What do you use for your marketing calendar?

[Anonymous]

I'm curious to know what Marketo customers are currently using for their marketing calendar? Spreadsheet? Google Calendar? A calendar app? What do you like or not like about what you're currently using? Also, who owns the calendar (or who put it in place) in your company?

Thanks,
Brian

[Anonymous]

My current company is pretty small, so I just put any specified dates on my Outlook. At my previous company, we just would have Word calendar print-outs and "pencil in" dates on that. That way I could take it around or just pin it up at my desk and programs managers could see what all was going on. 

I have always been in companies where the person who is executing the emails is the calendar keeper. The big thing in my opinion is to only have ONE PERSON keep the calendar or it will become chaotic!

PS - Marketo is supposed to be releasing an email calendar later this year!!

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the input... yes, it's true that we'll be releasing a calendar product in Q4. As we gear up for the launch, I'm looking to understand how customers think/feel about their current calendars.

[Michelle_Tizian]

In my Marketing department, we use Google calendar which I manage and share. Most of the editorial broadcasts and events are in there too.  Both the other departments use spread sheets for their own purposes.  It's good to have the 3 department broadcast schedules in one calendar because we never want to send emails to the same people at the same time or day.  There's just one department who is not on board with our calendar. 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Michelle, can I ask why the other department is not on board?

[Anonymous]

Brian- Just a thought...

In my old company when we'd schedule emails we would try to plan by verticle... so if a CPG newsletter was going out on Tuesday we would try not to plan a Pharma event invite Thursday (to minimize overlap, even though we did make our own "communication limits" tool). For this reason (and for analytics), I think it'd be cool for the new calendar to incorporate segments (maybe?) and have color-coding options?

[Michelle_Tizian]

Hi Brian,

I think it might be a matter of control -- they want to send emails when they want to send it. They don't use Marketo, they use clicktools.  This is a problem for me because I handle the logistics of when emails should go out and people receiving multiple emails from us in one day is not good.  

[Anonymous]

We use a calendar on our intranet that's global and available to all business units.Our intranet is build on Wordpress and I beleive it's a standard module that they've implement. It gives us the ability to color code by activity. As it's avaiable to anyone in the organization it's helpful in scheduling and booking eBlasts that go out. Everyone is able to see what is in the queue and when they may be able to drop something into the calendar.

[Anonymous]

We use Google calendar. Will your calendar show all emails that are scheduled to go out in Marketo? or will the calendar only be for planning our schedules? Currently, if we schedule emails in Marketo it is not possible to see all the schedules. It would be nice to see these on a calendar or table form.
Ray

[Anonymous]

Google calendar...shared to all groups.