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Using a marketing calendar
Many business owners may not necessarily be doing their marketing planning this way or may choose to be doing this in a similar way. Either way, using a marketing calendar can be hugely successful strategy to grow your business through effective marketing.What is a marketing calendar?
A marketing calendar is a way to organize your marketing activity to specific dates or deadlines relevant to the target markets of your business;For example a florist could target mother’s day marketing and promotion. It may be a more general month target of for instance targeting Christmas shoppers in November. It can also be used to schedule information or promotion to clients who have been engaged to services for a specific period, such as an insurance company may wish to do certain marketing activities prior to renewal dates for instance.A marketing calendar can be a way of aiming at different key target markets throughout the year and aligning all the marketing efforts for greater impact in gaining your target markets.You may also notice trends at certain times of the year, which you may choose to attempt to exploit more fully in your marketing calendar planning. For instance a financial planner may see a spike in new year resolutions leading to more interest in wealth creation early in the new year.How to do a marketing calendar?
Your marketing calendar is a working document you can revise and update throughout the plan year. A marketing calendar should be simple. I recommend a simple spreadsheet matrix with months or dates with your key target market type described along with the key marketing efforts directed at that target market.Go back and review your target markets.
A good business should know exactly who or what kind of client or customers it would like. Remind yourself the types of target markets that you may be winning more, make more money from, have more competitive strengths in, more specialized in or even just downright enjoy more. The key is don’t be too broad or have too many. The more specific your target market is, the easier your marketing becomes and chance of marketing success.Review all of your marketing activity
If you haven’t already done so, go on and write down all your marketing efforts in detail and check on just how effective each marketing tool is for you. To state the obvious you should then consider putting more focus on the ones that work and eliminating the ones that don’t work. You could also try to match certain ones to the different target markets.Some examples of your marketing efforts maybe be:
• Signage• Social media• Websites• Referral partners• Business networking• Paid online marketing• Asking for referrals• Web blogging or SEO• newslettersWhat if this doesn’t apply to your type of business?
Perhaps your business is not at all dependent on the date or time of the year. If so, consider just having after care schedules to perhaps ask for referrals or cross sell you at a certain point after a sale.Where do I find the time to do this?Well often business owners do not get out of the business long enough to develop some systems to improve their businesses. If this is the case they are unlikely to get different results.So they need to look at ways to free up their time to devote in this area. This can be achieved by delegating or training staff to be more capable and giving the business owner more time to develop their business.Otherwise they may simply outsource their marketing and grow their business that way.Some other examples
• One business owner says he arranges a highly discounted sale of stock or wrongly sized materials. As well as clearing out stock, staying tidy, it brought in new people into his showroom and lead to sale of his real product too.• Use a regular say monthly newsletter of useful information or stock listing to your customer list. It will be a great way to keep you in mind of the customers. You may also be inviting them to buy or use your services at the perfect time they may be considering that very purchase at that time.• Curiously at times of elections spending can slump in economies. So you could factor this into your marketing calendar too.Here are some reasons why a marketing calendar will help your business grow
1. having a plan gets you to a destination. You will be efficient in knowing what to do at certain times of the year and can repeat these year in year out.2. Focusing on less gets you a better result. Improving your efficiency from your marketing tools will get you better results.3. More clients and customers come with more marketing activity. Thinking in this way and implementing a system to gain new clients will be effective in improving your sales.4. Improve your branding and reputation. Honestly, being consistent and having good marketing activity will make you appear to be an even more successful business therefore attracting more clients and customers.5. Become more productive. By working on your business you will learn how to outsource and delegate. This will also get your more profit or results with your time.6. Making more success in your business always improves your personal life balance. So having more profits may in turn means more holidays or more staff to help you better enjoy your non working life.

There certainly are a multitude of benefits of home based businesses although there are some drawbacks as well. But when one looks at the overall picture it would have to be said that the benefits certainly do outweigh the negative aspects. Now keep in mind, there is a lot of work and by no means am I stating that this is easy, it takes drive, patience and a focus like no others but over time, one starts to realize these benefits of home based businesses. 4 things to consider:1) Financial Reasons:To begin with it can be a real money saver in many different ways. When you think about having to drive your vehicle for example to outside employment you have to look at the cost of the gas, the insurance and the parking for example. Then most often a second family car is required because one car being the way to business all day. This is one of the major cost saving benefits of a home based business.Money can even be saved on clothing when one doesn’t have to become dressed for business. This can be a good saving over the year as well.Another benefit of having a home-based business is the fact that you don’t have the overhead costs. If you have your own business on land there are many extra costs that you are faced with. In addition to this it is much easier to do your marketing and advertising online than it is on land. Most often the cost is far less than on land based businesses.2) Flexibility:Then there is the flexibility that goes with the benefits of home based businesses. Most often you can work the hours that are most suitable for you, which means that if you have small children that you will not only save costs on not having to have a daycare program, but you will be able to enjoy the benefits of being with your children through the day and perhaps doing your work at night.3) Priorities:Most often individuals that work a home based business find that they are much more successful at their business because they can stay more focused. Many benefits of home based businesses include not having the hassles of travel and the distractions of being in an office setting. The benefit is that at home you can choose your office space away from the rest of the house, and this is where your work can take place.4) You call your own shots:You can decide products, supplies, suppliers, time lines, actions, reactions, prices, rewards, employees, hours, etc. all of which can take you down a good path or a bad path. One kink in the armor and all could be lost. But do not get discouraged, if you get yourself the right resources in training and mentoring then mistakes can be avoided. The mentoring part is key, here. Good training with no guidance is nothing but a shell… Be sure to get yourself into proven mentoring system with an actual person and the resources to follow through.Another benefit of a home-based business is that you can even hire virtual secretaries as opposed to having extra staff.When you add up all of the cost savings that we have just mentioned as well as the emotional benefits, one can find that benefits from a home based business is a substantial money saver. This means that you can take the time to allow your business to grow a little bit as you don’t have the financial pressure of all the costs as a burden.You have much more flexibility from working at home, not only with the way that you run your business but as we mentioned in the schedule and times of operating your business. Without all the overheads and the concerns of an online business that certainly makes working at a home based business much more beneficial.For those that are just thinking about starting a home based business there is much to think about, and it is worth doing some research into seeing if your online business would be a workable for you from home. The fact is, though, there are benefits to a home based business, it just takes work!