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I always wondered. Marketing people talk about it all the time, and it must be from the days of buying so much print media, television and radio spots. For the life of me, I have marketing calendars and here is what I have done with them.

Deskpad to take notes.
Video on how to create one.
Google calendar for my site.
Uhm – a give-away for branding purposes.

It is like wearing a watch anymore. I have the time on my phone and a calendar that I do not use. What is the purpose of a marketing calendar? The only thing that I know it can do is make a visual list. However, let’s step it up notch and find out what you should be doing.

If you watched my calendar video you see that I construct somewhat of a Value Stream Map initially out of all the events a customer has going on. I like to organize it either with a computer projected on the screen or with paper taped to a whiteboard. But before the Value Stream is created, I create an Influence diagram.

An influencer diagram is much like a mind map, with a central theme, and components surrounding it. When used in marketing, I will start with maybe a certain campaign, strategy or event and surround it with the different marketing aspects. You should group each by the strongest relations that they have to each item. Now step back from it for a moment and consider the influence each item had on another. Lightly pencil in an influence let’s say that a direct mail piece or press release had on an event. Place an arrow on the end showing the direction of influence. If the influence was reciprocal, place an arrow on each. If the influence was greatly unbalanced in one direction, two arrows are typically used with one being a much heavier weight. For better visualization, you can draw circles around different groupings. That can be quite interesting because you can rate somewhat of a Venn diagram in the process.

Influence diagrams can be rather revealing. The first thing they do is typically cause great debate. Besides the debate, it becomes much clearer where the influences are the strongest and also the kinds of influence that are created. There can also be influences that happened outside of the groupings. As you explore the diagram, lines may be added and even removed. This exercise creates thinking about how your marketing structure actually operates in contrast to the typical flow diagrams. You may even add a few notes about the line to substantiate your decisions of the influencers.

In today’s marketing, I do not believe that one single event or action really works anymore. My philosophy of marketing states that is the strength of the connection between each of these events or actions that will determine the degree of success that you will have. This simple diagram highlights the gaps in that type of thinking. Also, look for the existence of tails, components out of limb, which have no leading or leaving them. These components are certainly ones that need to be debated and the question asked why they are there? Another use would be for a new event. See how existing influencers can play a part in developing the structure for this new venture. It also can be quite useful in planning for resource and budgeting.

I encourage you to try this type of diagram. This is one of the most useful and simplest tools that I have utilized and the one that has created the most activity and discussions. If you would like more information on this subject, a great resource is Thinking Visually: Business Applications of 14 Core Diagrams.

Related Post: What is your Present State?

Technorati : Influencer Diagram, Marketing Calendar, Thinking Visually, Value Stream Mapping

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