![\"How](\"https:\/\/media.coschedule.com\/uploads\/2020\/12\/marketing-roadmap.png?w=3840&q=75\"\/)
<\/span><\/p>\nPlanning a marketing project can feel chaotic for new and veteran marketers. With multiple elements and team members involved, how do you make sure you finish it on time and on spec?<\/p>\n
If your marketing project needs organization, try using a roadmap. It provides a structure that makes it easier for you and your team to know what to do, when to do it, and when your project needs to ship.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
What is a Marketing Roadmap?<\/h2>\n
A marketing roadmap is a plan and timeline for finishing your project or campaign. Like any other roadmap, it should have a clear starting point (start date), waymarkers (project milestones), and destination (deadline).<\/p>\n
Your roadmap\u2019s format is ultimately up to you. The key is finding an organization method that suits your workflow and keeps your projects in order across your team.<\/p>\n
A project roadmap consists of all of the steps needed to launch a marketing project<\/a>. Within a marketing strategy, a project refers to a single item, such as:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n
A strategic<\/a> roadmap plans at a higher scale than a campaign roadmap, covering all campaigns and projects within a marketing strategy for a year. It allows a detailed tracking of individual campaigns and projects.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
For list-oriented individuals, a checklist-based roadmap is recommended. It offers a straightforward overview of project steps, campaigns, or strategies. You can create one in whatever software you prefer.<\/p>\n If you use CoSchedule Calendar products, you can take advantage of the Task Templates feature<\/a>\u00a0when you want to make a roadmap checklist. Choose from eight, pre-made templates or customize your own to create a task checklist in a snap.<\/p>\n Marketers who prefer pen and paper can also write up a checklist and cross off items as they go. Choose a format that you know you\u2019ll use over one that you feel you\u2019re \u201csupposed\u201d to use.\n<\/p><\/div>\n Calendars <\/a>are the bread and butter of many marketing operations. A calendar roadmap organizes tasks by date, either with traditional daily sections or divided by day, week, month, or quarter.<\/p>\n Our template package includes a wide range of calendars to use as a roadmap. In this general calendar from our templates, you can see the tasks from the previous checklist laid out in a calendar.<\/p>\n We included the tasks for a single blog post project in this example, but you can use this calendar to outline multiple projects.<\/p>\n Depending on how you like to organize your projects, you can break your roadmap down by project or individual task.<\/p>\n You can color code items based on the person responsible or project involved, such as team member.<\/p>\n Our package of roadmap templates also features calendars for email newsletters and social media campaigns that use a different format than our general calendar.<\/p>\n This email marketing<\/a> calendar categorizes emails by month. If you visit our blog post about this calendar<\/a>, you\u2019ll see that it also organizes emails by customer persona, topic, resources, and many other helpful details.<\/p>\n Social media marketing can require you to think on a smaller time scale than other types of marketing, so our social media promotion calendar<\/a>\u00a0tracks multiple posts per day.<\/p>\n Customize the calendar to match your social platforms and posting frequency. For example, adjust rows for Twitter and Facebook based on their respective best practices for posting frequency.<\/p>\n CoSchedule makes it easy to create a calendar roadmap with the CoSchedule Calendar feature<\/a>. You can create and categorize tasks, schedule them and assign them to team members. This ensures everyone can stay up to date on any changes in your roadmap.<\/p>\n Kanban boards<\/a>\u00a0provide a visual overview of a project\u2019s steps. You might already use one as part of an agile marketing framework<\/a>. Regardless of the project management approach you use, you might enjoy the drag-and-drop mechanics of a Kanban board \u2014 they\u2019re kind of like digital sticky notes.<\/p>\n Kanban board’s drag-and-drop mechanics function like digital sticky notes.<\/p>\n![\"Definition](\"https:\/\/media.coschedule.com\/uploads\/2020\/12\/marketing-roadmap-definition.png?w=3840&q=75\"\/)
<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\nTypes of Marketing Roadmaps<\/h2>\n
\nYou can plan a roadmap for just about any situation. Here are three of the most common types of marketing roadmaps.
\n<\/p>\nProject Roadmap<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\n
Campaign Roadmap<\/h3>\n
\nCampaign roadmaps work on a larger scale than project roadmaps. They plan out all the projects involved in a marketing campaign.
\n
\nYour campaign roadmap\u2019s organization can vary. It may include individual projects as steps or delve into each project\u2019s milestones. For more extensive needs, create separate project roadmaps to include in the campaign roadmap.
\n<\/p>\nStrategic Roadmap<\/h3>\n
What Does a Marketing Roadmap Look Like?<\/h2>\n
\nA marketing roadmap\u2019s design is flexible and should suit your team\u2019s needs.
\n
\nHere are four examples of common marketing roadmap formats that include ways to use our free templates. We\u2019ll also discuss elements to create an effective organizational tool.
\n<\/p>\nExample 1: Checklist of Tasks<\/h3>\n
![\"Blog](\"https:\/\/media.coschedule.com\/uploads\/2023\/08\/blog-post-checklist.jpg?w=3840&q=75\"\/)
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/media.coschedule.com\/uploads\/2023\/08\/task-templates.png?w=3840&q=75\"\/)
<\/span><\/p>\nExample\u00a02: Marketing or Content Calendar<\/h3>\n
![\"Marketing](\"https:\/\/media.coschedule.com\/uploads\/2023\/08\/general-calendar-template.jpg?w=3840&q=75\"\/)
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"Blog](\"https:\/\/media.coschedule.com\/uploads\/2023\/08\/multiple-project-template.jpg?w=3840&q=75\"\/)
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"Project](\"https:\/\/media.coschedule.com\/uploads\/2023\/08\/project-checklist.jpg?w=3840&q=75\"\/)
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"Color](\"https:\/\/media.coschedule.com\/uploads\/2023\/08\/color-coding.jpg?w=3840&q=75\"\/)
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"Marketing](\"https:\/\/media.coschedule.com\/uploads\/2023\/08\/roadmap-template.png?w=3840&q=75\"\/)
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"Social](\"https:\/\/media.coschedule.com\/uploads\/2023\/08\/social-media-calendar.png?w=3840&q=75\"\/)
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"CoSchedule](\"https:\/\/media.coschedule.com\/uploads\/2023\/08\/coschedule-calendar.jpg?w=3840&q=75\"\/)
<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\nExample 3: Kanban Board<\/h3>\n