Marketing calendars are used by many businesses to help keep sales pipelines full of new prospective customers. Small businesses may just keep a simple calendar with handwritten items on the dates that marketing efforts need to be completed. These items might include attending a trade show, sending out an email campaign, or placing a buy for a magazine advertisement. Larger corporations typically have a more detailed marketing calendar planned out a year in advance. Regardless of the size of the business a good marketing calendar does have to have some key elements to assure the monthly activities in which the business is investing are paying off.

Here are a few things you need to include in your marketing calendar in order to maximize your return on your marketing investment:

1. List all of the activities you plan to do by month. Activities should include efforts like direct mail, keyword search, media buying, PR, attending trade shows and networking events, and anything else you think will help bring awareness to your business and generate qualified leads.

2. Estimate how much it will cost each month to execute each activity. If you don