Determining the "best" time to do a particular marketing event or run a
promotion is a decision fraught with indecision, incomplete information, and a
fair amount of hoping that the winds of fate don't conspire against you.One easy
way to tip the scales in your favor is to "calendarize" your marketing events
against known holidays, events, celebrations, etc.By taking the time to evaluate
major events and activities, you can plan marketing activities to exploit these
targets of opportunity. You can also prevent your marketing from conflicting
with other activities that might compromise their efficacy. A good annual
marketing calendar helps coordinate your overall marketing strategy. It helps
you determine when to implement your advertising and other promotions and often
helps you determine your marketing priorities. Understanding your annual
calendar can be dynamite when planning media releases and media events.What can
happen if you don't do a calendar? You can bump against scenarios like having a
reception on the night of the Academy Awards television show and have very few
people attend, and of those that attend, a good portion may not be your real
"target" audience. This is the type of conflict that can be avoided if you know
your target audience, have factored in their interests and have scheduled events
or advertising or other marketing efforts for a time and place where they will
see it and be receptive to it.It is highly advisable that you "block out" your
annual calendar with dates, events, occasions that are either vital to be seen
during, or times when you wish to avoid marketing efforts before you commit to
your marketing strategy. Trying to market a new organic suntan lotion to
Minneapolis residents in February would be an obvious mistake! By using a
calendar and blocking out dates, it will allow you to generate a marketing plan
that takes advantage of key events during the year.What should you consider
putting on your calendar:1) Personal Schedule. Think about what is happening in
your personal life that might impact your overall marketing and advertising
strategy. Here are some examples: Vacations Medical procedures scheduled
Family commitments2) External Events. There are lots of things going on in the
world that could impact your business. There are many events that you can plan
for or around (such as the Super Bowl, Academy Awards presentations, etc.) Here
are some examples to consider: Major elections Major sporting events Major TV
events (e.g. Award shows) Local community or city celebrations and events
Local expos, balls, social activities3) Seasonal cycles. Many businesses are
sensitive to seasonal or industry cycles. The sensitivity of the suntan lotion
to the weather is a great example. Obviously, winter is a key season for ski
resorts. Here are some other examples to consider for your calendar: Seasonal
variations that impact your business due to weather Quarterly and annual
financial reports Tax season Summer vacation Winter vacation School holidays
Government budget cycle (this is critical if you bid to the government or lobby
to preserve funding) Government procurement cycles4) Major Industry Events.
Most industries have major events that can impact businesses in that industry
and many other businesses. Here are some examples: Major tradeshows Industry
reports Annual lobbying Major corporate budget and procurement cycles5) Major
Holidays. You would be shocked at how many businesses fail to take into account
the impact of holiday seasons on their business. Depending on what you do,
holidays could mean more or less business. For example, business-to-business
advertising is often ineffective during the Christmas holiday, but consumer
advertising promoting Christmas gifts can be critical. Definitely consider the
big holidays, but don't underrate the significance of some of the smaller
holidays, particularly religious holidays.For example, if you observe one
religion, but have customers that observe another; you don't want to be
insensitive to their religious observance calendar.6) Major Competitor
Activities. Understanding your competitor's key timing for their marketing
efforts, or their strategic timing of events, it can help you create marketing
to exploit their weaknesses and mitigate their strengths. For example, if you
know your competitor will have a product release in March, you could advertise
your new product in February and get first to market advantage (razor blade
companies do this all the time. As soon as one announces a new item will come to
market, the competition floods the market with "buy-one, get-one" offers or
sends through direct mail samples, etc.). Anything that would be a major event
to your business may also be a major event for your competitors. Here are some
things to watch for: Quarterly and annual financial reports Major sales
Product releases Major annual promotional events (if you know they will occur
every year) Major procurement activities Major conferences and related events
they will attend7) Important Prospect and Customer Activities. This one is
essential. If you understand the cyclical nature of your prospects' and
customers' key annual events you can fine-tune how, when, and where to target
your marketing to them. Here are things to watch for: Preferred buying seasons
Times of the year when they won't purchase Major events they would attend
(conferences, trade shows, social events) Holidays If they are a business,
their product cycles, financial reporting cycles, R&D cycles, budgeting cycles,
vendor relations events, procurement cycles and events, and much more.Not all of
these things may apply to your industry or business. This is more of a prompt
sheet to get you thinking about how the calendar can make the difference between
success and failure when marketing. Look for conflicts with other events on your
master calendar. How can you minimize the impact of these on your results? Look
for synergies. How can you exploit these? Look for marketing opportunities you
might have missed if you hadn't laid out the master calendar. Finally, based on
the year's planned activities, anticipated return-on-investment and other
factors, and prioritize your marketing.If you haven't done an annual marketing
calendar, take some time out before you start to execute any of your marketing
plan and put one together. It can save you a lot of money and help you really
optimize your marketing strategies.David Zahn is a two-time author addressing
the issues of entrepreneurship and consulting ("How To Succeed As An Independent
Consultant, 4th Ed." and "The Quntessential Guide To Using Consultants") as well
as being a frequent interviewee and contributor to articles in publications
like, "BusinessWeekOnline, Entrepreneur, BrandWeek, Training & Development,
CTPostOnline, and others. For a free "business readiness assessment," please
click on http://www.startupbuilder.com - Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO for
short, is a competitive undertaking and many fall victim to the same mistakes. I
am no exception and this is my story. In November 2005, my wife and I decided
to build an on-line shop to sell gift baskets and roses to the Australian
market. I set about researching how best to establish a website and my wife
designed gift baskets and sourced products. What we did not know at this stage
was just how we would promote the site! The new site launced 1 January 2006 and
I began thinking about how best to promote the site. This is when the learning
really began for me. The first lesson was just how costly pay-per-click
advertising would be and that to effectively promote the website for organic
search (ie position well in search engines for chosen keywords) should be a
consideration before building the site. I had already made the first mistake
made by so many web site designers, I designed the site without considering
search engine optimisation, or SEO. Nevertheless I had to plough on. I read as
much as I could on the topic of SEO from experts on-line and bought a book so
that I could read in those times whemn not at my PC. Here I learned many other
lessons and began making incremental changes to my site as I learned. By end of
February we were spending a fortune on advertising (biggest expense by far) and
I was beginning to make progress in the search engines; I was on first page for
MSN and second in Yahoo but nowhere in site with Google (like the pun?). This is
when the grind began. I continiuosly worked on the site and "off-page"
optimisation techniques and managed to get the site to the top of page 1 on both
Yahoo and MSN by end of March (positions #2 and #1 respectively). Google was
nowhere to be found! What was going on? Many SEO practitioners talk of the
Google sandbox. This is alleged to occur for new websites only. Apparently
Google quarantines the new website until it is proven. When I learned of this I
was so frustrated that I decided to ignore Google and focus on the other search
engines. This protest lasted only a few weeks as I could see that Google was the
most popular search engine in Australia and the adwords campaigns were still
burning our hip pocket. I then focussed a month's effort solely on building
off-page optimisation strategies for my site (which Google apparently prefers)
and at the end of August my site suddently appreared on about page 6. This was
encouraging. For the next three months I persisited. No matter how hard I tried,
the site never seemed to do better than page 3 or 4. In November my wife and I
learned that we are not cut out to run business operations. We both love
creating businesses and building them but the day-to-day operation requires a
different motivation and a discipline that we did not have. So we decided to
sell while the business was growing. We sold the business and the new owner took
posession on 1 December; and then it happened! You would not believe it. On the
day the business sold, literally that very day, a search on Google for the most
common keyword (gift baskets) listed our website (well not exactly ours anymore)
website on page 1 in position 4!!!! I couldn't believe it! My emotions swayed
between the exhiliration experienced with victory (at last) and frustration that
we would not benefit from the obvious increase in traffic this would drive to
our site. It is a month since we sold now and I have come to an important
realisation. SEO is for competitive people. If you like winning and are
determined to win at all costs then SEO is for you. Finally, give yourself a
head start by designing new websites with SEO in mind. I have built several
sites since and been successful in the search engines very quikly; even with
Google!About the Author Keith Burgess Webmaster Http://www.webwings.com.au/
You may view the latest post at
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