal of the Year”. But don’t let your marketing efforts stop there. Traditional Direct Mail has a response rate of just 2 – 3%. Why not up your ROI by adding a response card or driving the reader to your website for more information. This is where my company come in (shameless self promotion goes here). If you offer a reward to your reader for acting on a Call to Action (“Sign up at our website for future offers and receive a free travel mug”, for example) and the response rate skyrockets to almost 40%. Tie your promotional giveaway into your campaign’s theme. For an “April Showers” sale, offer readers an umbrella or rain poncho for responding. The goal of all advertising is to create action on the part of the reader, offering a promotional product increases that response exponentially.
You can take your campaign even deeper by adding a QR code to your mailer, driving the reader to a special promotions page on your website.Simple actions can further your message; integrate your marketing theme into your business correspondence by adding your campaign slogan with a link to an online promotion under your signature. How about answering your business phone calls using your theme slogan (“Top o’ the morning to you, this St Paddy’s Day. How can I help you?”). The more times you repeat your theme to your customer, the higher your response rate will be. Effective advertising doesn’t have to be expensive, it just needs to be creative!
John Reiss
Give Back Promotions
http://www.givebackpromotions.com
john@givebackpromotions
I totally agree you, Angela. Making goals and creating structured plans to move forward is an ongoing process and a surefire way to ensure growth.
Thanks for all info you posted!
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Great article Angela, this is what I need to start doing. I’m too much splattered onto everything that comes to my mind, thus wasting efforts on not-useful things. I’ll start my planning right away and put it up on my Social Media sites. Thank you
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