Deadlines and Creative Marketing

By: Ryan Miller

With the advent of a new year comes new events, new deadlines, and new marketing efforts. Watching the time slowly tick down on that ball got me thinking about deadlines, and something about a giant ball slowly dropping on top of you seemed like an appropriate metaphor.

Everyone in the marketing field has their own thoughts on deadlines, good or bad. As tough as it can be to put a time limit on a creative project, deadlines can be your greatest ally when it comes to planning yearly marketing touchpoints.

For example, some of our clients attend trade shows each year and often rely on us to send out marketing touchpoints to advertise their role at the show. This can be postcards, email blasts or even the graphics and banners at their show booth. We know that these events happen every year, often falling within the same week. This allows us to plan each touchpoint for when it will be most effective, leading to a much more successful event and campaign.

If there are events you want your company to represent, you can start getting together an outline of touchpoints for that show ahead of time. A pre-show email is a good way to let people know you’re attending, but what about sending touchpoints while you’re at the show? Social media is an effective way to send updates and keep in contact during the show, and thank you emails afterwards are always a good way to stay top of mind. Knowing your deadlines is going to keep you organized, focused and prepared for the challenges this new year throws at you.

If you didn’t make a new year’s resolution already, then make it about your marketing touchpoints for this year. Put together an outline and a schedule for your touchpoints and leave the guesswork, urgency, and last-minute crunch time back in 2016.