2011 Event, Editorial
& Education Promotional Calendar™
The Ultimate Planning Tool for Media, Marketing and Education
By Laura Dawn Lewis
Copyright (C) 2011 Laura Dawn Lewis
Published by Couples Company LLC
Smashwords Edition
All Rights Reserved
ISBN: 978-1-4524-2445-3, Digital Edition
ISBN-13: 978-1461120384, ISBN-10:1461120381, Print
This publication is designed to provide competent and reliable information regarding the subject matter covered. However, it is sold with the understanding that the author and publisher are not engaged in rendering legal, financial, or other professional advice. Laws and practices vary from state to state and if legal or other expert assistance is required, the services of a professional should be sought. The author and publisher specifically disclaim any liability that is incurred from the use or application of the contents of this book.
Cover Design by Laura Dawn Lewis
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: PICTORIAL CALENDARS
CHAPTER 2: List of Months Chronologically
January ● February ● March ● April
May ● June ● July ● August ● September
CHAPTER 3: List of Months Alphabetically
CHAPTER 4: List of Weeks Chronologically
January ● February ● March ● April
May ● June ● July ● August ● September
CHAPTER 5: List of Weeks Alphabetically
CHAPTER 6: List of Days Chronologically
January ● February ● March ● April
May ● June ● July ● August ● September
CHAPTER 7: List of Days Alphabetically
CHAPTER 8: Religious Holidays Only
Christian Hindi Buddhist Jewish Muslim
INTRODUCTION
I’m sure you’ve noticed the parade of events, holidays and observances over the years. Today is National Health Day; this week is World Walk to School week; next month is International Bean Sprout Month. Some of these events are serious like the annual Click it or Ticket nationwide seatbelt law enforcement. Others are downright silly like International Talk Like a Pirate Day. And then of course there are all those religious holidays and observances that if you don’t know about them, can cause issues. This calendar has them all.
You could compile this yourself. The information is out there on the Internet. But I doubt you’ll want to take the time. It took me about 120 hours to put this all together and verify the references.
WHERE DO THE DATES COME FROM?
Month, Week and Day designations come from a variety of sources.
INTERNATIONAL OBSERVANCES: Most of the Global events in this calendar are from the United Nations and various NGO’s. These institutions and entities have designated specific days, weeks or months to raise awareness to a specific issue like clean water, ending slavery and human rights.
NATIONAL OBSERVANCES come from the US Government or various professional/business associations and interests groups. Most of these health, patriotic, historical or lifestyle related. The time is set aside to raise awareness of a specific issue, promote healthy lifestyle changes, honor certain achievements/people throughout history or promote humanism and cooperation.
RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES are included. These get a bit hairy. Christianity’s important days were pretty easy as they’ve conformed to the Gregorian calendar we use today.
Where it gets sticky are the Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist holidays. Each of these faiths marks its observances by the movement of the sun, moon or a combination of both. This means, especially with the Islamic holidays and observances, the actual ‘beginning’ of that holiday may be a day later or earlier due to the position of the moon within the hemisphere a person is located. Secondly, Islam doesn’t tend to celebrate many of the events on their calendar the way Christians and Jewish people celebrate events like birthdays and anniversaries. For example, the Prophet’s birthday is in the Islamic Calendar. It’s noted but not celebrated by most Muslims. Of course with 72 different sects within the faith…that may not hold true for all. Dates such as this should be treated more as a historical event due to the Prophet’s impact on world culture and people.
Within each of the faiths you will also have some groups that acknowledge the day and others that do not. Many of the Christian days noted are Catholic and tied to specific Saints. In general Protestants do not celebrate these days. In Judaism, Orthodox sects will mark many of the days with solemn prayer and study whilst cultural and contemporary Jews may not even know that day occurred. The same can be said for each of the faiths listed.
With that said, use the religious days on the calendar as a point of interest, something that is going on that week rather than a set day. Depending upon where you are in the world, the actually marking of the event may be a day earlier or later.
FINALLY, THE SILLY DAYS
In most cases a formal origin of these days doesn’t exist. They’ve simply been proclaimed and throughout the years accepted. They’re sprinkled in the calendar to add humor and points of interest, the little tidbits that make a story or marketing promotion interesting. Humorists and radio jocks will specifically appreciate these.
HOW TO USE THIS CALENDAR
I thought about including the explanations with each of the days noted and decided not to. If you want to learn more about a specific event, simply Google, Bing or search it. This is also a good idea since dates can change. Those noted in the calendar are accurate from when it was written. However, things change. Hurricanes happen, dates get pushed back. Always verify before committing. Use this for planning purposes.
How did it all start?
The fact is I’ve wanted a calendar like this for years but could never find one. Now that I’ve merged Couples Company with two other companies and am solely responsible for editorial content, (rather than everything like before) I started putting together an editorial calendar in anticipation of our re-launch later this summer. I didn’t get far before I realized there had to be an easier way to see what was coming up. As I began to research upcoming events and holidays, this calendar took shape. Ironically I realized it was as useful to me planning our editorial content as it was to my VP of Marketing and Product Development in planning our promotions and product offerings. Thus the calendar was born.
When an organization designates a specific week for something, it is to educate, inform, create awareness and stimulate action. Typically experts are made available to the press. Press releases increase and more facts come out about that issue. If well executed, a ‘buzz’ is created and that topic becomes top of mind. From a publisher’s standpoint, this means I’ll have access to fresh content that is topical on that subject during that period with a built up interest in it. Often research or white papers are released which help to build up a story. It’s also something I can plan for and build complimentary features around. Furthermore, the inclusion of it in the Calendar often points me to subjects I know nothing about and thus allows me to schedule topics that affect our readers but we wouldn’t have thought to cover.
From a journalist’s standpoint, it means it will be easier for me to find new stories to cover or twists to a specific feature. Major bonus, my calls and emails are more likely to be returned. Overall, my job becomes easier. I spend less time looking for information and more time analyzing and creating a story because the information is pushed toward me rather than me having to pull it out. It also allows me, should a correlation exist with current events, to put a different take on a specific story with the new information.
Depending upon where you are coming from, Marketing or Editorial, this calendar will have a different use. The point is this calendar is useful for both sides of the divide.
EVENT PLANNING:
This is one of those lessons I learned the hard way. You see I live in Los Angeles. We have 138 different languages spoken in the LA School District and one of the most diverse populations on the planet. Don’t like one part of the city? Go five blocks and you’re in another country! That diversity is something I love and a key reason for calling this sprawling multi-cultural metropolis my home.
Of course with diversity come challenges.
If your community has a large population of one or more ethnic group you don’t want to plan a promotion, event, fundraiser or other activity if a large portion of your community is marking a day or week with religious or cultural observances. For example, in Los Angeles, because we have a large Jewish population, you don’t want to plan important events, fundraisers or promotions during Passover or the Jewish Holy Week in September because a lot of people, even if they’re not practicing do observe these weeks with family.
I remember the first time I ran into this. It was a Friday in 1997 and I went to my favorite Happy Hour location in Beverly Hills. The place, normally packed wall to wall by 7PM was dead. There were maybe ten of us there and I finally asked the bartender where everyone was.
“It’s the Jewish Holy week.”
He wasn’t kidding. Beverly Hills was a ghost town that week. The two events I attended that week were likewise sparse and I realized the importance of knowing what people in my community were observing.
Not knowing can cost you tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenue, marketing, public relations and goodwill. To give you another example, consider the most popular month for company picnics, August. If your company employs a lot of people of the Muslim faith or your community has a large Muslim population, August is not your month this year to throw a picnic, company party or customer appreciation day. They’ll be fasting. August 1-30 is Ramadan. Same can be said if your community has a large Greek or Russian community that follows Christian Orthodox traditions and you want to throw a holiday party in December. Christmastide, Dec. 25- January 6 is when they celebrate Christmas. Parties during this time are likely not to be attended. Christmastide is treated as a spiritual time of reflection.
These are the silly little mistakes this calendar is designed to help business people and other’s informing or interacting with the public avoid.
In summary:
IF YOU ARE A JOURNALIST, EDITOR OR PUBLISHER:
● Use this calendar to plan features around topics that fit your market;
● Use it to discover traditions you may not know exist;
● Use it to identify issues currently receiving extra attention;
● Use it to identify potential feature stories;
● Use it for little trivia notations and ‘Did you know’ embellishments;
● Use it to create a sense of urgency and an entre to reach difficult sources;
● Use it to collect additional facts on that topic for future stories;
● Use it to identify trends.
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IF YOU ARE A MARKETER:
● Use it to generate more revenue. If an organization has set aside a specific month, day or week, find out if additional Co-op dollars are available from manufactures to capitalize upon that event. Check with the regional managers of companies and organizations that are affected by the special event. Often they will have funds set aside to increase awareness that you can use to develop a promotion or event dovetailing with the national or international event.
● Use the calendar for advertising and promotional planning with agencies and individual companies. Most marketing is planned 6-18 months in advance. Traditionally fiscal years begin in September and budgets are finalized in July and August for the next year. The heightened awareness due to the PR push will make their products/services more desirable during that time.
● Use it to bring in new advertisers. The calendar is a tremendous ice breaker for new business development and a great strategy for securing that first meeting.
● Use it to plan your own PR push for new products and services. For example, if you are releasing a book on Diabetes, October and November have several weekly, daily and monthly events designed to bring awareness to the public about Diabetes maintenance, treatment, avoidance and living with the disease. This would be the ideal time to plan a book tour.
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IF YOU ARE AN EDUCATOR:
● Use it for History: Many of the days mark historic events that impact how we live today.
● Use it to foster creativity: Have the students come up with ways to acknowledge a specific day like ‘Do a Grouch a Favor Day’, ‘Random Acts of Kindness Day’ or ‘Incredible Kid Day’
● Use it to engage curiosity: International Literacy Day
● Use it to explore other cultures and traditions: What is Diwali and how is it celebrated?
● Use it to learn about global issues: World Indigenous Peoples Day
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This is a calendar of ideas. Each year we’ll add more events and points of interest. There are thousands of special weeks and days. My hope is this calendar will make your life a little easier, whether you work in the media, market products or teach future generations.
The 2012 Calendar will be available May 15th and the 2013 Calendar during First Quarter 2012. If you know of a date, week or month we should add to this calendar, please email me at public@prplanningcalendar.com with the name, short description and entity sponsoring that addition (e.g.: United Nations, National Association of Realtors, etc.)
CHAPTER 1: THE PROMOTIONAL CALENDAR
The printable PDF is the best version of this calendar on a tablet or a computer screen. Details on how to get your free version of this book in PDF are included at the end. Below are the screenshots for each of the calendar months. Following this are detailed lists organized chronologically and alphabetically by month, week and daily observances, holidays and events.
JANUARY 2011
CHAPTER 2: MONTHLY EVENTS LISTED CRONOLOGICALLY
January
Bath Safety Month, National
Birth Defects Prevention Month, National
Blood Donor Month, National
Book Blitz Month, National
Braille Literacy Month, National
Cervical Cancer Awareness Month
Creativity Month, International
Family Fit Lifestyle Month
Financial Wellness Month
Glaucoma Awareness Month, National
Hobby Month, National
Hot Tea Month
Mentoring Month, National
Oatmeal Month, National
Poverty in America Awareness Month, National
Quality of Life Month, International
Radon Action Month, National
Self-Defense Awareness Month, National Personal
Soup Month, National
Thyroid Awareness Month
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