Put It On the Calendar 

As 2007 winds to a close, now is the perfect time to reflect upon your marketing efforts of the past year. What worked, what didn't work, and what great ideas never made it off of your "to do" list at all?

Creating a Plan is Only the First Step
We all have the best intentions when we create our marketing plans. But creating a plan is just the first step. It's not enough to establish a list of goals and plans. If you want to meet your goals you also have to implement the plans! The best way to ensure that this happens is to schedule it. Literally. Put your plans on your calendar.

Make the Commitment
Putting things on your calendar makes them concrete - a commitment. It also stops you from putting your marketing plan away and forgetting all about it. If you use an electronic calendar system that includes automatic reminders, schedule reminders to pop up at all of the appropriate times.

Don't Just Schedule the Final Due Date
Sure the final due date of a project should go on your calendar, but you also need to schedule in the work. For example, say you want to send out an email newsletter on the first Monday of each month (and for some reason you don't want to simply hire me to handle the project for you!). Your calendar entries might include scheduling time to create a list of topics that you will be writing about during the year (i.e. creating your "editorial calendar"), scheduling time each month to write the newsletter, and then adding a reminder to actually send the newsletter out.

In short, if you want to ensure that your marketing plans get implemented in 2008, schedule time to make things happen.