You've assessed your resources with the Check-up Checklist, you've anticipated your busy months by mapping your Proposal Peaks, now it’s time for the best part: Creating the Calendar! In Part 3 of our 2022 kick-off series, Wendy Simmons and Allison Tivnon dive into the organization and execution of your annual marketing calendar. Spoiler alert! Even in the digital age, sticky notes are still a marketer's favorite tool. And with your priorities organized, you're ready to conquer the new year!
CPSM CEU Credits: 0.5 | Domain: 2
Podcast Transcript
Welcome to The Shortlist.
We're exploring all things AEC marketing to help your firm win The Shortlist.
I'm your host, Wendy Simmons, and each episode, I'll be joined by one of my team members from Middle of Six to answer your questions.
Thanks for joining us for part three of building and implementing an annual marketing calendar.
We are to the last episode, part three, Creating Your Annual Marketing Calendar.
I am all about organization, I love mapping things out, I love seeing what's ahead, being able to plan.
I always want to be ahead of the curve.
So Allison, thank you for joining us for this conversation and actually really leading this conversation.
I can't wait to talk to you about it.
Oh, it's one of my favorite subjects.
Yeah.
Where do you want to start on this topic?
I think where to start is to track back to the first episode in this little series, which is we talked about the Checkup Checklist and identifying all of those different things that you can be working on, that you should be working on as a team, the stuff that tends to get lost in the shuffle as we go from deadline to deadline.
In part two was talking about how can we change the narrative around from shuffling from deadline to deadline to getting some kind of sense of when we were going to get hit hardest by those deadlines and find the spaces in between them.
Talking about proposals and when those peaks occur.
Now that both of those things have been done, the real work begins, which is drafting out what is going to happen from January to December.
I absolutely love this exercise.
If you're a marketing department of one, it can still be a lot of fun.
If you are a team, it can be a real bonding experience.
I cannot wait to dig into this with you today, Wendy.
Me too.
We're both excited.
I love it.
Do you want to just talk about the form of this calendar?
I mean, I'm guessing it's digital, but tell me how you would go about mapping it out.
Or is it a sticky note exercise?
And just go through what your process would be.
Okay.
Well, I know we are all living in a digital world right now, but I'm going to make this a real world.
You are all in the same room.
No one's wearing a mask.
You're standing like a foot away from each other.
And that's okay.
Let's start there.
And then we'll talk about how you can convert that to a digital environment, because it's my sincere hope that we will get back to the former at some point.
Basically, imagine that you're in a large conference room that has one big old wall on one side of it.
Doors are closed.
You've got all the time in the world.
You started the meeting at one o'clock in the afternoon, and you have nothing else to work on until the end of the day.
You get out a great big piece or roll of butcher paper, and you tape it up to one side of the wall, and you roll it all the way out to the other side.
Have one of those yardstick rulers handy, unless you have a really steady hand for this next part.
From there, get a black marker, and start at the left hand side, and draw a line in the middle of the roll from one side to the other side of the room.
And then from there, put your hatch marks in, that signifies the months.
So we've got 12 months, and you're gonna have a hatch mark that's the beginning of January, and then a hatch mark that is the end of January, all the way on to the end of the year.
And this is where like your InDesign skills are really gonna come to play to try and spatially figure out the distance between each of the months.
So the end of the year might look really funny with these narrower columns, but just imagine that it's an equal amount of space between each one.
And then you put January, February, March, April, and so on above the hatch marks so that you can see, okay, here is our timeline in a visual format that we can all see.
Say you're doing this exercise on January 15th, so half of the month is already gone, that's fine.
Say you're doing it in February, that's fine.
What you want to know is how much time do I have left from this moment in time for this exercise.
We'll say that we have this meeting in the middle of January.
So you've run your Proposal Peaks exercise and you have discovered that you tend to be busier between March and April, between June and July, and between October and November.
What you do is you take another colored marker.
I typically use red because it signifies alarms, deadlines.
Oh my gosh, how am I going to get all this done?
Do not ignore me.
Yeah.
And then you literally mark somewhere on that timeline and those peaks, you put a line from beginning to end of when that peak occurs.
I would put it a little below the long black baseline.
And then you just write proposals underneath that little red line.
Proposals, proposals.
So now you've got those three.
And then you step back and like, oh boy, okay, I can see on this timeline, this is when we're going to be definitely on red alert.
And it might bleed over a little on either side.
You just have to take as it comes, obviously.
But from there, now the really fun part starts.
You don't go to your checklist.
You do not go to the priorities that you have discussed as a team that you are really hoping to get done in the next year.
You go to your personal lives.
And now put your birthdays on there.
Put your vacations on there.
If someone's getting married, put the date.
If someone's having a baby, put the timeline.
And this is the moment to really celebrate with your co-workers the stuff that really makes life fun, the stuff that's really important to them.
If they can see that on your marketing calendar, they really feel like they're a part of it.
I can't overemphasize how important this step is to get away from work for a second and just be people in the room together.
And I would pick a nice color for that one, maybe purple.
I like purple for personal.
Another thing is like, is someone gonna move?
That's like, there's things that really take up our time and energy, distract us from work, mean that we can't be in.
Anything that rises to that level, put it on there.
The next thing that I really like to do is to capture the big stuff for the firm.
So, if you have, say, an all-staff meeting that happens, or a big retirement is gonna be happening that year, or a big anniversary for the firm, or the big holiday party, the things that sometimes marketing gets sucked into when maybe they shouldn't, like planning the holiday party, but, you know, whatever it is, get it on there if you know you're gonna have to have a role in it, and say, that's orange.
The next one would be conferences.
When are the big conferences?
The trade shows, the things that you know you're gonna have to be present and accounted for, or you're gonna have to be planning for it, and get that listed on there.
And maybe you pick green for that one.
And so now you're starting to really see, wow, we got a lot of stuff that we do at year over year.
Then once you have done all of that, you can go back to your checklist and say, this was the year that you decided you were going to really assess all of your social media accounts and make some decisions around which stay and which go.
And you wanted to start a podcast.
When are you going to have the time to really think through the beginning, the middle, and the end of launching something like that, or you're blowing up your website.
You take the big stuff and you start to really get realistic on, is this a one year task?
Is this two?
And how long will each iterative step take to get us to where we're going?
And you don't touch that butcher paper yet with the pen.
And let's say that this color is, let's make it, I don't know, pink, something that's really going to stand out against everything else.
You want to get really careful about, okay, if we're going to say blow up the website, it's not as simple as just going in and picking a new platform and navigating over the content.
There's some really deep conversations that happen around your brand about what goes on the splash page, how you're listing out your projects or your service areas.
I mean, anyone who's been in this process, it has PTSD even talking about this, because it is, there's just so much.
It's like the iceberg where you can only see the very tip of it.
And there's so much work that has to happen.
This is also the time to start thinking to yourself, can we do all of this in-house?
Do we need to bring on someone who can really guide us through the process?
Do we even have the in-house skills to build a website?
Does anyone ever use Squarespace or Wix or WordPress?
And so now is when you're, as a group, you are talking to each other, but you're not looking at each other, you're looking at the timeline.
And once you do that, you start to think critically together and strategically with a whole bunch of visual evidence in front of you of what is feasible and what isn't at what time of year.
And once you do that, you start to set expectations for yourself on what you can accomplish.
And that in turn is going to allow you to be able to articulate that to your firm decision makers, the people that hold the purse strings, the people that are impatient and really let them know, this is when we're going to be able to tackle this.
And this is the pace at which we're going to be able to work on it.
That was an awesome overview of creating that plan.
Okay.
I'm not going to lie.
It sort of stressed me out a little bit too.
Because I think about, uh-huh, yes, I know all the things that we want to accomplish.
How are we going to do it?
But I'm going to calm down and actually by mapping it out, for all the points that you said, it helps to understand, okay, where do we have resources?
It might also be inspiring or exciting to like, we should start something now.
We should speed this up because we want to take advantage of this valley in the other peaks that we have going on.
All of these things are going to come at you, whether you put them on the paper or not.
So you might as well be addressing it, facing forward, open eyes, thinking about the team and how can we accomplish it.
Oh, and your point about putting the birthdays and vacation and babies and new houses and all of those things on the calendar, I mean, that just speaks to my heart because we are human.
We're people here working so hard.
AEC marketers are just some of the most passionate, like willing, self-sacrificing people I've ever met, and they will put the work first in so many ways, but to put them up there and recognize that that's really important is awesome.
So please everyone, take note of that.
If nothing else, definitely kind of pay attention and find a space for that stuff to be in front of your whole team.
Yeah, in my time, you know, being a marketing director, before that a marketing manager, I think the best lesson I ever learned was that if you start from a place of, look, I care about you as a person, the amount of effort and loyalty and hard work that your staff will give back to you is almost exponential versus if they just feel like a cog in a wheel.
Yeah, 100%.
Taking that time to do that exercise in the middle of building your marketing calendar is, it's your chance for everyone on your team to feel all in.
And once they feel that, they're going to be thinking a lot harder about what goes on to that list.
That brings me to a question I have for you, Wendy, which is that many of our firms, many firms, including ours, still have to rely on virtual internal meetings and external meetings.
But I gave the example of doing one in person with the butcher paper up on the wall and easy access to lots of colored markers and everyone standing next to each other.
That's not really possible for most people right now.
So what are some of the tools that you would recommend for virtual brainstorming when it comes to creating an annual marketing calendar like this?
Yeah.
Well, I mean, we're not inventing any of these, but we've used Mural and even just simple whiteboard tools within Teams and Zoom.
I think Zoom has a really great whiteboard option with our clients and even internally here at Middle of Six, and they just work really well.
So if you're not familiar with Mural or Mural, those are really easy to check out and facilitate a meeting or bring your group together in the virtual environment.
We chose Mural because it has a direct integration with Teams, so you can link it right to our Teams channels and our projects.
So I mean, I'm all about like, how can this be more integrated and not go outside for other resources?
Makes it easy for people to find things.
With one subscription, you can invite your team as guests users, so you don't actually have to pay for 10 licenses necessarily.
You can bring people in, they can review, they'll have access to edit and that sort of thing.
And it is not as good as being in person because you do miss that comradery of being in the room together and just like the soft conversations that happen.
But you can have the same very similar experience of brainstorming together, spending time, writing the notes, rearranging them.
And that feels like it recreates that physical environment a little bit more.
Yeah, I have enjoyed the exercises we've had internally.
I think it's Mural, right?
Where you have the little post-it notes, and everyone can have different colors, and you can see all of these little arrows on the screen moving as people are thinking through where they want to place something.
And I don't think we've gotten into a place where someone really disagrees and where you're putting a post-it.
Both people are trying to grab it at the same moment.
So that would be pretty funny to see how that software handles a situation like that.
But it is the best next thing, right?
My favorite is when someone says like, well, I see that Wendy has made a sticky note for me, so I guess I'm doing that.
Yes.
Yes, you got voluntold for that one.
Yeah, yeah, you know, but they're always good ideas.
So everything that we've been talking about in these last three podcasts is pretty universal and is applicable no matter what year it is.
But let's face it, the last couple of years have been a little interesting.
So Wendy, I have a question for you, which is since the start of the pandemic, have you seen a shift at all in the kind of help our clients are asking for?
What does that say about where their internal marketing teams are and what they're facing?
Yeah, let's see.
I mean, has there been a shift?
I guess so.
Now I'm all inspired to like map it out and really prove that.
But I would say without a doubt, I've seen an emphasis on training and refreshing their proposal templates and website.
So I put that in the category of refreshing.
I think that in 2020, firms had a reduction in spending because all of the budget that was going to be for in-person events and travel and holiday parties, they just weren't, that couldn't be done in that same way.
And yes, they reallocated some of that too.
We're going to send gifts.
We're going to send employee care kits.
But not, I mean, they just couldn't spend the money that they had allocated for those other things.
So what we saw was an investment.
I think that's a really, it was very worthwhile investment on, let's take this opportunity to low up our proposal template.
We want to go to the next level.
That's something I've just heard so many times.
We're always competing against these firms or we're being asked to compete in the best value type qualifications as opposed to low bid.
So we really need to show the quality we need to present at that level.
So we saw a lot of that, lots of refreshes.
Proposals and websites are technically very different, but also so related.
So it makes sense that if you would focus on one, you may focus on the other.
I think firms in 2020 also had a little time, believe it or not.
People were working from home.
They're able to accomplish a lot working from home.
And so they were, they felt like there was a little more time on their marketing and business development calendar to make those changes and think quietly about like, if we were to do this differently, what would we say?
How would we do that?
So definitely that refresh, we did a lot of work in that area.
And I think that was super smart for firms to focus on that.
The training aspect is also has been, there's been a big demand, I think, with people working remotely, even if some folks are on job sites and actually are going into the office or that type of scenario, there's just not as much together in the office.
So how can we bring people together virtually, provide some information?
I mean, it's team building, it's preparing for potential downturns in the economy, or it's just kind of getting the structure fortified so that you can be the best you can, no matter what comes ahead.
So those were a couple of things that I saw.
Allison, do you have anything to add, or did you see something different with some of the clients you were talking to?
Now that you said all of that, a couple of things popped out at me too, was this idea of a proposal audit, and what are we doing right?
What aren't we doing right?
Seemed like there was a big appetite for people to have someone come in with fresh eyes and really clinically evaluate their delivery, both from a visual standpoint, but also the content itself, which is so rewarding.
I love doing that kind of work.
But I think also we're seeing some fundamental changes in procurement right now.
The biggest one being that I'd say 99% of the proposals that I've been a part of this year have been electronic submittals.
Which means that the people on the other end more likely than not are not printing them out.
They're viewing them on their screens.
And that opens up a whole new list of questions about the user-friendliness of your proposal.
It's not just does it look really good and stand up against the competition.
It's are we making it as easy as possible for them to read this and reading on a screen versus reading a printed copy is a very different experience.
And so you're seeing a lot of firms go to landscape.
You're seeing an increase in some fun way finding tools like putting in links or putting in hyperlinks within.
And so I think a lot of firms are starting to realize, not only do they have to change how they are formatting their proposals, but they're using it as an opportunity to take an even deeper dive and say, what else about our proposals is not quite as strong as it could be.
And that can kind of blow the doors off of everything.
Because once you start really looking at your delivery and how you're talking about your firm, the storytelling aspects of your proposals, like you said, that also has implications for your website and in general, how you're talking about your services and how you're showcasing your staff.
Here's our listener question.
It's detailed, but I really think that this will resonate with some marketers out there.
I've been in this position myself, so here we go.
I have been slammed with proposals for the last two months with no time to even think about anything else.
Yes, been there.
I just did a lull and I find myself completely stumped.
Theoretically, I know there's a lot that I could be working on, but I feel like I have no idea where to start.
How can I get motivated and focused?
Oh my gosh.
I know, we've all been there like multiple times.
I think the best place to start is to leave your desk and go for a walk, maybe get a massage.
I was gonna say the same thing.
I'm like, first of all, take a beat for yourself.
It should be a rule.
After a proposal goes in, you're done for the day.
Breathe and pat yourself on the back because you got through another glut of deadlines.
Then take another breath.
This is kind of like tying this all back together, going full circle back to the first part of this podcast.
You have a checklist now.
You've sat down and you have clinically looked at your marketing department, your marketing engine and all the different little discreet things within it, and have identified areas that could work better.
This is never going to be a done process.
There's always going to be something else that can work better.
But this is the time to put your overalls on and grab your toolbox and pop the hood and tinker underneath it.
And that might mean, you know what, these folders are an absolute mess.
And I'm going to go in and delete out stuff that makes it really hard to find the stuff that people are really going to be looking for.
Like if you have five different in-design versions of a proposal that don't need to be in there anymore, or you got all sorts of great content from a sub-consultant that you use all the time, you can start a master folder for them that's got all of their headshots and resumes and logo and project photos and whatnot.
I mean, that's one example, but there's also, you know, why don't you go on to the website and review some of the content on there?
You knew there were typos on it.
You just know there are.
Maybe this is the time to just pick a few pages and vet them.
Of course, reach out to your contacts and network.
Take this moment to email people and say, my gosh, it's been a while since I talked to you.
Maybe we can go grab coffee.
Go on to LinkedIn and just take a moment to immerse yourself back into your industry and be present there.
Maybe post something.
Or are you posting enough for your company?
This is a time to also look at that.
And are you articulating to your followers all this great stuff that you just spent weeks and weeks of time putting into proposals?
I mean, there is an almost endless list of things that you could be working on, which is why I think we get blocked.
You know, it's like writer's block.
You have a ton of stuff to say, but you don't even know how to start the first sentence.
So I really do recommend get that checklist down.
Do it every single year.
Not only does it give you stuff that you can just visually look at and go, boom, I'm going to work on that today.
But when you go to do it the next year, you can check all of these things off that you really got done.
And those kinds of wins are just as important for our marketing coordinators as the proposal wins.
I'm so glad you started with it.
Take a little care for yourself.
That's really important.
I feel like the challenge is it can be overwhelming to look at how that long list of all the things we could do.
And maybe one tip, Allison, you're probably even better at describing this than I would be.
But even though it's a very long list of things, they're not all the same weight and they don't all take the same amount of time and effort.
So you might have to just discipline or maybe sit on the couch.
Now we can sit on our couches every once in a while with our laptop and start mapping things out and get away from the big dual monitors and just think, okay, can I put these into some buckets?
What's going to take me like five minutes to do and will be great?
A quick hit that I can feel like I made some progress and success and cross off the list.
And what's a category that takes maybe an hour to complete?
What's a multi-day project?
And put them into buckets because then as you have those lulls, you can decide, hey, I've got energy, I've got knowledge about this, I am ready.
I want to take on this bigger project.
Or you're like, I am kind of out of steam, but I could just get a couple of things done, go for that smaller list.
And yeah, I think you can feel like you made progress no matter what scale project you're working on.
There is something fundamentally profoundly satisfying about crossing something off of your to-do list.
Yeah.
Even if it only took you five minutes to do it.
Have you ever gone to your to-do list and you're like, oh, I did something that's not on here, I'm going to put it on here and then check it off?
I can't help it, but I do that for myself.
I have totally done that.
Could have taken me two minutes to do, but I'm still going to document it.
I want credit even if it's just for myself, to give myself the credit for doing that.
So yeah, I think being organized, even just that brain dump of when you say, theoretically, I know there's a lot I could be working on.
I have no idea where to start.
Well, start is, let's make a long list, and hopefully, it's not an overwhelming thing.
It's a way to move it from actively rolling around in your brain to being on paper, where you can put it into some buckets or organization and realize, not everything needs to be done right now.
Some things actually can, they can wait till February.
They really can, and it doesn't matter.
So let's not put the extra pressure on us of saying this all has to be done now.
And then just finding and looking back at that marketing calendar, if it's a bigger item, where does it fit?
Let's just put it there and stop worrying about it until we get closer to it.
Amen to that.
All right, well, then on that note, let's just wrap this up, the building and implementing your annual marketing calendar.
That was three really great conversations.
I think I will go back and listen to all of these and just make sure like, what do we need to be doing at Middle of Six, what can we take to the next level?
I think that this is going to be a session or a series of three conversations that people can go back and refer to.
Spend a little bit more time, download that checklist, map out your proposal peaks, do the exercise virtual or in-person on that calendar, play around with it.
Maybe 2022 is a year to test and see what works for your team.
2023 is a way to really ramp up the depth of the information you're doing in there.
It's all a process, it's evolving just like anything.
I say spend a little time and give yourself the favor of going through this next year, feeling a little bit more organized, a little bit more empowered with data so that you can guide your leadership team and your own marketing efforts in a really thoughtful way.
The Shortlist is presented by Middle of Six and hosted by me, Wendy Simmons, principal marketing strategist.
Kyle Davis is our producer with Graphic Design and Digital Marketing by Allison Rose.
If you have a question or topic you'd like us to discuss, send an email or voice memo to theshortlistatmiddleofsix.com.
If you missed anything or want more info, check out our podcast page at middleofsix.com/theshortlist.
And follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram at Middle of Six.
Thanks so much for listening.
We hope you'll tell your friends and colleagues about the show.
And be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any of our upcoming episodes.
Until next time, keep on hustling.
Bye.
Bye.
See you next time.
The Shortlist is a podcast that explores all things AEC marketing. Hosted by Middle of Six Principal, Wendy Simmons, each episode features members of the MOS team, where we take a deep dive on a wide range of topics related to AEC marketing including: proposal development, strategy, team building, business development, branding, digital marketing, and more. You can listen to our full archive of episodes here.