Sample Marketing Calendar
& 12 Month Marketing Plan Template

Written By: Sharron Senter
Boston Marketing & PR Consultant

We're all short on time! Therefore, I've broken this sample marketing calendar article into three categories, with the understanding that it's okay if you don't have a "monthly" marketing plan. What's more important is that you have an overall plan. I follow a bimonthly marketing calendar. I prefer the 60-day flexibility. It gives me more time, while still retaining continuity and visibility for my marketing consulting business. I lead with a sample quarterly marketing plan, because it's the most realistic for small business owners, particularly sole proprietors, who are caught up in the minutia of running a business. I've also included several resources; some are free, many I wrote myself, while others I could get a commission if you buy something. I list from whom at the end of my article.

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OVERVIEW: Marketing Plan Strategy
The following marketing plan ideas are suggestions. By no means is my 12 month marketing plan template exhaustive. In fact, you'll need to add to it based on your industry-related activities. There are many holidays throughout the year that may be a natural tie-in with your products and services, such as National Book Week in January, if you're an author or editorial-related service, or American Heart Month in February, if you sell health-related services or products, or Spa Week in April or October if you're marketing a salon or spa.

My 12 month promotional calendar focuses on the major holidays, when most Americans have been trained to spend extra money or participate in a ceremonial activity. Tie your marketing promotions to a time when customers have their wallets out. Thus, you're simply positioning your product or service as the perfect gift or solution for the celebrated event. It's more affordable to piggyback on a consumer habit, a.k.a. inspire prospects to purchase your products when they're preparing to purchase something.

Promotional Timing
You can never be too early in preparing your marketing campaigns. For example, in order for the typical small business to prepare for a Valentine's Day direct mail campaign, you'll need to get most of your materials printed and ready to go by the third week in January and in the mailstream by the last week in January, certainly no later than the first week in February. I recommend you plan at least two months in advance. Of course, the more involved the campaign, the more lead time. What's more, some advertising vehicles have extensive lead times, specifically print magazines that need your camera-ready artwork approximately 6 weeks before publication, (if you're pitching a story idea, then up to 6 months ahead of time for editorial deadlines.) Newspaper inserts also require a reservation approximately 6-8 weeks before publication.

Keep an eye on Amazon, Target and other large retailers. When their seasonal or holiday advertising starts, yours should too.

Unique Angle, a.k.a. Your Hook
Your promotional hook is the key to distinguishing your business from your competition. People are going to buy gifts at Christmas. But what makes your service or product so interesting, that shoppers should hand over their money to you instead of the myriad of other websites and offline stores? Find a creative answer that appeals to your target audience, and you'll grow your business.

Quarterly Sample Marketing Calendar | 12 Examples
The following 12 strategies will keep the phone ringing for most small businesses. Also, if you are launching a new business, you'll find this starting a new business resource helpful.

- Mail a minimum of 1,000 direct mail pieces, ideally a postcard, to your target audience. Direct mail is one of my favorite forms of marketing because you can buy the “exact” name and title of your target audience. There’s hardly any waste, especially when compared with broadcast media, such as radio. (RESOURCE: A great resource to writing powerful marketing pieces is  10 Steps to a Lucrative Lead-Generating Letter Campaign The report is written by Marcia Yudkin. She's written hundreds of sales letter and postcard campaigns. She's also a highly-skilled wordsmith. Definitely give it a look.) 

- Try Google Offers, Eversave, Amazon Local, Daily Candy or another emailed daily coupon offer. Generally speaking, there are no upfront costs. Still, you must discount your products and services deeply in order to pull in business. However, there are so many of these daily deal companies, I suspect many will go out of business during the next few years. Only a couple will survive all the competition. My vote goes to Google Offers and Amazon Local, simply because they're such powerhouses. Still, if there are no upfront costs and you can offer a steep discount to pull in new customers, then do it. Keep in mind that your goal should be to wow this customer, and, therefore, retain them for life. What's more, for geographically-based businesses, most daily coupon companies isolate your message delivery to the zip code. Almost any small business will benefit from daily coupon offers.

- Mail a note/postcard, etc. to your entire customer base no less than every six months. You've worked hard to acquire your customers. Hang onto them by touching them offline. You and I know that a postcard takes a ton more effort and expense than an email -- your customers understand this too! Thus, this extra effort will reflect well on your business and distinguish you that much more from your competition. What's more, your message will most likely stand alone, since many businesses fail to implement direct mail. A lost opportunity for them; more exposure for you!

- Call 10 different past customers every two/three weeks. Approximately one out of every 10 will need to do business with you again. What's more, most will not be aware of all your services and products. Educate them. If you're uncomfortable calling, email them instead. However, this is far less personal. In today's electronic world, a phone call distinguishes you from your competitors.

- Distribute a news brief to the media and don’t forget about TV! (RESOURCE: Here are two great resources for story ideas to pitch. I haven't found anything better in terms of idea creativity. "116 WOW! Story Ideas from January to June"  and  "103 Sizzling Story Ideas from July through December." Former newspaper editor Joan Stewart and TV reporter Shawne Duperon give you their best ideas to pitch to print and broadcast media in a teleseminar format. They cover: back-to-school, Labor Day, summer travel, Fourth of July, state fairs, Halloween, Valentine's Day, St. Patty's Day, weddings, April 15 tax filing deadline and tons more. Altogether - their media hooks total 219! Don't waste time wracking your brain for some original idea. Just listen to these two people -- they've heard it all before and have compiled the best media pitches.)

- Attend one target audience related networking event. For example, if you're a human resources consultant and you have medical recruiting experience, then you may want to attend the local chapter meeting for the National Nursing Director Association, i.e., a group where your hiring decision-makers socialize. You're busy; therefore, only attend events where your decision-maker or their influencers hang out.

- Follow up with a call or note to networking contacts from previous interactions. I like mailing notes. No one does it anymore; helping me stand out. Plus, it gets me away from my computer!

- If it's within your budget, then I strongly suggest an ongoing campaign within a Val-Pak, SuperCoups or something similar. Yes, you're stuffed inside something with a bunch of other advertisers, but it's automated, for very little money -- pushing fresh leads your way. Said another way, a message is always out there about your business, in addition to your website. If your product is high-end, then these advertising vehicles are probably not the best fit.

- Organize and market an event, then submit the details to online calendars such as WhoFish, Gary's Garage, Craigslist, BackPage and CitySearch. Keep in mind that most online calendars let you include your website URL, creating an inbound link back to your website, a.k.a. increasing your website's popularity. Why host an event? Event marketing opens up doors for small businesses, including: giving your audience a chance to meet you face-to-face and experience your business without the pressure of walking in off the street and feeling like they have to buy something, and it provides an excuse for you to distribute a news brief to online and offline media. Other than providing refreshments and special offers, the act of hosting an event can be virtually free, but gain you exposure that you would not normally receive. (RESOURCE: Joan Stewart, a former newspaper editor, compiled a list of 50+ websites to promote live or virtual events. The list is in webinar replay format and comes with a PDF that lists all the URLs.)

- Shop your business. No joke. Go to your online store and buy something, or call your brick and mortar and ask questions. Did you enjoy your shopping experience? No. Then make it better. When you do, only add automated improvements. This is particularly true when running a brick and mortar. If you have an exuberant amount of tiny details that require a lot of training, and your receptionist quits every six months, your solutions are not sustainable. Remove them and go without until you can automate.

- Expand your pricing. Always have an extremely low entry price, then something higher, then even higher and then out-of-this-world expensive. When a customer first comes to you, be it online or walking into your shop, you have no idea what this person is willing to spend. Offer varying price points. For example, "Enjoy a $10 manicure for first-time clients (gratuity not included)" or "Purchase an annual therapeutic massage membership today for $800, saving you $40 each month." Related to your overall pricing strategy is this report I wrote detailing how to increase prices without irritating customers.

By implementing the above marketing activities every quarter, your phone will ring. However, sales leads will do you no good if you lack follow up. And because you're so busy, you need an organized way to receive and manage leads. At minimum, I recommend emailing your customers and prospects once a month with either a promotion or educational message, keeping your business top-of-mind so prospects can find you when they're ready to do business. I use Constant Contact. It's an easy-to-use, professional email collecting and delivery service. It also provides statistics so you can measure your marketing efforts, and it allows you and your prospects to pick and choose from different lists/topics to join. For example, if you're an accountant, when prospects join your mailing list, they could select from, "College Planning & Taxes" or "Retirement Planning & Tax Reduction," and so on. This way you have a better understanding of what's on your prospect's mind, enabling you to tailor your messages.

Weekly and/or Biweekly Sample Marketing Calendar | 5 Examples
The following weekly or biweekly marketing activities are meant to be combined with the above quarterly activities.

- Post, Tweet and/or Blog at least once a week. Notice I said "or." It's extremely difficult keeping up with your content marketing. Don't beat yourself up. Aim to update these social media activities no less than once a week and you'll look like an active business. If you can't keep up with these vehicles; discontinue them or hire someone to help. Otherwise, the lack of activity will make you look like you're out of business. Better to not participate than to look stale. Yes, everyone is talking about social media. Still, online marketing tools come and go practically overnight. (RESOURCE: Social Media Guru, Joan Stewart, details How to Use Twitter for Beginners in this webinar replay format.)

- Update one of your Web pages. Your website needs to change in order for search engine spiders to pay attention. One or two edits will not suffice. They must be substantial changes. I'm frequently in and out of my home page adding new material, since this is the page I want to rank the highest with search engines. This may not be the case with you. Perhaps you have a product or service page that's most important to you. Adding new material to this page on a frequent basis will help. Whenever I add/update a lot of new material to my website, I almost always experience increased traffic and sales immediately after.

- Search for Web directories to list your website at, such as Directory World. At the time of this writing, it has a 5 Google ranking. That's good. Don't just list with any directory. Instead, only list with high-ranking, professional business and/or product directories. Your goal is to constantly work at creating inbound links to your website, increasing your site's popularity, which then increases your search engine rankings.

- Monitor either Reporter Connection or Help A Reporter. Both websites distribute free media leads via email. I start my day "quickly" scanning their emails to see if there is anything relevant to my business or my clients' businesses. These two websites put you in touch with reporters who are looking for sources to interview. Besides the obvious benefits of publicity, keep in mind that you stand a chance of gaining an inbound link to your website from a very high-ranking editorial website.

- Pursue current events and weather-related publicity opportunities. This is as simple as reading Yahoo News once a week. The simplest form of publicity to obtain is piggybacking your business to current events and the weather. The latter is the easiest. If there is horrendous weather outside your window, and your business is somehow affected or is a solution, then you have an elevated chance of getting in the news. Why? Because when weather turns treacherous, no matter what type -- hurricane, blizzard, heat wave, drought ... the media must cover it because it's news. Almost all reporters welcome weather-related story pitches. I was a reporter. I dreaded writing the weather story for the front page. As a New Englander, severe weather is not foreign to me, but having to generate a unique angle for a snowstorm, time after time, quickly got old. This is where you come in. (RESOURCES: Joan Stewart has written an excellent report (#37) about how to tie your product or service to the weather. I own a copy. I refer to it every time there's extreme weather. She's also written, "How to Piggyback Your Story Ideas onto Holidays (report #14)" and "How to be the Local Angle to National Stories (report #35)."

MARKETING PLAN SUMMARY
I subscribe to several advertising and marketing truths. I encourage you to ponder these as you develop your annual marketing and promotional plans.

#1 -- If something seems too good to be true, than it is.

#2 -- If someone tells you they make millions of dollars doing XYZ, and "so can you after you buy this thing from me ... " I always assume it's untrue. I base my assumption on one simple fact. If you're a millionaire, then way are you working so hard to get me to buy your stuff? Why aren't you in the Caribbean sipping a margarita?

#3 -- If a salesperson tries to sell you something, i.e., a coupon book ad, radio spot, banner ad at a "popular" website, etc. -- ask them to answer the following questions in detail. If they can't and/or if their answers don't match the desires of your target audience, then don't buy their advertising. Remember, there will always be alternative advertising vehicles and a new social media tool drummed up at any moment. Don't get caught up in hype or be bullied, a.k.a. "You've got to be there; your competition is." This is one of the lamest sales pitches. I tell clients not to share the spotlight. Instead, go where there is no competition. There are thousands and thousands of advertising opportunities for your small business. It's perfectly fine not to share space with your competition when you're advertising, in fact, I encourage it!

Questions to Ask Advertising Sales Reps:

• Who is your target audience? For example, who is your reader, listener, viewer, visitor, etc.?
• How many people will see or hear my message? And how often?
• Share with me some of your advertisers' success stories? Ideally you want actual statistics. For example, if I buy an ad in your coupon book, approximately how many of my coupons will be redeemed?
• Is there an extra fee for you to create my ad? Why?
• Do I need to sign a contract? May I cancel it at any time without a penalty?
• How will I measure the effectiveness of your advertising vehicle?
• How long have you been working at your company? How do you (salesperson) get paid?
• Who are your competitors? Why is your company better?
• Is my competition advertising with you? Who?
• What will you do with my customers' information? For example, if you hand over your customer list for a direct mail company to clean and then mail out a direct mail piece for you, what assurances do you have that they won't use your list for their personal use? [Yes, I'm a skeptic. I've seen some interesting things in my 17+ years of marketing.]

Before Buying Any Advertising, Remember To:

• Google any potential advertising vehicle. Go beyond their home page to see what else shows up in your search. What are the advertiser's customers saying?
• Call some of their current advertisers and ask if they like the vehicle.
• Check if they have any valid testimonials at their website.
• Check to see what their website's Google ranking is. If they really are a good advertising vehicle, then others will link to their website, reflecting a 5+ Google ranking.
• Check if there are any Better Business Bureau complaints.

REMINDER: The following 12-month calendar is meant to be a guide. Be sure to add your industry's unique celebrations. For example, small businesses selling products to dog lovers, might include National Pet Week on their May promotional calendar.

About the Author
Sharron Senter is a Boston marketing consultant, writer and founder of Senter & Associates, a marketing communications firm that helps small businesses deploy low-cost online and offline marketing tactics. Senter is well known for her free emailed monthly marketing tips.

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