How to use Calendar for Lead Generation & Increasing Mindshare

Moving into 2020, we see many traditional media & common communication channels getting blood red with content overload & competition. But there are still many niche segments & blue oceans unexplored. For example, our simple calendar app. For most of us, our major part of life is dedicated to the calendar app by Google or Outlook. It is also a space that is often monitored by your boss, peers & colleagues. Much spotlight right? Hence a perfect real estate for the marketer.

So, what can you share via calendars? Anything your audience wants to save! Assault of the obvious ;) Back to seriousness, we should start with knowing all we can about our audience. Especially about their likes, KPI's, working style, etc. In short, think like an Anthropologist!

Here are some pointers to which you can add your creativity & convert a daily routine to a valuable mind share. Take each concept & relate it to your customer/audience (Will a reminder about it be beneficial? If so how & to what extent?) -

1. Industry highlights: Product & service launches, technological (version) or platform phaseout dates, Fintech festivals, CX summits, trade fairs, round tables, invite-only dinners or alumni breakfast meet-ups, conferences

2. Local or region-specific events: ASEAN Day, Chinese New Year holidays, campaign planning for Hari Raya Puasa 2020, Diwali sourcing reminder, XMas giftings, ramping support during Sale Seasons, team planning for monsoons & typhoons

3. Professional or skill-based reminders: Webinars by Google, AWS demos, AI workshops & podcasts by VP of unicorns, seminars, paper presentations, local city meet-ups on medical publishing, hackathons on GoLang, UiPath, Py, etc.

4. Administrative heads-up: Fiscal year, appraisals, taxes deadline, local election dates (encourage to vote!), annual meetings & gatherings, academic schedules

5. Interests, social or personality-based escapades: Marathons, Bachata socials, comic cons, art walks, heritage trails, wine tasting, Burning Man, CSR, social causes & community gatherings, workout & diet schedules, etc. (I agree this is a bit tricky if you are into B2B & approaching cold prospects. But not so much as you may think with current developments in Martech, social listening & retargeting. Research is getting easy. If done, this can surely add the personal touch & magic, not confining you to the only-for-business stuff.)

Thus, you have one more channel for branding through calendars using curated reminders, simplified tasks & byte-sized actions that can be saved to the calendar by your audience. If we look deeper, the concept of using calendars & schedules to increase mindshare, was already in action without our knowledge. Guess where? It starts with our schools, the colleges, media & mainly the religion in all the ways! Now back to work, all that you need to do is add a call-to-action like a signup wall or social shares & you have another pipe to channel leads. This can be useful to professionals both in niches segments & any industry like healthcare, L&D, SaaS, entertainment, tourism, etc. Now let's focus more on the how2s.

Time to get hands dirty! Here is how to make & share calendars -

1. Creating Calendars - Use the links as per the platform you use - Google Nest, Google Calendar, Outlook, iCal or iCalendar (the "i" here stands for international. Nothing to do with Apple! It is a media type format like HTML usually with a .ics extension). Let's take an example. In my case, if I were to relate to 'Head of Consumer Experience' in Indonesia I would make a calendar with reminders to - 1. Team planning / adding shifts / hiring occasional agents & load balancing: At 2 months, 3 weeks or on Q3 end before the sales seasons of 10/10 Mobile Shopping Day, 11/11 Singles Day & 12/12 Harbolnas. 2. Best Customer Wizard incentive or a bonus plan before Harry Potter's Birthday or World Coffee Day. 3. Local Workshops on Emotional Intelligence & Wellbeing. 4. Team Activity or Outing reminder during Yoga Day (Whiskey Day might hit better in other markets!) etc. 5. Weekend Reads or AMA (ask me anything) by experts on Saturday mornings, set bimonthly.
2. The UI/UX part - If we are targetting professional work calendars (if encouraging people to sign-up using company emails), then our curation should be very precise & relevant. Similarly, avoid repetitive reminders unless necessary & use it sparingly when needed. Give your audience a glimpse of what to expect & how the calendar might look like once saved. Once the calendar is ready, take screenshots of it (of a month & week) in both Desktop & Mobile. You should also give your audience a heads-up that events could be subject to change, especially if you are not the organizer & mention you would update the calendar accordingly. The reminder messages or event/task title matters too, as it could be orated by Alexa & viewed not only on mobile screens but on smartwatches too. We can't control everything, so better to know the possibilities when it comes to screens & devices, prepare what we can.
3. Creating a call to action (CTA) - When it comes to marketing & sales everything is about the CTA. This is where you need to focus the most & craft it right for people to relate & engage with you. Now save the 22nd of May as Sherlock Homes Day :) Get those glass & collect as much information as you can, from your marketing team, fellow folks, customers & if possible competitors too. Back to the example, we can name the calendar something like "The Yoda's Happiness Calendar - to champion productivity at work & exceed your customer happiness benchmarks.". I would also have a 2-week sample calendar as trial, which along with screenshots would speak for itself as what this is all about. If people liked the sample, they can download the rest of 365/6 days by signing up a simple short form and/or sharing it to socials.
4. Choosing the channels or mediums - Once the calendar & CTA is ready we now need to share or host it somewhere. The calendar links & IDs won't spread on its own! You need to decide on a platform or medium to share it. Targeted towards your audience say expats, local professionals serving foreign clients, etc. this could be a landing page, blog post, Medium articles, LinkedIn Ads, website form, Twitter anything you deem fit as per your concept. In my example, I would need a page or post in my company's blog or even a landing page created using our CRM. This would be having the links, screenshots & SEO taken care of through keywords, hashtags & handles to make it popup on relevant searches.

With creativity nothing is rigid. You can tweak the steps & innovate further as per your business. Say, for coaches, trainers & consultants, the calendar itself is a professional service (think diet plans, crossfit schedules, content calendars, tour plans & guides etc.), which can be offered at a cost or a part of a package. The more genuine, authentic, sharp & sexy your curation is the more you win! You would be known for this curation & effort.

And here are some offbeat inspirations - AtlasObscura, NASA Launches, more calendars.

What else do you think can be interesting on a calendar? Feel free to add in your thoughts, comments on how this works for you & what had worked for you. We can then update this article accordingly with more interesting points. There is always plenty more Jugaad & options like our mighty little friend — The Calendar for us to explore!