It’s ridiculous how quickly the months fly by, isn’t it?
We’re all leading busy, full lives, which means that annual milestones, holidays, and seasonal changes have a habit of sneaking up on us.
We keep our heads down week-to-week and focus on immediate goals to keep our businesses humming … which means we may be missing opportunities to showcase our products or services!
As entrepreneurs, we can get so wrapped up in other things that promotion isn’t even on our minds, but we’re doing ourselves a HUGE disservice if we fail to stay on top of it.
Which is why a carefully planned promotional calendar is something every online entrepreneur should build and maintain.
Without a clear picture of when we should be touting our offerings, that touting will fall to the wayside and we’ll lose valuable revenue.
Why You—Yes, YOU—Need a Promotional Calendar for Your Business
So what does a promotional calendar do for you and your business in addition to helping you generate steady revenue?
Well, it keeps your content aligned with the seasons and ensures you aren’t scrambling when new releases roll around. It enables your team to plan ahead and use their time wisely, avoiding work bottlenecks and last-minute time-crunches.
It makes your business life a heck of a lot easier by creating structure for your weekly workloads, but also forces you to think multiple months ahead of time so the big picture is always present in your mind.
A thorough promotional calendar will also allow you to:
- Keep track of upcoming holidays to help plan promotions and sales
- Ensure that new releases are balanced with the promotions of existing products
- Help you space out promos to avoid repetition and audience overwhelm
- Stay on top of the steps necessary to make ANY promotional push successful
Sounds pretty fab, am I right?
A promo calendar is a business tool that combines long-term strategy with short-term execution, allowing us to drive growth steadily and easily!
What Should You Include in Your Promo Calendar?
Naturally, your calendar will focus primarily on documenting a cycle of new releases. You’ll want it to capture launch dates, but also reflect any key tasks that need to be addressed BEFORE launch.
- Does copy need updating?
- Any new graphics to create?
- Is the sales funnel ready to rock?
Space out the work so it all gets done in a timely manner long before the big day arrives.
Your promotional calendar should also include a system for recycling promos for your evergreen offerings.
You’ve undoubtedly got a few products that still have loads of value, but may be getting pushed out of the limelight by newer releases.
This calendar gives you the chance to think strategically about when to remind your fans that those offerings are still available, and how to discount them to generate sales.
Finally, consider including both major and minor holidays, a high-level overview of social media ads and posts, and information about JV affiliate launches.
Having all of that info in one place will help you see opportunities for cross-promotion.
How to Create a Solid Promotional Calendar
When it comes to actually building out your calendar, here are some tips to make it as useful and flexible as possible!
- Make it electronic and shareable: Your whole team will need access to this info, so house it online where everyone can see and edit it. Google Cal is always a great option if you don’t have a project management system in place already.
- Build it out at least 6 months: A full year may feel too unwieldy, but a single quarter just won’t give you that big-picture view! Aim for 6 months, and put a reminder in your personal calendar to update again before that 6 months expires.
- Monitor spacing: Again, you want to keep your audience aware of your offerings but never want to make them feel like you’re spamming them. Consider how your promos are spaced, and if certain audience segments will be getting multiples.
- Ask for input from your VA and team: They will undoubtedly have ideas for customizing the calendar that wouldn’t have occurred to you. They may even be attuned to dates and milestones that need to be added.
Need a little help getting this promo calendar off the ground?
Click the image below to check out my “Money Calendar Kit” – it’s got tons of pre-work, guides, and helpful tools to ensure your calendar will keep you and your team members on-task for months at a stretch.
