Turning a new website into a popular destination takes a lot of work. In most cases, it will not happen without organized promotional efforts. One way that I use to organize website promotion tasks and goals is to write them down in a calendar format.

Types of Goals for Your Promotion Calendar

Start by brainstorming a list of promotion goals that you want to accomplish, and focus on goals that you are in complete control of. For example, don’t make a goal (for this exercise at least) that says you are going to get 1000 visitors per day, make $500 per month, or increase search engine traffic by 50%. Those are all great goals, and you should strive for them, but you do not have absolute control over them. Here are some examples of goals that you do have control over:

Did you notice the difference between the first couple promotion goals and this list of goals? Everything on this list is something that you can guarantee will be completed… as long as you do the work. There are no other factors at play.

By creating a list with these types of goals, you can accomplish them and avoid getting discouraged. As a result, your secondary, performance-based goals will naturally follow.

Drafting the Calendar of Goals

Now that you have a list of goals that you want to accomplish, write them out on a time line. Give each goal a start date, an objective, a deadline, and a list of steps required to complete the goal.

For example – you could say that during the first week in February, you are going to contact other websites, during the second week you are going to build your pay-per-click campaigns, and so on. Your time intervals should be based on what you feel comfortable with and how long you think any particular task will take to complete.

You could go as far as creating a promotion calendar that spans an entire year. If you stick to it, I guarantee you will get results.

Things to Keep In Mind

If you draft a actionable marketing plan, and actually follow through with it, you will undoubtedly see results. But don’t let the success go to your head and make you lazy (this is something I am guilty of). Make sure that you continue to work on your promotional efforts (or hire someone to do them for you) even when everything is going good. Once you build momentum, you do not want to let it die out.

Always plan your goals ahead of time. There is nothing wrong with taking advantage of opportunities that arise in the moment, or modifying your goals according to new discoveries, but your main plan should be strategicly strung together. If you simply choose promotional tasks at random, you probably won’t put as much effort into them and they won’t be positioned to build upon your previous efforts.

Lastly, make your promotional calendar as fun as you can. The biggest problem with any marketing plan is not sticking to it. There are tons of ways to avoid the monotonous and spruce up your work. Some simple ideas that come to mind are assigning rewards for completed goals, working with a partner and making a competition out of it, attempting to become friends with other website owners when you contact them, and keeping track of the direct benefits that result from your efforts.

The whole purpose of creating a calendar is so that you have a plan that you can easily follow through with. This is just one technique that works for me; I’m sure there are plenty of other techniques that work just as well. Therefore, I would like to ask this question: What do you use to help you follow through with a marketing plan (or any kind of plan)?