Marketing Calendar 2025 – Gamified Marketing Campaign Plan

The year has just begun and it’s time to plan your marketing activities for the upcoming 12 months. The best way to do it is to create a comprehensive Marketing calendar 2025. This guide will help you navigate this year with ease and engage your target audience on every crucial occasion, boosting sales, nurturing customer relations and growing brand awareness.

Today, we answer several common questions:

• What is a marketing calendar?
• What are its benefits to your marketing goals?
• What types of calendars can you use in your campaigns?
• How to make an efficient marketing calendar for 2025?
• What are the key events in 2025 that you can use?
• How to use gamified marketing to boost your campaigns in 2025?

Grab a cup of tea or coffee and get yourself cozy, there’s a lot to unpack in this one. We’re starting with the basics, but if you’re here for calendar ideas, you can scroll down.

What is a Marketing Calendar and Why is it Important?

What is a marketing Calendar? It is a detailed schedule of marketing activities for a set period of time (year, quarter, or month). It can encompass all the planned activities or can only be dedicated to a specific type (like an editorial calendar or SMM post).

An example of a holiday marketing calendar for St Valentine’s Day.

In a narrower sense, a digital marketing calendar is the schedule of marketing activities built around certain holidays that happen around the year.

Types of Marketing Calendars

Depending on the number of channels you use to communicate with your target audience and the size of your team, you can make one marketing calendar for 2025 containing all activities and separate calendars for each channel. Let’s quickly overview different types of calendars you can use in managing your marketing activities.

Marketing Campaign Calendar

This type of calendar’s offers a bird’s eye view on all the activities of your marketing team throughout the year. It’s usually created by the Chief Marketing Officer or a person in a similar position. It can be shared with a company’s top management to provide an insight into the work of the marketing team.

Editorial (Content Plan)

An editorial calendar also known as a content plan is a detailed schedule of content production. It can incorporate reposting to social media and marketing emails. However, most content plans predominantly focus on the website content. There are two main ways you can organize an editorial calendar. First, you can focus only on content issues, keeping details like stages or the executors “under the rugs.” Alternatively, you can create a detailed plan for each content piece detailing stages, people in charge and timelines. Check out this example:

An example of Editorial Calendar for marketing team that includes the stages of content creation and people in charge of the process.

Email Calendar

According to Statista, in 2023, appr. 52% of marketing professionals reported a 100% improvement in the ROI rate of their email marketing campaigns. Despite some predictions, this channel remains one of the most efficient in your arsenal. The marketing planning calendar can help you plan your email marketing campaigns throughout the year and make the most out of each of them.

Social Media Calendar

Social media posting is much more fast-paced compared to blog posting. Your team can be writing 1-2 articles per week. Meanwhile an SMM person will be creating and publishing several posts a week across multiple platforms. This pace requires careful planning.

Tip
Add the collaboration with influencers on your Social Media Marketing planning calendar. It will help you track the onset and performance of campaigns.

Advertising Calendar

Online advertising has one of the highest ROI of all channels.

A popular true crime & makeup vlogger advertises a merge game with cute magical creatures in a video that has generated 508K views in just 9 days.

Tip
Mark the end of the campaign on your calendar and make sure you’ve turned the ads off. We heard a couple of horror stories from fellow marketers when nobody turned off the ads and they kept appearing advertising the old product and charging monthly.

Digital Marketing Events Calendar

If your company organizes events for your customers, a digital marketing events calendar can help you better plan and organize these events. Depending on the type of your business, industry, product/service, and target audience, using offline marketing tactics can benefit you. That’s why you need a calendar for these events too.

Gamification Calendar for Marketing

Gamified Marketing is becoming increasingly popular due to its impact on customer behaviour. Previously, only the biggest brands could afford marketing gamification. Luckily, with Winday companies don’t need to hire dev teams or outsource gamification. Any marketer who has minimal experience with web applications can now create a gamified marketing campaign in less than 30 minutes. Meanwhile, the abundance of skins can help you get ready for all the events that you marked on your 2025 marketing calendar.

Interface of Marketing Gamification Platform Winday featuring Chinese New Year.

Benefits of Marketing Calendar

Boost Sales

Marketing schedule built around certain holidays can help you boost your sales since it’s the time when people are usually more eager to make purchases.

Better Connect with Your Target Audience

For marketers it’s easier to use the cultural artifacts that are recognized by our target audience in communications. Take these two pictures for example:

Two advertising posters for French cookies (early 1900s).

Better Connect with Your Target Audience

Modern people will not understand the hidden cultural artifacts behind both posters. According to this article on Mucha’s advertising posters, the first picture features a boy with a “medal for perfect attendance.” The meaning behind the medal is completely lost on us because we lack the context. Similarly, the same article claims that the second picture depicts people in opera. Again, it is not something modern people can immediately get from the picture (as you need to know the type of outfit the rich of the time would wear to a theatre).

Summing up, French people in the early XX century could get 2 distinctly different messages about LU cookies from the above posters. First, the cookies are for well-behaved boys. Second, the cookies are for elegant cultured adults who live the best life the society could offer at the time.

Similarly to Alphonse Mucha and other advertising pioneers, modern marketers use holidays and their culture code to tell the story that their TA can easily recognize and understand like a painted egg around Easter in countries with Christian majority.

Build Brand Awareness

Marketing events are often a good opportunity for brands to attract new customers, especially when it comes to other social strata. Let’s say you run a small local business, and your neighborhood has recently welcomed a lot of people from Muslim countries. It’s a good reason to start celebrating Ramadan. It will help you earn more people from the new community and will be generally a kind thing to do.

Retain Customers

Consistency in marketing activities gives a sense of predictability to your customers and thus makes them return for more products/services. As marketers, we all know that Customer Acquisition Cost is always higher than Customer retention.

Steam offers special discounts almost all-year round. Apart from Winter, Spring, Summer & Fall sales, they also arrange sales for specific genres of games. Most platform users find it reliable.

Planning Marketing Activities

Most marketing activities require collaboration of multiple team members and long-term preparations to succeed. When it comes to time-sensitive events like holidays, more often than not, the marketing team remembers that they should organize an event-related activity right before its beginning. As a result, they don’t have enough time to prepare necessary collateral and inform the target audience about the upcoming activities too late. There’s no surprise that poor timing is no 3 reason for campaign failure according:

Digital marketing calendars can help you carefully plan your team work ahead of time. You can rest assured that your team knows what needs to be done and when.

Study Your Buyers

Marketing calendars similar to all marketing activities is a great way to study your customers. Add analytics to each campaign on your schedule upon its completion. By the end of Q4, you’ll have a year-worth data to analyze and plan your next activities.

Instrument of Monitoring & Control

A marketing campaign calendar can help your company get a better overview of marketing activities. It can also serve as a method of controlling your campaigns performance both by your team and the company’s top management.

Takes the Edge Off Team while Nurturing Creativity

Your team needs to be creative and generate new ideas all year round, but anyone working in the creative field knows how hard it is. A Marketing schedule eases the creativity process by providing necessary structure to your team. It’s easier for a designer to draw an image with clear guidelines than stare at a blank canvas and come up with ideas. Similarly it’s easier to create a marketing campaign that has a predefined theme and cultural background than do it from scratch.

A typical shop window on a Valentine’s day. It’s easier to use global celebration of love to boost sales which has predefined symbols (e.g., a heart shape) and narratives than come up with new ideas.

Key Features of an Effective Marketing Calendar 2025

When planning your marketing schedule for 2025 and any upcoming year, make sure you stick to the following principles:

• Align with overall marketing strategy
• Outline all the dates your company is ready to celebrate
• Match with your Target Audience
• Make accessible for your team and top management
• Outline the breakdown of all marketing activity for each event
• Add multiple calendars for various channels

Month-by-Month Guide to the 2025 Marketing Calendar

This section of our guide lists the main holidays celebrated in different countries and different cultures. This list is far from complete but it can serve you well as a starting point for your marketing schedule. Holidays in this list are arranged by month. Each holiday contains information about its dates in 2025, the countries where it’s observed by the majority of the population, and a short summary. We also provided the status for each holiday:

Unmoveable feasts take place on the same day every year. For example, International Women’s Day is always celebrated on 8 March.

Moveable feasts are celebrated on different dates each year. In some cases, they are tied to a certain day of the week (usually Sunday) to enable people to celebrate them on weekends. In other cases, the dates are tied to the moon behavior like Easter that is also tied to the Spring Equinox. Finally, there’s a category of feasts that are stable in their national calendars but are moveable in the Gregorian Calendar that we use. For example, Chinese New Year, Hanukkah and Diwali begin and end on set days of Chinese, Hindu and Jewish Calendars.

January

January is a somewhat dead month in many Western countries. People slowly get back from long December holidays and festivities.

New Year (January 1, 2025)

Status: Unmoveable feast

Countries: United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, India, Germany, France, Japan, South Korea, South Africa.

Summary: Back in 153 BC, Roman consuls picked this day as the first day in the new year in office. Later it was added to the Julian Calendar as the first day. Later it was transitioned to Gregorian Calendar and adopted by most European countries of the time in a span of 2 centuries.

Today celebrations vary depending on the country and culture and may include festive gatherings, fireworks, drinking champagne, and gift giving. Many people feel that it’s a new start in their life, that’s why making a summary of the past year, resolutions for self improvement, and planning the upcoming year are popular. Any theme with these features can help.

What is a Marketing Calendar for February?

February is an important month in your marketing campaign calendar with 2 important events:

Chinese New Year (February 6, 2025)

Status: Moveable feast

Countries: China, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, and other countries with significant Chinese communities.

Summary: One of the most important feasts in Chinese culture, The Spring Festival also known as Lunar New Year is celebrated for 15 days from 1st day of new lunar year to 15th (the Lantern Festival). This is the time to honour your ancestors and deities, family reunions, new beginnings, wishing good fortune, long life, wealth and happiness. People would clean and adorn their houses, light firecrackers and give money in traditional red envelopes.

Winday Campaign Idea: Create an instant game with a festive “Chinese Spring Festival” design theme. Offer participants traditional-themed rewards, like digital “red envelopes” or exclusive discounts.

Chinese Spring Festival Game Design Theme Available on Winday

Valentine’s Day (February 14, 2025)

Status: Unmoveable feast

Countries: Celebrated in many countries globally, including the United States, UK, France, and Japan.

Summary: What started as a horrible story of an executed Christian Priest who married couples against the Roman Emperor’s decree, transformed into one of the most lucrative events on a digital marketing calendar. What works on this day is the famous form that doesn’t remind the real human heart, yet symbolises it, chocolates & sweets, perfumes, jewelry, romantic dates, and promises of eternal love.

Winday Campaign Idea: Offer couples to participate in a game tournament during the week leading to St Valentine’s day. Use Valentine’s Day Theme. Offer lucrative discounts and presents for top 3-10 winners.

Winday Theme designed specially for St. Valentine’s day

Ramadan (February 28 – March 30, 2025)

Status: Unmoveable feast

Countries: Predominantly Muslim-majority countries such as Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey, UAE, Malaysia, and countries with significant Muslim populations, including India, the UK, France, and the US.

Summary: The ninth month of the Islamic Calendar, Ramadan was the time when God revealed the Quran as a guidance for humans to Prophet Muhammad. This is the sacred time for Muslims all over the world, during which they pray, fast, organize family gatherings, contemplate important spiritual topics, and engage in charity. Fasting Muslims do not eat during the day time which can be very exhausting for their bodies. Try scheduling any activities for earlier hours when their energy levels remain high from morning eating.

Marketing Events Calendar for March

International Women’s Day (March 8, 2025)

Status: Unmoveable feast

Countries: Celebrated globally.

Summary: In 1857, New York garment workers began a strike demanding equal payment, shorter working hours and safer working environment. 52 years later Theresa Malkiel decided to organize the first ever Women’s Day. Later, this initiative was supported by many organizations fighting for women’s rights globally. It’s a day to celebrate women’s power and continue the fight for their rights all over the world.

Women’s Day in Cameroon where 70% of women remain illiterate today remind us of the necessity to celebrate this day.

It’s important to remember that there is no one right way to be a woman so focusing just on femininity, motherhood, career achievements against all odds, or girl power isn’t quite right. Every woman in this world is a mixture of all or some of these elements. She can always be proud to be a woman and has the right to be her true self whatever that is.

Winday Campaign Tips: Try avoiding competitive games that force women to compete with each other. This day is about cooperation, support and community. Attract her attention with an offer to treat herself or her “sisters.”

Theme for International Women’s Day is Available on Winday

St. Patrick’s Day (March 17, 2025)

Status: Unmoveable feast

Countries: Primarily celebrated in Ireland, the United States, and Canada.

Summary: Around 10,000 years ago the glaciers of the Ice Age melted leaving Ireland bare under endless skies. The new green pastures welcomed the new species who traversed the ocean in search of new land. Alas, poor snakes proved to be bad swimmers… and so Ireland remained snakeless. For some odd reason, Christians spread the rumor that it was actually their priest St Patric who liberated the island from snakes (and not the climate change and snakes preposterous swimming incompetence).

Gorgeous grass snake is one of three species who found their way to Britain from the European mainland after Ice Age but decided against going any further contributing to St Patrik’s legend of snake expulsion.

Somehow the celebration of the Saint became insanely popular outside Ireland and now involves wearing green, using shamrock symbols and drinking Oktoberfest levels of beer.

Winday Campaign Tips: While adding the event on the marketing calendar for 2025 make the events fun and festive. Don’t hesitate to use Celt Mythology.

April

April Fools’ Day (April 1, 2025)

Status: Unmoveable feast

Countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, India, Japan, and other countries where humor and pranks are a cultural norm.

Summary: Wikipedia links the origins of the day to a somewhat chaotic revamp of Aesop’s famous fable the Fox and the Crow by a medieval English writer. In it, the crow is replaced by a rooster with an unpronounceable name who is tricked by fox and then tricks the fox in an unpredictable plot twist. Another possible explanation is that people who transferred to celebrating New Year on 1st of January joked at those who continued celebrating in March.

Oddly enough, the Nun’s Priest is also somehow linked to the story of a fox and a rooster making the whole deal even more bizarre and befitting the feast.

Winday Tip: Add this holiday on your annual marketing calendar with caution. Not all people love pranks. Some jokes can be cruel and perceived as bullying. Try to always remain calm and empathetic.

Easter (April 20, 2025)

Status: Moveable feast. Notes: Orthodox Easter often falls on different days.

Countries: Celebrated in countries with Christian-majority.

Summary: Long ago a God’s Child roamed the roads of the Middle East. He tried to teach love and compassion. Unfortunately, the local administration didn’t like it, and he was executed for being different. Three days later he came back to life and ascended to the skies forgiving the sins. Ever since, this event is celebrated by Christians all over the world. The holiday is about family reunion, love, forgiving, and giving.

Ukrainian Easter Eggs Pysanki is an inalienable part of Easter celebrations in the country.

May 2025 Marketing Calendar

Mother’s Day (May 11, 2025)

Status: Moveable feast / Unmoveable feast. Notes: the date & status depends on the country.

Countries: Celebrated globally on different dates, primarily in the United States, UK, Australia, and Canada.

Summary: Here’s a sad Reddit story. Once a woman asked her daughters not to change the radio channel. The girls were astonished that their mother made a request for herself. That was the day when they understood the kind of life their mom had and the kind of sacrifices she made to nurture them. In another Reddit story, a son was astonished to find out that his mother is a person with her own unique life outside the family with a great career and profound knowledge in chemistry.

Often moms have been selfless to help their kids grow and develop into decent human beings. Mothers’ day is the time when we acknowledge their contribution to us.

Mary selflessly stands next to her son during his second arrival to Earth as depicted by Michelangelo.

Winday Campaign Idea: More and more moms all over the world play casual games to decompress and relax. Offer a campaign to play with your mom and get amazing presents to celebrate her.

Marketing Planning Calendar for June

Father’s Day (June 15, 2025)

Status: Moveable feast / Unmoveable feast. Notes: the date & status depends on the country.

Countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, India, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and several European and South American countries.

Summary: Fathers play important roles in our lives, and it’s only fair that we celebrate them as we celebrate our mothers. Many men were brought up with a ban to express their emotions and feelings. Thus, it can often be hard to connect with our dads emotionally. Father’s Day gives a unique opportunity to do it.

Winday Campaign Idea: Entice your customers to play with their fathers as a bonding experience and an opportunity to win enticing prizes.

Pride Month (June 2025)

Status: Moveable feast / Unmoveable feast. Notes: in certain countries the celebrations of Pride Month can take place in other months due to security issues or other factors.

Countries: Celebrated globally, especially in the United States, UK, Canada, and Australia.

Summary: LGBTQA+ community has been fighting for their rights for millennia. To this day, their status in society requires constant protection by both the members of the community and allies alike. Celebrate yourself, your friends, family members or fellow humans. Remember that Pride Month isn’t only about rainbow flags and flashy costumes. Above all, it’s the freedom to be yourself, to love and be loved, to be safe in your own community, and to enjoy equal human rights that everyone is entitled to by the mere fact that they are a human.

A brief reminder of different Pride Flags.

Winday Tip: Pride Month is long, so we suggest adding multiple events on your holiday marketing calendar. You can celebrate each queer group separately, the more the gayer.

August

After a slow month of July when everyone was out for vacations, it’s time to pace up your marketing schedule.

International Youth Day (August 12, 2025)

Status: Unmoveable feast

Countries: Globally celebrated.

Summary: Initiated by the United Nations to draw attention to the needs and problems of teens, International Youth Day also aspires to start a meaningful dialogue with kids about the future of humanity. It’s still a relatively young holiday, and there is no correct or incorrect way to celebrate it. Despite low popularity, we suggest adding this holiday on your marketing calendar for 2025.

Fact: there are approximately 2.4 Billion children under 18 worldwide. Late Gen Z and Gen Alpha are nothing like previous generations. So it’s hard to find an approach that will fit everyone.

Unique Gen Alpha Shopping Habits

Back-to-School Season (August-September 2025)

Status: Unmoveable feast for most parents and some children

Summary: The day is almost here. No more running. No more screaming. No more questions. Finally you have some alone time while your children are legally incarcerated by a system that kills joy, creativity, and curiosity and sucks the energy of anyone who dares to join. Patients can celebrate the upcoming glorious event by spending half their monthly income on books and stationery that will be lost or irreparably damaged by the end of the first school day.

Emotions of the family members preparing for Back-to-school Season

Winday Tip: Since school preparations last for almost a month, plan multiple activities on your marketing campaign calendar.

September Digital Events Calendar for Marketers

Mid-Autumn Festival (September 7, 2025)

Status: Moveable feast

Countries: Celebrated in China, Vietnam, and other East Asian countries.

Summary: Celebrated around the Autumn Equinox, Mid-Autumn Festival is dedicated to the full moon, fertility, longevity, and the harvest events. Long time ago a beautiful woman Chang’e was resting at home when a thief came to her house demanding an immortality pill granted to her husband. To protect the precious gift and prevent the unworthy human from living forever, Chang’e ate the pill herself. As a result she ascended to the moon and turned into a Goddess. Her inconsolable husband stayed behind and commemorated her departure.

During the Mid-Autumn Festival, people eat mooncakes, light beautiful lanterns and look at the moon which is believed to be the biggest and brightest this time round.

Chang’e depiction Yuan of Early Ming Dynasty, you can see the full moon behind the clouds foreshadowing her ascension to Godhood.

Oktoberfest (September 20, 2025)

Status: Moveable feast

Countries: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, United States (notably in cities like Munich, Denver, and Cincinnati), and other countries with large German communities or beer festivals.

Summary: Oktoberfest lasts for over 2 weeks (17 or 18 days). Initially celebrated in Germany, it spread into other countries with a high beer consumption culture. The main way to celebrate this feast is to drink German beer in large quantities and appreciate its taste. Other festivities include tasty food, decorating eateries, participating in costume wearing and parades.

Digital Marketing Calendar for October

Diwali (October 20, 2025)

Status: Moveable feast

Countries: Primarily celebrated in India, as well as other South Asian countries and diaspora communities worldwide.

Summary: Long ago God Rama defeated a demon king Ravana and returned to his kingdom in Northern India. His event symbolized the victory of light over darkness and has been celebrated for millennia by Hindus all over the world.

The celebration of Diwali, also known as Deepavali or Deepawali includes lighting premises with diya oil lamps, watching fireworks, and reuniting with families.

Winday Tip: Diwali lasts 5 days. Make sure to add some activity on each day of your digital marketing events calendar.

Halloween (October 31, 2025)

Status: Unmoveable feast

Countries: Primarily celebrated in the United States, Canada, UK, and Ireland.

Summary: One way to fight your fears is to come in close touch with its source. Halloween gives you just that. Initially, people wore the costumes of witches and monsters they were afraid of. By impersonating them people got their chance to come in close contact with the source of fear and overcome it. Today, it’s more about having fun, wearing creative costumes, and sharing candies with local kids.

Cassiopeia constellation as a costume idea for Halloween.

November

November is the golden time for sales in Western Countries. That’s why we suggest to work hard on your calendar for marketing events.

Thanksgiving (November 27, 2025)

Status: Moveable feast; Notes: the date depends on the country

Countries: Primarily celebrated in the United States and Canada.

Summary: A festival tied to the end of the harvesting season in some Western countries, hence different months. Festivities include family reunion, attending church, eating food together, and giving to charities. It’s about gratitude for the things people have and sharing with the less fortunate. Fun fact: despite its religious and pagan origin, Thanksgiving is a secular holiday.

Many European holidays dedicated to successful harvesting feature some arrangement of grains or flowers to showcase the results of work and assure that the next year will be as fruitful.

Winday Tip: Add to your calendar for marketing events and offer your target audience activities that can bring people together, since Thanksgiving is all about reunion. Feature tasty food and give tips on keeping family peace.

Black Friday (November 28, 2025)

Status: Moveable feast

Countries: United States, Canada, and increasingly popular globally.

Summary: After Thanksgiving, the great sale in retail stores begins. They open early in the morning welcoming a roaring crowd of people that have been standing in the queue for hours. People quickly buy as many discounted products as possible.

People in a retail store on Black Fridays.

December Digital Events Calendar for Marketers

Cyber Monday (December 1st, 2025)

Status: Moveable feast

Countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, France, and other countries with a strong e-commerce presence.

Summary: Essentially, Cybermonday is a Black Friday for online shops. After people have left no product unturned in the brick-and-mortar stores and still haven’t found the desired item, they continue their search online.

Hanukkah (December 17-25, 2025)

Status: Moveable feast in Gregorian Calendar and unmoveable in Jewish Calendar (25 Kislev – 2 Tevet or 3 Tevet)

Countries: Primarily celebrated by Jewish communities around the world.

Summary: Celebrated for 8 days, Hanukkah, Festival of Lights commemorates the reclaiming of the Jerusalem Temple in 2 century BC. Traditions include lighting the candles of Hanukkah menorah, singing Hanukkah songs, playing dreidel, and reciting Hallel Psalms. The dishes cooked around this time should include oil to commemorate the miracle of endless oil that lasted for 8 days after Jews reclaimed the temple.

Hannukah table with menorahs and dreidel spinning tops, one depicting Shrek.

Winday Tip: Add activities for each day of Hannukah on your marketing events calendar.

Cyber Monday (December 1st, 2025)

Status: Moveable feast

Countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, France, and other countries with a strong e-commerce presence.

Summary: Essentially, Cybermonday is a Black Friday for online shops. After people have left no product unturned in the brick-and-mortar stores and still haven’t found the desired item, they continue their search online.

Christmas (December 25, 2025)

Status: Unmoveable feast

Countries: with Christian majority

Summary: Once upon a time, a pregnant woman and her husband couldn’t find a place to sleep in the busy city. They decided to stay in an animal shed warmed by local cattle. The same night the woman gave birth to a Child of God. Despite a risky labour without any professional medical help, the baby turned out to be healthy, so his father, the God, lit up a star above the shed to inform humanity about the successful delivery.

A display of figurines depicting the birth of Christ.

One of the favourite holidays in Christian tradition, Christmas commemorates this happy event.Traditions include cutting down a tree (usually a spruce), taking it home, adorning it with toys (usually glass balls).Other notable celebration methods are family reunion, gift giving and lying to children about the source of the gifts

Winday Tip: Create an instant game with discounts as prizes for Christmas and add it to your calendar for marketing events. Avoid competitive tournaments. For Christians this day symbolizes unity and peace.

How to Plan Gamified Marketing Campaigns Throughout the Year

Marketing gamification is a relatively new activity that is gaining popularity with the advancement of technology. With the increased cost of customer acquisition and decreased impact of legacy marketing channels, gamification attracts attention with its novelty and retains customer interest using gamification psychology.

Ok, so you’re ready to create your very first gamified marketing planning calendar, but just not sure where to begin? Here’s a step-by-step guide.

1. Identify your Marketing Goals and KPIs

Marketing goals are crucial to any marketing campaign. Remember to use SMART principle when forming them:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

SMART principles for identifying your Marketing Goals

Examples of goals and KPIs for 2025 marketing calendar:

• attract a new target audience – gain 300 customers of [socio strata] by [date]
• launch new product/service – achieve $100.000 in sales by [date]
• increase contact base – collect 1000 emails by [date]
• test customer response to gamified marketing – check the % of participants

Goals and KPIs will help you evaluate your campaigns performance.

2. Pick Events for Your Annual Marketing Calendar 2025

We suggest starting the first year with fewer events before you can get hold of the process. The choice of events will depend on several factors:

• Team capacity: how much time your team can spend on extra activities
• Budget
• Your target audience or TA you want to win over
• Your product/service

Apart from the events that we listed in this guide, make sure to add several events that are relevant to your target audience and your business. For example, if you run a yoga studio, don’t hesitate to celebrate World Health Day on 7 April, International Yoga Day on 21 June, and even World Meditation Day on 21 December.

Tip for beginners:
Create many campaigns at once and then polish them to perfection. It’s good to have a gamification campaign in store for quick response. With Winday you can create and store as many campaign drafts as you want.

3. Use Marketing Gamification Platform

Use marketing gamification platform Winday for your digital marketing events calendar. Yep, we didn’t write this marketing guide to advertise competitors. We want you to have the best on the market. And here’s why. Winday has multiple benefits:

• Codeless game creation: any adult without special training can set up a campaign.
• Save 99% of budget and time compared to in-house and outsource development teams.
• Campaign setting and launch in under 30 minutes.
• Flexibility: 2 game modes (tournament & instant), 5 games, 3 goals options, 3 levels of difficulty, 3 game time options.
• Sharing capabilities: QR code, link, website plugin, mobile plugin, telegram bot, your brand page.
• 45 unique skins with different themes and even more coming this year.
• Branding consistency: add your logo, brand palette, and background.
• Analytics: monitor your games performance to understand what works best with your TA.
• Optimization: edit your game on the go to make the most of your campaign.
• Intuitive interface and UX.
• Last, but not least, you can order a customized game from our team.

Winday Marketing Gamification platform: An example of a tournament. This mode enables you to set several winners depending on their in-game performance.

4. Outline Activities around Each Event

It will help you turn your marketing campaign calendar into a powerful campaign management tool. To do it, answer several questions:

1. What game will my potential customers play?
2. Will it be a tournament or instant game?
3. What prizes will participants get?
4. How will people get their prizes?
5. How difficult will it be to win the game?
6. How will it impact my marketing goals?
7. What theme will I use for this game?
8. Where will people access my game (website, mobile app, Telegram channel)?
9. What channels will I use to spread the word about the game?
10. How will I entice people to play the game?
11. What will be the game’s narrative?
12. What does a buyer journey look like for a player?

Answering these questions will help you create an outline of each campaign on your digital events calendar for marketers. You will also be able to assess the scope of work, break down each campaign into a set of simple tasks, and understand what resources you have and what resources you will need.

Winday Gamification Platform offers you several options to integrate your game which can improve the UX and ease the customer journey.

5. Set Deadlines and People in Charge

Once you understand the scope of work, you can assign people for each campaign. Here’s an incomplete list of roles you might want to involve in your next gamification campaign: a designer, content writer, SMM manager, email marketer, PPC manager, and your website developer or mobile app dev team.

You will also need to set a deadline for each step of campaign preparation, campaign launch, and campaign end.

Tip for beginners:
Set bigger timeframes. If you’re new to it, mistakes are inevitable. It’s best to have more time to fix them. It can also take more time for your audience to respond to the new marketing activity.

6. Review the Annual Marketing Calendar

This is an important step. Once your calendar is done, you need to review it with your team. They will find a couple of mistakes and suggest improvements.

Tip for beginners:
Do a test drive long before launching the first campaign on your calendar. See how your audience responds, check out the mistakes you and your teammates make to do better in the future.