Marketing Activities: 3 Types of Marketing Activities You Must Schedule

Many entrepreneurs feel overwhelmed with all the different marketing activities they want to do to grow their businesses.

One strategy to use to banish marketing overwhelm is to systemize and schedule marketing activities that need to be done to grow your business. This not only organizes your time...determining when you will perform certain marketing activities...it also helps to identify tasks you can delegate to someone to do for you more easily.

Taking the time to schedule your marketing activities is a key to ensuring you are consistently and successfully getting out the word about you and your company.

There are several formats you can use to schedule activities...

* To-do lists

* Calendaring

* Making a project management list or Gantt chart

* Sticky notes (pasted on the wall or a desk)

...and so on.

It doesn't matter which scheduling system you use, as long as you use it consistently, and it works for you.

There are three general types of marketing activities you'll want to put into your schedule:

1) Ongoing marketing activities

2) One-time marketing projects

3) Idea generation activities

1. Ongoing marketing activities

Ongoing everyday marketing activities are tasks you do on a regular basis, such as daily, monthly, quarterly, etc. Some examples are:

* Advertising

* Direct mail activities

* Writing articles for your eZine

* Submitting articles to article directories

* Attending live networking events

* Writing blog posts

* Conducting a monthly teleseminar

* Checking your website analytics

* Communicating with your affiliates

* Sending out press releases

* Networking on social media sites such as FaceBook, Twitter, and Linked In

* Market research

Create a chart where you list each task, along with the day of the week it will be done. When I did this with my marketing activities, I realized I had too many tasks scheduled on one day. It wasn't any wonder why I was having difficulty getting everything done!

2. One-time marketing projects

One-time projects are projects you determine need to be done on an as-needed basis. Typical examples of this type of project are: * Developing a workshop

* Creating a new product or service offering

* Setting up a business referral partner program

* Setting up your affiliate program

* Running a one-time special promotion

* Writing a book

* Designing a new website

3. Idea generation activities

Setting time aside for "birthing" new ideas is important, because it keeps your offerings fresh and relevant to your market niche, and provides you additional opportunities to increase your income. Idea generation activities include:

* Researching new topics to address in your eZine or teleseminars

* Identifying possible joint venture partners

* Thinking about ideas for a new product, service or book

* Looking at competitors'/colleagues' websites/blogs to keep on top with what they're doing

* Visioning about the future direction of your company

* Quantifying your professional and personal goals

Write down a list of all the different marketing activities you currently do, and start scheduling them into your calendar and to-do lists.

To stay on track with implementing your marketing activities be sure to look at your schedule first thing in the morning, and different times throughout the day.

Commit to your marketing by having a schedule, and watch your business start to grow on a consistent basis.

Copyright 2009, Bonita L. Richter