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**Marketing** is about establishing objectives and delivering tangible outcomes, not simply flashy advertising and amusing commercials. A campaign may provide quantifiable indications of such results, but only if it is well-designed. The initial step is to define a set of objectives.

Some important reasons for creating campaigns are attracting new consumers, improving brand loyalty and repeat business, boosting average sales, or offering new products and services to your customer.

Determine what you can do to advance your company and set specific objectives based on your findings. The more precise you can be (rather than, say, declaring a goal to improve profit), the easier it will be to quantify, initiate, and track the campaign's performance

Planning a marketing campaign may be daunting. However, delivering a consistent message across various platforms to reach your target demographic could even be more tasking. The truth is that without a well-thought-out plan and established procedures, it may rapidly devolve into a disorganized jumble. But it does not have to go that way. Here are some simple tactics to make it easier.

## **Decide what you're going to promote**.

Every marketing effort promotes a product or service. You don't have to scratch your brain to come up with a marketing strategy since you can work something out with the team.

Businesses often conduct **marketing campaigns** to promote a new product, feature, or service, as well as a resource (such as a blog post, webinar, or video) or a brand message. It's the most straightforward aspect of your marketing strategy, but it's also the most crucial.

## **Create a campaign concept or theme - brainstorm ideas with your team.**

Your **marketing strategy** should have an overall theme that binds everything together, even if you know what you're advertising. How do you come up with a campaign theme or a campaign idea? Make sure you know what you're going to promote.

* What message will your campaign go out into the world?
* Is there a new feature in the product?
* Is there a new subscription pricing plan in the works?

Use the checklist to ensure you don't forget anything throughout the preparation phase.

Consider your target audience's interests and problems. What issues do they have, and what would pique their interest?

## **Create Marketing Channels - Make a list of what you'll need to make for each channel.**

You have a clearer picture of what you aim to accomplish at this point. You've identified the consumers you want to target and created a message to appeal to them. It would be best if you now chose how and where your marketing messages will be delivered.

In real life, this involves understanding where to produce and distribute information so that your target audience can see it.

* Are there any media outlets where you've had a lot of success in the past Examine previous data and go to locations where you know your folks are.
* Do you have any channels where you need to grow your audience? It may be beneficial to design campaigns around weak channels with great potential to develop better resources for your brand.
* Are there any resource or time constraints? Suppose you don't have a budget for a TV commercial, a social media campaign, or a magazine ad. In that case, you'll have to limit your options. Keep both your human and financial budgets in check.

## **Set campaign goals**

Creating content just for the sake of creating it is a waste of time and money. Suppose you want your business to maintain a positive cash flow. In that case, you need to demonstrate that your efforts are producing measurable results. The best way is to meet or exceed campaign goals.

## **Use a marketing calendar to plan out the execution of your campaign.**

There are plenty of essential elements in a marketing effort. If you depend on your mental capacity to keep track of what's going on, you'll never be able to keep up. Consider it your all-in-one project management solution for developing, planning, and executing marketing campaigns, and not only.

It is vital to note that the [**Salesforce**](http://www.salesforce.com) CMS, which is a part of Marketing Cloud, may come in handy when you use a marketing calendar for your campaign. Salesforce CMS serves as the respiratory organ of your business, making it easier for multiple team members to access any file you need for the campaign.

![](/uploads/schedule-table-event-planner-concept.jpg)

The Salesforce Content Management System (CMS) is used to store and retrieve documents, pictures, videos, knowledge articles, and more. It's now integrated into many aspects of the Salesforce user experience, particularly in the **[Content **Builde**](https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en/content/learn/trails/create-compelling-content-with-content-builder)****r**Additionally, if you track the campaign start and end dates in Salesforce, we developed a tool that makes marketing teams easier **work with the** [**marketing calendar.**](https://appexchange.salesforce.com/appxListingDetail?listingId=a0N30000003Io4WEAS) It's as if you're sharing your mind with your colleagues.

## **Creating campaign reports**

Now that you know how to reach your campaign goals, you should also know that creating campaign reports is part of the concept. A good campaign report provides all of the information you need to make an informed choice and take action. The quantity of data you have is typically less than the amount of information you need to make a choice. To put it in another way, there's no need to include everything in the report.

Luckily, since the [**marketing calendar**](/marketing-calendar/) gives an overview of your campaigns, you can get one planning report quickly. Then use other reports to create a method to visualize the data for easy understanding. Visualizing data usually entails converting raw data (numbers) into graphs or charts. Pictures tell a thousand stories, and diagrams make tons of points. You can put all these charts together into a dashboard to give you one place to go to understand campaign effectiveness - a great starting point when discussing campaigns in meetings.

These reports aim to give all of the data necessary to determine the effectiveness of campaigns in a timely way. You undermine the point of reporting in the first place if you spend hours each week producing and updating them. Your reporting procedure should, ideally, be as automatic as feasible. Even though your Salesforce generally comes with report types that make it easier, you may consider the [report sender app](https://appexchange.salesforce.com/appxListingDetail?listingId=a0N30000000pvspEAA) for sharing the data with other team members. It allows you to send the report to Salesforce and non-Salesforce users in an excel file.

Marketing is about establishing objectives and delivering tangible outcomes, not simply flashy advertising and amusing commercials. A campaign may provide quantifiable indications of such results, but only if it is well-designed. The initial step is to define a set of objectives. 

marketing-campaigns-how-to-plan-execute-and-report

Marketing campaigns - how to plan, execute and report

If you’ve ever been a part of a marketing team, you know how easy it is to get carried away by business tasks and plans. Without an organized schedule, several hours could pass without you achieving much. The result of this is unhappy results, frustration, and even failure. If you’re in a fix and need urgent strategies, you’re where you should be.

This article discusses how to create a working marketing calendar and some marketing techniques that produce results. A fundamental and required tool in marketing is a marketing calendar. A marketing calendar is essentially a marketing assistant that guides you in a manner that leaves nothing out of the plan.

## **What is a Marketing Calendar?**

A marketing calendar is a written blueprint that keeps your marketing activities on track. With one, it is easier to organize, visualize, and execute your activities. Consequently, it is an actionable tool that works towards achieving goals over a stipulated period.

Usually, several marketing calendar templates can plan activities yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily. The marketing calendar planner you use is solely based on preference. Of course, other factors like your goals, needs, and more could affect your choice; it ultimately takes time and resources to create a working marketing calendar.

A significant advantage of a marketing calendar is that it helps you meet deadlines. Furthermore, it fosters coordination amongst teams and managers too. Presently, several tools can help you organize your activities, some of them are:

* **PDFs** – editorial calendar template that integrates several kinds of content
* **Excel/ Google Sheets**- easy to adapt and customizable templates. Useful for collaborations
* **Word/Google Docs** – a word and spreadsheet template in Google
* **Google Calendar** – sets reminders for upcoming events. Schedule meetings and events
* **Software:** Calendar software like our [Free Marketing Calendar for Salesforce](https://appexchange.salesforce.com/appxListingDetail?listingId=a0N30000003Io4WEAS) can provide a readymade calendar that allows scheduling and visualizing content, budgets, goals, and events.

![](/uploads/laptop-coworking-space-wth-schedule.jpg "monthly marketing calendar")

## **The Ideal Marketing Calendar**

Marketing calendars are tailored towards addressing specific needs. Therefore, a successful marketing calendar should incorporate marketing activities in detail. A calendar is best used for its particular purpose:

* Spelling out individual event
* Spelling out the marketing cost for each result
* It should include an estimated time frame for the completion of the event.
* Expected results

The above elements help you see events at a glance while helping you work towards your goal per time. In the future, it aids planning and marketing. A marketing calendar should follow the following purposes;

1. **Plan** each event to meet specific goals- planning helps you fine-tune your strategies in advance. It also affords you ample time to achieve each goal and keeps you within the time frame.
2. **A hub for team activities** – as long as you document each detail on your marketing calendar, every team member stays aware of their roles. This helps them to work effectively and remain productive.
3. **Measures progress and workflow**- you should be able to rely on your calendar for progress reports, workflow, and coordination. This fosters discipline and responsibility with a team as well as harmonization of efforts.
4. **Information**-sharing- you can use a marketing calendar to share relevant information with team members. This feature is available in online Apps like [CloudAnswers Marketing Calendar](https://appexchange.salesforce.com/appxListingDetail?listingId=a0N30000003Io4WEAS), supporting communication with people and free campaign calendar views.
5. **Track marketing actions-** it is no surprise that a marketing calendar should track marketing actions. Since you clearly state your goals before each campaign, keeping track of your performance is ideal. While working on each event, you should know how far you’ve gone, what’s working, and what needs improvement.
6. **Be futuristic**- a marketing calendar is a pointer to the future. Knowing what comes next is vital because it keeps you grounded in your goals. Therefore, staying aware of your next move is consistency in planning, a value that many successful businesses possess.

## **What a marketing calendar should include**

Before you get into scheduling and brainstorming ideas for your calendar, be sure that your goals are in place. It should cover your brand’s values, your audience’s likes, and what your product or service provides.

Consider the following;

* The channels that engage your audience most – email, social media, blog posts, etc.
* The metrics you intend to improve on – engagement, followership, conversions, etc.
* How sales campaigns help your brand
* Brand awareness campaign options

## **Types of Marketing Calendars**

The right marketing calendar is not just a document. It contains all the information about your marketing events in one place. As a result, it impacts your marketing performance by helping you curtail lapses. Here are some of the types of marketing calendars in the market;

## **CONTENT MARKETING CALENDAR**

A marketing content calendar is popular amongst content creators, strategists, and marketers because it helps the organization of content **marketing plans**. As the need for content continues to grow, multiple people can create content for a common purpose. Therefore, having a **content marketing calendar** helps the group by providing timely information to everyone at once. Expectedly, a bigger project with more people requires more details. So, the calendar can receive as many details and updates as needed.

Overall, a content calendar that keeps a successful schedule helps you to plan ahead. For example, you can quickly deliver the former program to customers requesting samples. It saves time and brings more customers to your corner. To create a content marketing calendar, it is best if you considered content marketing calendar templates. Rather than create a calendar from scratch. All you do is fill in the details based on preference. Currently, there are tons of content calendar templates online. Some are SEO-focused, while others favor social media.

## **BLOG CALENDARS**

A blog calendar is one of the best ways to keep your blogging habits and productivity on track. If you prefer a customized calendar, several engagement metrics could help. A blog calendar works significantly to develop consistency in the writer and produce engaging content. A blog calendar works to build a blogging strategy that delivers results.

In addition to helping you connect with readers, it attracts new customers. Furthermore, you can curate blog post ideas and a schedule. What’s more, it enables you to stay within the deadline.

## **SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING CALENDAR**

In a world where billions of people engage with social media daily, a social media marketing calendar helps you plan posts ahead of time. For instance, if you post many times in a day, the calendar organizes your tasks. Also, it gives an overview of which content performs better.

A typical social media calendar has a spreadsheet or an app where you can schedule posts. If you need to meet a deadline, it helps you manage your campaign effectively. Since needs differ, no calendar fits all categories or needs. Brands utilizing large volumes of posts may favor specialized software over spreadsheets.

## **Why a marketing Calendar is important**

Recent research reports show that **marketer**s who have deployed the marketing calendar tool **538%**, due to the research by [Evinex](https://www.evinex.com/marketing-calendar/), were likely to **finish on time**. **About 81% of goal-setters** achieved their goals as well. Ultimately, a marketing calendar helps hit the goal while giving you an overview.

Marketing is not just a series of dates or a pattern of salesforce marketing. It is an intentional scheme that shapes the presence of any business or brand. Consequently, a marketing calendar keeps track of this scheme. To keep a business running, combining sales with awareness boost engagement. While sales tell people what you sell or offer, awareness focuses on brand promotion.

## [**![marketing calendar salesforce app](/uploads/NEW-product-pics-marketing-calendar.png)**](https://cloudanswers.com/marketing-calendar/)

## **HOW TO CREATE A MARKETING CALENDAR**

## **Know your Customers**

Every business is peculiar, and the target audience is equally unique. Your **marketing strategy** should revolve around reaching your audience. When you don’t know who your customers are, running a successful marketing campaign becomes difficult. For example, a company targeting college students can plan around their interests. You can create contents that match their requirements. When planning activities on your marketing calendar, you may consider these questions.

* What does our audience need?
* How can I reach them?
* When is the ideal time to reach out?
* How does my content interact with their needs?

## **Define the role of each team member**

Now that you know what your calendar should have, you should define each member’s role according to their skills. The following are typical roles;

* Team leader – works on the planning and approval of each step
* Content creator – creates content like a blog post, social media copies, guest posts, etc. Generally transforms ideas into written content
* Social media manager – responsible for social media correspondence
* Designer- responsible for the visual representation of contents, etc.

Remember to share the calendar with everyone. You can add the email addresses of everyone that should have access to it. Overall, you get to decide how much information they see and whether they can make changes on the calendar or not.

## **Determine content quantity and ideas**

Investing time in the content of your event is vital. Many successful businesses avoid publishing content randomly. Quality content from great ideas has a strong impact on your online presence. Thus, it would help if you carefully create content. Then, you can determine the frequency. Also, consider your marketing budget.

## **Make a rough draft**

Before you create a detailed calendar, it could help make a draft that serves as a guide to the real thing. For example, you may print a free monthly calendar and use it first. Here, you can learn how to schedule while putting vacation times, special days, and holidays into consideration.

## **Know the Important Marketing Dates in Your Industry**

Every industry has that period when they tweak their marketing strategies. For example, based on holidays, school calendars, and other events, businesses develop specific promotional offers and even sales. Knowing these will help you plan your calendar better.

* January – New Year’s Day and Resolution
* February- Valentine’s, African American History Month
* March – St Patrick’s Day, Women’s History Month
* April- Earth Day
* My- Mother’s Day
* June- Father’s Day, Summer
* July- 4th of July, Reunions
* August – End of Summer
* September- Sports, Parenting
* October- Halloween, Breast Cancer Month
* November- Thanksgiving
* December- End of the year Sales, Holiday.

Since holidays are almost always fixed, most marketing campaigns plan them early in preparation for the influx of customers.

## **Create a Backlog**

A backlog ensures that you document ideas for upcoming campaigns and events. When planning a marketing calendar, you may discover that certain activities are more suited for later. Hence, a backlog helps you to think ahead.

**Google sheets** are a marketing calendar example for creating backlogs. Many apps and software have the same features, and they often include headlines, priority level, and estimated deadline. On the other hand, on the market, you find a calendar board that allows you to organize tasks in a list. Then, it provides a calendar view of each task and deadline per time.

Also, you can

* Add members and assign them tasks.
* Add attachments
* Create new campaigns, subtasks, and more.
* Add description and deadlines.

## **Execute Your Strategies**

Now, it’s time to create your calendar and test the strategies. There are several calendar tools in the market, so knowing what works for you is best. As you move forward, keep records and feedback.

Lastly, analyze your marketing strategies. This is crucial to improving your performance because it helps to determine how to make improvements. Check if;

* You missed any detail on the calendar
* Team members missed a deadline and why
* Communication was effective
* The team has complaints or suggestions about the calendar

## **Wrapping it Up**

Building a marketing calendar involves an elaborate plan. It helps determine how far you’re willing to go to fulfill each goal while hitting the mark. Consider tweaking calendar details until you get something that sticks. Since creating a [Salesforce](http://www.salesforce.com) calendar from scratch can be daunting and time-consuming, [CloudAnswers](https://appexchange.salesforce.com/appxListingDetail?listingId=a0N30000003Io4WEAS) can make your job easier. Set it up now and begin to explore!

A marketing calendar is a written blueprint that keeps your marketing activities on track. With one, it is easier to organize, visualize, and execute your activities. Consequently, it is an actionable tool that works towards achieving goals over a stipulated period.

how-to-create-a-working-marketing-calendar-in-salesforce-for-your-business

How to create a working marketing calendar in Salesforce for your business


## Why you should use a marketing calendar?

A short and general statement why you should use a marketing calendar is to ensure the big picture is realized. To do so, you need a birds eye on what is going to happen. And it’s not only about you, it’s essential and useful to: **Keep stakeholders informed**.

It doesn’t matter if it is your client, manager, CEO, at a certain stage people like to be informed and want to know what is going on. But also for cooperating with colleagues it comes in very handy to have a source that contains the key information in one overview.

A marketing calendar provides exactly this:

- **Ongoing projects**
- **Starting dates & deadlines**
- **Estimated results** \- Expectations solidified
- **Estimated cost** \- Keep track on the marketing budget
- **Who is in charge** \- Ownership clarified

This overview allows anyone to get fast a good overview on what is happening, when and with which efforts and results. The who is in charge doesn’t make much sense if you’re a single marketer in a small company, but for larger corporations it can be useful to know whom to contact for further questions.

![](/uploads/marketing_meeting.jpg)

In the end it is not only about keeping stakeholders informed, it is also very useful tool for your team and even yourself, having a single top level overview, containing all relevant key data.

### So which projects and tasks should be displayed now?

Breaking it down a little more about the projects and tasks which you can place on your marketing calendar. There’s usually no need to place each and every detailed task going on but rather top level information. To be considered that a marketing calendar also needs to be updated from time to time, you shouldn’t end up in spending significant time daily here.

Giving a real life example - you can place how many social media posts you are doing within the month, displaying which day they will be published and adding the cost for promoting them. And also when you will operate paid campaigns or events will take place.

**What to display on a marketing calendar:**

- Social media posts
- Blog posts
- Email newsletters
- Events
- Campaigns
- Key tasks (e.g. building a strategy)

It is usually not a necessary must to add more detailed points like when the copywriting will be done, the graphics, how the promotion budget is split over the used channels and so on. But of course, if you want to add all these details, feel free to do so, it’s ‘your’ working tool and must work out to your needs.

### Creating your own marketing calendar

Solutions like our [CloudAnswers Marketing Calendar](https://cloudanswers.com/marketing-calendar/) can be installed in Salesforce, and is also coming with a free trial version. ![marketing calendar salesforce app](/uploads/NEW-product-pics-marketing-calendar.png) Here you are having all the benefits of Salesforce included, to keep your team and all stakeholders informed with ease, customize the settings and view to your company's needs and further.

And if you are not a Salesforce user? Then the most popular alternative is Excel and Google Sheets. There are many paid and free templates available, like Smartsheet’s free available [Marketing Calendar templates](https://www.smartsheet.com/9-free-marketing-calendar-templates-excel) just to name one example.

**So what are you waiting for? Create your own marketing calendar and give it a try.**


Read about the benefits of using a marketing calendar and how to get started. Get some free templates to start right away.

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Why you should use a marketing calendar

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