Aligned Marketing Partners Blog

2012 Online Marketing Calendar

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The day-to-day demands in business often leaves us fire fighting with tasks such as emails, phone calls and other fast approaching deadlines. The result is we’re left with little or no time to plan and review our online marketing activities. Having a vague online marketing plan just won’t wash in today’s fast paced business environment. Marketing is not a one off occurrence, but a consistent and regular approach that needs to be planned, executed, tested, measured, and adjusted for best results.

Investing time in an online marketing calendar focuses and prioritizes the work while ensuring that everyone is on the same page, working towards the same goals and objectives. It also lets the team to see the bird’s eye view of the business rather than the day-to-day ant’s ground view. Both views are required for successful implementation and execution.

4 C’s of a successful online marketing calendar

1. Collaboration: Set a time and place (online or offline) where the team can brainstorm and establish short term and long term online marketing goals and objectives. Assign a team member to take minutes, which should include clear task allocation and a deadline for task completion. Be clear about who is the overall coordinator that holds the team, including themselves, accountable.
2. Connection: There are a variety of ways to create, view and edit a calendar, including an excel spreadsheet, Google calendar, a marketing calendar template or a web based project management system such as Microsoft Project or Basecamp, which is what we use for projects at Aligned Marketing. A web based system has the advantage of allowing each team member 24/7 access to a centralized online marketing calendar where they can view the critical path, access team messages, share documents, and in turn improve their own task prioritization and individual accountability.
3. Communication: The team needs to establish how often they should formally communicate to review the online marketing calendar. The frequency of review meetings needs to be realistic and systematic. Too often and the team does not have a chance to progress, and too little, the team may be missing deadlines and encountering problems that could have been avoided. Communication activities have maximum impact when aligned with major events such as trade shows and product launch dates.
4. Continuity: Each team member is a piece of the online marketing puzzle and sometimes it can be difficult for individuals to see the whole picture. For example, does your blog writer know and understand the importance of SEO and the role of keywords? Is your social media expert implementing and aligning their social media strategy with the rest of the marketing team? Individual deliverables are important to the online marketing calendar, but the marketing message and branding MUST be consistent.

Regardless the size of the business, an online marketing calendar requires goals, objectives, method of execution, team member accountability, and review. It is a working document and systematic activity that, if designed and implemented correctly, can take your business to the next level. If in-house resources are limited, explore outsourcing to a reputable team of online marketing experts.