In a market with fierce competition and increasingly competitive public attention, it is essential to know how to stand out from other brands, right? To be successful in this task, you need to plan, which includes creating a Marketing schedule.
It works like the tactical instructions that a coach gives to a football team. The intention is to take possession of the ball and score a goal — which, in our case, means arousing the interest of the public and making a sale.
In this article, I bring you 7 essential tips to help you successfully create and apply your Marketing schedule in your day-to-day life!
How about following along with your copy of the Enjoy Minder schedule? Just download our free spreadsheet:
The importance of the Marketing plan
A well-structured Marketing plan is essential to achieve the expected results — and this includes the Marketing schedule.
When we look at how to plan activities in Marketing, we have three main distinct plans:
- Strategic planning, which shows the direction the company should follow;
- Tactical planning, which indicates what actions should be taken to achieve the objectives;
- Operational planning, which shows what to do when it’s time to get down to business.
The Marketing schedule is a kind of bridge between all these plans. After all, it serves as a calendar that shows what needs to be done and when it should happen.
This tool is also essential for actions to be executed at the right time, with the ideal amount of resources and with the right team.
The schedule, therefore, can be seen as the score of the conductor, who commands the orchestra. Just as the score indicates the right notes and instruments for each moment, the schedule indicates when to act to achieve the strategic objectives.
It then offers a clear and organized view of planned activities and greater efficiency when planning each task in advance, allowing activities to be aligned with objectives.
And to help you get your strategies and activities right, download our e-book with a complete step-by-step guide to creating a Digital Marketing plan for your company!
What should be included in the Marketing schedule?
When I talk about the Marketing schedule, it is common to associate this tool only with task deadlines. However, this resource involves much more than just the dates to be met!
There are a variety of elements that can be part of the schedule, expanding your vision. Some of the information to include is:
- Campaigns and initiatives that will be carried out;
- Marketing Channels that will be used;
- Content or theme to be worked on;
- Deadlines for each action;
- Responsible for each stage;
- Resources needed to carry out activities.
7 tips for creating a Marketing schedule
Now let’s look at 7 useful tips for those who want to have a complete and truly useful schedule for Marketing activities.
1. Prioritize tasks
When building a schedule, it’s tempting to include everything that needs to be done, creating a comprehensive calendar with all the initiatives. But trust me when I say that this isn’t the best way to go!
Instead, it makes much more sense to identify the most important and urgent marketing activities. These should then be prioritized in the schedule, receiving more attention, resources and effort.
One tip I would give you at this point is to focus on the activities that have the greatest impact on your Marketing goals . If an action can help the team achieve the main goal of the quarter, it makes more sense to focus on it, right?
2. Use project management tools
Especially when the idea is to create a Digital Marketing schedule, you need to be careful not to carry out this control in an unstructured way. Therefore, I recommend using tools that help organize and monitor tasks.
Trello is one of the best-known tools for project management. It uses the Kanban method, divided into columns. Each card is a task and must be moved between columns according to its status. With it, it is easy to keep everyone aware of what is in progress or what has already been completed, for example.
Asana is another sure bet. With it, you can create projects and tasks, choose those responsible and set deadlines. This tool also generates reports, which helps you identify bottlenecks and areas for improvement.
Microsoft Project is considered more robust and also helps to monitor the progress of tasks and the results of initiatives. With integration with other features, it further favors communication.
If you want other options, there are many more alternatives available. In project and activity management, you can choose tools such as:
- Notion;
- Monday.com;
- Wrike;
- ClickUp;
- Podium;
- Any.do;
- Taskade.
3. Set realistic deadlines
Just as important as setting deadlines for activities is ensuring that deadlines are realistic! Making a mistake at this point can mean overloading the team, increasing the risk of errors and poor quality work.
To avoid falling into the trap of setting unrealistic deadlines for each activity, consider key characteristics such as:
- Complexity of the task;
- Available resources;
- Possible setbacks.
The intention must be to balance dynamism and efficiency with quality and organization . In this way, it is possible to carry out tasks successfully.
4. Allocate resources appropriately
A good marketing schedule also helps with resource allocation. Knowing what is most important and what is most urgent makes it easier to define what should receive more resources, don’t you agree?
When creating the schedule, it is essential not to forget this and to distribute the resources in the best way. These resources include:
- Staff available;
- Budget;
- Tools;
- Technology.
By distributing resources efficiently, you can maximize productivity and reduce waste!
5. Integrate different Marketing channels
Especially when I talk about the Digital Marketing schedule, the ideal is not to execute the actions in isolation. Instead, it is much better to integrate different Marketing channels.
When thinking about activities, you can combine:
- Online advertising;
- Content Marketing;
- Email Marketing;
- Social networks, among other channels.
This is an effective way to increase the reach of your message and reach your target audience across multiple touchpoints. Do you know what that means? More opportunities to capture their attention and interest!
6. Automate repetitive tasks
As I have said so far, the Marketing schedule plays a fundamental role in achieving strategic objectives. However, it is more difficult to achieve these results if the team is stuck in repetitive activities.
Therefore, the ideal is to use Marketing automation tools to simplify and speed up activities such as:
- Sending emails;
- Publishing content on social media;
- Data analysis.
By saving time and other resources, the team can focus on more strategic actions that are capable of generating more results.
7. Monitor and adjust the schedule regularly
Your marketing schedule doesn’t need to be fixed, and shouldn’t be. Instead, you should track your progress and make adjustments as needed.
This flexibility is essential to deal with unexpected events and changes in priorities, without compromising the achievement of objectives. By monitoring metrics periodically, you ensure that the right activities are receiving the necessary focus.
Marketing Timeline Template: Example
Although this schedule is a common tool for organizational Marketing planning, it doesn’t have just one format. There are several Digital Marketing schedule models that you can use — and the ideal one is the one that best adapts to the company’s processes.
With our free template, you have a complete tool at your fingertips and can even adapt it to your needs.
In the “Objectives” and “Action Schedule” tabs, you define what is most important, the goals, deadlines and those responsible:
After putting everything into practice, just use the “Monitoring” tab to study the results very conveniently!
Plan your next steps!
Well, by getting this far, you have seen that the Marketing schedule plays an essential role in the execution of the various plans.
With it, you can improve the organization of activities, the definition of those responsible, the allocation of resources and, also, the monitoring of results metrics.
But be careful: to be efficient, it needs to be adapted to the company’s reality. So use Enjoy Minder’s Digital Marketing schedule to take a great first step and make the most of the tool!
And to find out which strategies, tactics and actions need to be part of your schedule, request a Digital Marketing diagnosis right now — carried out by our experts and customized for your business!
