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How to Create a Marketing Timeline in 6 Steps (+ Templates)

Published at Aug 05, 2022
How to Create a Marketing Timeline in 6 Steps (+ Templates)

Developing a marketing strategy is a step towards generating more sales and revenue for your business.

But implementing it is a different matter altogether.

Keeping an eye on your strategy’s campaigns means knowing who’s assigned to each task and project, when they need to complete their responsibilities, and how to proceed with each task.

You can’t do this without a proper system in place, which is why a marketing timeline is in order.

This post discusses what a marketing timeline is, its importance, and how to create one for your organization.

It then shows you different Visme templates to choose from to help you create your timelines much faster.

Here’s a short selection of 8 easy-to-edit marketing timeline templates you can edit, share and download with Visme. View more templates below:

 

Table of Contents

 

What Is a Marketing Timeline?

A marketing timeline is a visual schedule containing all your marketing plan's projects, events, campaigns, and activities. Each is organized according to the calendar year's day or month of completion.

 

Why Is a Marketing Timeline Important?

Developing a marketing timeline for your organization is vital for the following reasons:

Communication and Collaboration

It enables you to share the project deadlines or milestones at a specific time with your team, people in your organization and stakeholders. This allows them to craft promotional campaigns and make key decisions based on the events that transpire and was accomplished within that period.

Organization and Accountability

From your timeline, you can assign team members who can complete each task expertly. Since everybody can see the names attached to each responsibility, the assigned members are given a sense of pride and must take ownership of the task.

Work Ahead of Time

Even if the event hasn’t occurred, your team can formulate their strategy of promoting the product or service in advance. If changes happen along the way, your team can simply tweak the strategy as they see fit. This way, they don’t waste time waiting for tasks to be completed before they make their move.

 

How To Create a Marketing Timeline

Each business requires the creation of a specific timeline that suits its needs. To help you come up with the right one for your organization, you must observe the following steps:

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1. Audit Your Current Workflows

Deconstruct the established marketing workflows in your organization. Doing so shows you how work gets done and approved by the team before they are handed to the next stage of your marketing funnel.

From here, identify inefficient workflow tasks that take too much time to complete. Then, find ways to make the processes more efficient or scrap these tasks in place of another task that lets you get more things done in less time.

By optimizing your workflows, you can have a more well-defined marketing process that enables you to complete all tasks in your proposed timeline faster.

2. List Your Marketing Goals

Next, you must identify what you wish to achieve with your upcoming marketing initiatives.

Examples include improving your website traffic, generating more highly qualified leads, and improving your social selling efforts.

With a new and improved workflow, coming up with campaign ideas based on your goals and implementing each should be much more accessible than ever.

At the same time, the goals don’t always have to be directly related to your campaigns.

For instance, you want to improve collaboration between your marketing and sales teams. Or you want your keep better track of the progress of members assigned to specific tasks in a project.

The marketing timeline you’ll create should be able to help you achieve your goals much faster. In addition, since everybody in the organization can view your timeline, they can stay updated with your product or campaign progress.

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3. Decide On Your Strategy

Once you’ve settled on goals to target within a certain period, it’s time to determine which strategy to take for reaching these objectives.

The marketing strategy includes principles such as the product to be marketed, budget, and steps that must be completed when developing and implementing your campaigns. You can then break down the campaign by quarter to help you assess the current progress and make necessary adjustments to improve its results.

When building your marketing strategy from the ground up, use any of Visme’s infographic templates.

Choose which among the templates you need to create the strategy, from presentation to explainer videos. Then simply swap out the text, images, and colors with your own using our drag-and-drop editor.

4. Identify the Type of Campaign

You must brainstorm ideas about which campaign to launch from your strategy.

It’s important to take your time crafting a campaign that aligns with your marketing strategy.

For growing your website traffic, you must consider your deadline and budget from your marketing budget.

If you want to see results fast, invest in paid advertising by bidding keywords to rank your landing pages. On the downside, you’ll have to keep spending to appear on top of search results.

On the other hand, search engine optimization (SEO) is another effective tactic to drive more high-quality traffic to your site. While it could take months before you eventually see the results, it’s not as costly as paid ads.

If you’re not working on a tight deadline, developing a content marketing campaign enables you to target keywords for each content piece you’ll publish on your site. This compounds greater traffic if implemented correctly.

This is just an example of what to consider when determining a campaign for your strategy.

You must approach thinking about your marketing campaign the same way as above to determine the best course of action.

5. Set Due Dates for Campaigns

With the campaigns in tow, set a due date for the completion of each.

You want the campaign duration to be reasonable enough that your team can confidently complete all its tasks. At the same time, your campaigns need to have a sense of urgency as you don’t want to take too much time getting each one done.

To help you fully understand how much time you need to complete each campaign, break it down according to tasks. Then, get feedback from your marketing team regarding how much time they need to finish each and schedule them in your timeline accordingly.

Collaborating with your staff allows you to be on the same page with everybody in the organization regarding the deliverables.

6. Measure Your Strategy’s Success

Just because team members are assigned for each task and project doesn’t mean you’ll leave them on their own.

You want to monitor how everyone is progressing along with the marketing timeline.

Check whether they are on time with their tasks or running behind and are having difficulty completing them. If the latter, determine why that’s the case and figure out ways to help your team catch up with their responsibilities.

It will help if you develop project management charts to give team members better direction on how and when they need to complete their tasks.

Ultimately, marketing campaigns are a team effort that requires help from everybody to get the job done. And a marketing timeline allows you to be mindful of the tasks that need more help than others.

 

20 Marketing Timeline Templates to Download

Below are ready-to-use marketing timeline templates from Visme for you to choose from.

Simply edit your chosen template by including your custom text, graphics, and color to create your timeline in minutes.

To make the design process even faster, you can collaborate with your team members on the timeline’s design and the details.

how to add team members to help users edit the templates.

Once finished, you can share the timeline with other Visme users in your organization so they can leave feedback on how to improve it. Or share it as a presentation to stakeholders and people in your organization to give them a clear idea of your marketing strategy.

how to share the timeline as a presentation.

1. Apple Logo Timeline Infographic

This is one of the many infographic templates that allow you to showcase your brand logo's changes over the years. It focuses on achieving a clean and minimalist look in your presentation, similar to what Apple strived and continues to strive for with its brand.

Apple Logo Timeline Infographic
Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

2. Design Process Timeline Infographic

This infographic enables you to run through your organization's entire design process and share it with your team for reference. You can also break down the tasks into different phases and descriptions.

Design Process
Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

3. History of Email Timeline Infographic

Sharing your company’s brief history gives your audience a good idea of where your organization came from and what it has achieved so far. This template helps you share your brand’s history in text and images with rich solid colors.

History of Email Timeline Infographic
Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

4. Coca-Cola Logo Evolution Timeline Infographic

Another template that lets you share your logo designs through the years, this one uses Coca-Cola as an example. Taking a cue from its red and white color scheme, present your company logos energetically and powerfully.

Coca Cola Logo Evolution Timeline Infographic
Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

5. Voyager Mission Milestones Timeline Infographic

Showcasing your company milestones is a great way to show stakeholders and prospects your business’s accomplishments. This information template allows you to share them visually with its orange and white color scheme.

Voyager Mission Milestones Timeline Infographic
Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

6. Website Design Project Timeline Infographic

Designing a website can be daunting if you don't prepare for it properly. This template lets you break down the design process into bite-sized steps from initial contact to launch and organize them according to week.

Website Design Project Timeline Infographic
Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

7. Modern Roadmap Infographic

A roadmap is an effective visual presentation that guides your audience along a continuous path of various touchpoints with images and text. This infographic template helps you create a roadmap for your marketing timeline broken down into tasks and activities.

Modern Roadmap Infographic
Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

8. Startup Consulting Firm Marketing Strategy Roadmap Infographic

This template is a variation of a roadmap infographic design. Instead of traversing through a path, this one shares with your team the strategies you implemented in the past, currently deploying as part of your campaign, and will roll out in the future.

Startup Consulting Firm Marketing Strategy Roadmap
Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

9. Software Development Timeline Roadmap Infographic

If part of your marketing initiative is to share with people in your organization the product or software being developed, use this template. Discuss here the plans for the software, from brainstorming to launch, to keep them updated with its progress.

Instant Messaging Software Development Timeline Roadmap
Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

10. Subliminal Messages A Brief History Infographic

You can use this template to explain to your team the effectiveness of subliminal messaging in media through the years. Its understated design and simple colors make it perfect for organizations looking for a template that can communicate their ideas clearly.

Subliminal Message A Brief History
Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

11. Creative Timeline Infographic

Detail your brand's timeline in history using this simple and clear infographic template. Detail milestones your business achieved through the years to provide your audience with your brand’s accomplishment.

Creative Timeline Infographic
Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

12. General Project Timeline Gantt Chart

Complement your marketing timeline with a Gantt chart using this template. It allows you to organize the tasks into phases and the months you must accomplish each year.

General Project Timeline Gantt Chart
Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

13. Launch an Online Store Timeline Infographic

If you're developing an e-commerce store from scratch, designing a visual timeline using this template allows you to stay organized through the entire process. Describe each step and present each one using graphics to communicate your plan to the team effectively.

Launch an Online Store Timeline
Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

14. History of Solar Technology Timeline Infographic

This template is a fun and easy way to present the history of a concept or your business. Its flat and solid colors and gradient background puts the text and graphics in the spotlight, allowing you to communicate your information more clearly to your audience.

History of Solar Technology Timeline Infographic
Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

15. Social Media Platform Timeline Infographic

This infographic template lets you present a short history of social media channels. Showing them when the platforms started allows you to establish their longevity and importance in your marketing campaign.

Social Media Platform Timeline Infographic
Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

16. Product Design Process Timeline Infographic

This infographic gives your team a full view of the product design process. Identify the steps in the process and provide a short description of each. Doing so also informs everybody in marketing regarding the deliverables for the product design so they can prepare the tactics and strategy accordingly.

Product Design Process Timeline
Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

17. Customer Journey Map Timeline Infographic

Detail the customer journey for your brand to help you formulate a marketing plan that maximizes your product's or service's visibility to its intended audience. This infographic provides a blueprint for plotting your audience's journey from prospect to client.

Customer Journey Map Timeline
Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

18. Business Timeline Infographic

With this business timeline template, you can plan for your brand's achievements and milestones in the coming years based on the marketing strategy you have in place. This allows you to manifest expectations for your brand and motivate you to keep doing a great job.

Business Timeline
Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

19. Digital Marketing Timeline Infographic

If you are onboarding new members in your marketing department, this template lets you create a brief overview of the different tactics under the digital marketing banner. You can indicate the importance and value of each in your current marketing plan.

Digital Marketing Timeline
Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

20. Crystal Diner Company Timeline Infographic

This timeline template lets you create a brief company overview to give your prospects or even new hires an idea of what your business is about. Start with your humble beginners and the changes you made to become this well-respected brand in your industry.

Crystal Diner Company Timeline Infographic
Customize this template and make it your own! Edit and Download

 

Create Your Marketing Timeline Now With Visme

In preparation for your upcoming product or service launch, creating a marketing timeline is in order. With it, you can better control your marketing efforts by getting everybody working on their tasks on the same page.

While you’d think that creating a timeline is a lot of work, it isn’t with Visme. Using its free timeline maker lets you focus on laying down the projects and tasks for your marketing campaigns. This is possible thanks to its easy-to-use designer, allowing you to create professional-looking timelines without any design skills.

Check out Visme’s timeline maker and get started with your marketing timeline quickly.

Christopher Jan Benitez is a freelance writer who specializes in digital marketing. His work has been published on SEO and affiliate marketing-specific niches like Monitor Backlinks, Niche Pursuits, Nichehacks, Web Hosting Secret Revealed, and others.

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