How to Create a Marketing Events Calendar

How To Create a Marketing Events Calendar

Many marketing departments plan and execute a variety of events throughout the year, from conferences to webinars and more. These events can come one after another in rapid succession, easily overwhelming the marketing team if a system of organization isn’t put in place. That’s why a marketing events calendar can be a helpful tool for visibility and productivity. 

Why does my team need a marketing events calendar?

A marketing events calendar helps keep everyone on the same page when it comes to planning and executing a flawless event. In the past, a marketing events calendar may have been unwieldy, with limited visibility across teams and departments. Luckily, technology now allows calendars to be shared across teams, making a marketing events calendar even more valuable to the entire marketing department. 

Creating a marketing events calendar

Creating a marketing events calendar isn’t difficult, but it can take a lot of forethought and upkeep in order to be a useful tool the marketing department can utilize. Here’s how you can create your own:  

Choose a hosting method: Choosing a hosting method is the first step when deciding how to create a marketing events calendar. You’ll want to choose a method that allows you to share the calendar across your team. You’ll also need an option that marketers can use when they’re in the office or out in the field. Marketing departments sometimes use spreadsheets to create this type of marketing calendar, but this method can cause problems with scalability, reporting, and make it difficult to keep track of a single master document. 

Instead, consider choosing a marketing events calendar from a work management software company. Wrike offers marketing events calendar templates that allow marketers to assign accountability to team members and track event progress.  

Involve required team members: Bringing key team members who will be involved in event planning and execution into the calendar creation process is essential for ensuring the right information is included and no detail or phase is missed.  

List important events: Plotting the upcoming events is the most important factor in creating your marketing events calendar, and marketing teams typically find it useful to mark important dates up to a year in advance to ensure there isn’t overlap with other marketing events. 

Consider pre-event details: With a powerful marketing events calendar, you’ll be able to mark down details that are critical to the event planning process. These could be pre-event details like the date invitations need to be approved or mailed or the deadline for ordering branded t-shirts and pens to give to attendees at a conference.  

Ensure post-event follow-up: It’s tempting to finish an event and move directly onto planning the next. However, learning what worked and what didn’t work from a particular event can be invaluable in hosting better events. Marketing events calendars can also be used to ensure post-event follow-up with team members, vendors, and stakeholders, depending on the type of event you’re undertaking.  

Marketing events calendars can streamline event planning and execution and enable your entire team to plan better events in the future.