Marketing rule number two: if your target audience doesn’t see any value to your marketing collateral then it’s a failure.

Marketing rule number three: if you have a marketing collateral that has these two, better re-structure and plan a facelift.

It doesn’t take a genius to know that for your marketing collateral to be effective, it must be able to perform what you have created it for. I mean, a marketing collateral should be able to accomplish what you have set out as its purpose.

Let’s face it. A marketing tool that is not effective is just a waste of your time, money and effort. And I’d say, particularly a waste of your money that you have earned with your blood and sweat. You have to bear in mind that a tool that is kept in your arsenal should be able to bring you success with your marketing campaign. That’s why it’s a tool. It has a use. And it’s supposed to help you accomplish a task.

Having said that, let me just say also that one of the basic and most important tool that a business owner has in his or her arsenal is the marketing calendar. But most often than not, this particular marketing tool have not been fully made use of because business owners and marketing people have not fully understood the significance of this seemingly regular material.

A marketing calendar is not just any ordinary calendar printing piece that you use to remind you what date it is today or when’s your anniversary going to be. A marketing calendar helps you have a successful marketing campaign. It’s a custom calendar that you can use to launch your tools in your marketing arsenal in a manner that is structured and well planned.

Is it an effective tool? It is; and one of the things that it can do for you is to assist you in coordinating and organizing all your efforts to accomplish your goals. In addition, your custom calendar piece also helps you schedule not only your time but most importantly, your budget.

What else? Because it makes sure that you have a schedule that you would follow, it helps you to keep track of your opportunities in marketing your business. Hence, you are able to provide all your effort, time, money and energy on all your different marketing tools based on equal footing. No tool gets left behind, I would say.

So how can you make your marketing calendar work for you? By developing custom calendars based on your specific needs. When you create a calendar printing piece that reflects the kind of business you’re in and what you want to accomplish with your marketing efforts, then you can truly say that your marketing calendar is working for you and not against you.