Have you ever missed out on a sales or Promotional opportunity because you found out about the dates too late? Do you often find yourself racing at the last minute to put a promotion together? We all have been there, done that right? It is time to stop missing out on revenue opportunities and avoiding the last-minute rushing by creating a promotional calendar.
In this first blog of the new year 2019, for businesses, I hope to help you learn more information on the following:
- How to build a yearly promotional calendar that can help you visualize and plan your promotions to boost sales. Having a clearly thought out promotional calendar is not only going to help you plan out your year, it will also help you avoid that last-minute rush of getting a campaign ready.
- How can you use your calendar to get your office staff on to the same page. It’s time to work together to boost productivity.
- Tips and ideas for planning out your next year of promotions. Maybe you did not run a lot of promotions last year and you’re struggling to come up with some ideas?
How to Brainstorm Your Marketing Promotional Ideas?
Time to start to brainstorm ideas for your promotional sales
Start by looking back at last year
Ask yourself:
- What promotions did you run?
- What kind of promotions did you run?
- We’re they run around certain holidays or seasons?
- What went well?
- What didn’t do well and why?
After answering these questions… decide which of your promotions you want to do again this year!
Ok let’s plan!
What is a Promo Calendar?
Creating a calendar for all your promotions is key to staying organized, and in turn staying organized is the key to running successful promotions! There are three big things a promo calendar will help you with:
- Keeping track of holidays and events to plan sales and promotions around.
- Keeping track of and planning out upcoming sales and promotions so that you’re super prepared and can budget if need be.
- Keeping track of your own events, like new product releases
What Do You Put on a Promo Calendar?
Whether it’s a big sale, mini sale, promoting a new design or product to spread the word, or new product release, you should be doing something new every week to keep your shop fresh and to keep people checking back! There are a few key things you should for sure include on your promo calendar (and I suggest color coding everything as well!):
- Holidays (major, minor, and events)
- Your promotions (duh!)
- New product releases
- Quarters
- Social media ads and posts
Holidays
You don’t have to do a sale or promotion for every holiday. If you have no spooky designs, doing a Halloween sale doesn’t make much sense.
The key is making a big deal out of holidays and events that appeal to and are relevant to your audience, and holidays where customers expect some kind of discount.
There are three categories of holidays and events you should be on the lookout for: Major holidays, minor holidays/events, and seasons.
Plan Your Promotions Around Major Holidays
Most traditional sales and promotions that we see revolve around big holidays like Black Friday, Christmas, Easter, and so forth. It’s easier to maximize your sales during these times because everyone is out shopping.
Now you don’t have to run all of your sales around these big shopping holidays, but they are important to have on your list as some of the planning stages for these promotions can be longer than others maybe.
Here are some of the major holidays in the U.S. that you may run your promotions around:
- Black Friday (Day after Thanksgiving)
- Memorial Day
- Christmas
- Easter
- Labor Day
Note: Some U.S. holidays will apply to more businesses than others. For example, having a Labor Day sale makes a lot of sense for brick and mortar businesses.
So, when it comes to determining what holidays you should run your promotion around, ask yourself the following:
- Is this promotion going to help us increase sales in the long run?
- Are we going to sell more product by discounting it during this time?
- Did we run a sale around this holiday last year?
- If we did run a sale, was it successful?
Plan your Promotions around the Seasons
Seasonal promotions are another opportunity for businesses to utilize. These transition stages can be a great opportunity to help boost slower business periods or maximize exposure to new content and products etc. for the season.
What should you ask yourself about these promotions before you begin:
- When do people use your products or services?
- When do we usually sell the most of a product or services?
- Will discounting your product during the offseason make it more profitable when it’s back in season?
- Did we run this promotion last year at this time?
- Was it profitable for us?
Plan Your Promotions Around National Holidays
National Holidays have become extremely popular over the last few years, so it is a good time to expand your sales based on that one day only. Whether it’s National Cookie Dough Day or National Take Your Kid to Work Day, there’s a holiday for everything.
These National holidays usually only last one day! There are so many national days or observances, be selective in your choices for your promotions?
- Does this holiday relate to your business or is it a bit of a stretch to make it fit into your schedule?
- Is your business taking advantage of a day it shouldn’t be?
- Does this fit into your schedule?
- Is this relevant to your business?
- Did we recognize this day last year?
- If we did recognize it last year, did we make a profit from it?
To find all of the holidays and observances that go on throughout the year, check out National Day Calendar. They’ll have everything from the most memorable holidays to the most obscure ones; you’ll find everything you need listed there.
Determine Your Promotion Dates
Now that you have a list of ideas and promotional dates – It’s time to determine your most important promo dates. Noting, certain promotions can only fall during certain points of the year.
Ok let’s think about this for a moment, let’s pretend that in January of next year we want to run the following sales and promotions for a department store:
- New Year’s Day
- New Year’s Sale
- Martin Luther King Jr Day
- National Hat Day
- National Argyle Day
- National Compliment Day
Many of these dates are only one day of the month, so your start and end dates are only one day.
You now have your sales and promotions planned along with the dates. Put these onto a calendar and start working on each at least 1 month ahead of time so that you can release your promotion on time. I personally do a reminder 6 weeks a head and then 4 weeks ahead and then 2 weeks ahead so that I have plenty of time to work on my promotions!
New Product Releases
If a new product launches and no one sees a post about it, does it make a sale? The answers is NO. When you have a new design or product, planning a release date ahead of time allows you time to order samples to take photos of, post photos of those samples to build hype before the launch, and to build excitement and anticipation. Do new product and/or design releases regularly to keep people checking back with your shop to see what you’ve added.
How to Execute Your Promotions Calendar?
Now that you have your entire marketing promotional calendar thought out for the year and you have all your reminders on your calendars… you can now move onto the planning and executing of all of your promotional campaigns.
Stay tune for our next blog for planning and execution. If you need more help faster. Contact Life Coaching that Works today to find out how!
Peace and Happiness!
p.s. If you’ve never considered Coaching, then know this; Coaches are trained to fully understand the importance of guidance, new ideas and accountability if you are ready to move forward and need a nudge give me a call!
