A Free Tool To Help You Plan Your Promotions

It’s easy to get disorganized when running your business. Between dealing with customers, putting out fires, handling staffing issues, and day to day operations, if you don’t have systems in place to keep you on track, you can get derailed very easily. 

One system to help keep your store operations running smoothly is to implement the use of a promotional calendar. Planning out your promotional calendar early in the year, or better yet, in Q4 of the year before, is the best way to stay organized and make plans for your store.

 

Why should you use a promotional calendar? 

The biggest reason is organization. No matter how big or small your staff is, it’s important for everyone to know what products are on sale, what brands are going on end caps, what training events you have, special events in-store, etc. By documenting all of this for your team, you’re able to have one centralized location for the bulk of your need-to-know information for the whole team. 

A central location is key. Most everyone has their own individual forms of organization, and so if left unchecked, your staff can start to operate too autonomously rather than working as a team. Having one main document to work off of is essential to communication. Once you’ve established a central place of organization, each staff member can then do what works best for them to organize their daily work. 

Obviously, there are additional organization systems to put in place, but the promotional calendar is a great starting point.

In addition to organization, the promotional calendar helps you see the big picture of what is going on with each line in your store. If you’re not seeing line drives written in your calendar for some of your top brands, this tool is a great way to know whether or not you should reach out to your sales reps or in some cases, you may need to ask yourself, why haven’t your sales reps contacted you. 

You can also use this tool in preparation for trade shows! Mark down when the trade shows are each year so you can plan ahead for making larger buy-ins for show deals. 

 

A Free Promotional Calendar To Get You Started

If you want a template to get you started, we put together this promotional calendar to help you out! You can access it here. Just create a copy of the Google Sheet and off you go.

We hope you find this to be a useful tool for keeping your operations organized!

 

SENPA

SENPA is a non-profit organization with a core focus on strengthening the success of independent natural retailers and aligned manufacturers, while nourishing their human connection with consumers. We are a leading voice, supporter and advocate for the natural-products industry, rooted in the experience of enhanced health and the power of personal relationships.

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