Car Dealership Marketing Calendar (Free Template)

One editable calendar for the year: what to sell each month, which events and campaigns support it, who owns each line and the number you check when the month closes.

A marketing plan decides the goals, the audiences and the budget. The calendar is where that plan meets the week in front of you. It answers the questions that come up every Monday: what are we pushing this month, what event is next, who is building the page, when do the texts go out, and how will we know whether it worked?

Without a calendar, dealership marketing runs on whatever is urgent. The holiday weekend sneaks up, the creative is made on Thursday for a Saturday event, and the aged units nobody expected sit another month. With one, the big moments are booked six weeks ahead and the team spends event week selling instead of scrambling.

The template works for franchise dealers, independent and used car stores, buy here pay here lots, RV and boat dealers, and auto brokers. A small store fills in fewer rows; the rhythm is the same. If you have not set goals and budget yet, start with the car dealer marketing guide, then come back to the calendar.

Download the car dealership marketing calendar in Excel to edit it, or print the marketing calendar as a PDF for the planning meeting. It has four tabs:

1. Annual Calendar: twelve rows, one per month, with columns for inventory focus, events and dates, campaigns and offers, channels, owner and the month end check. Sample entries are filled in for you to replace.
2. Social Rhythm: a weekly posting pattern with an example for each day, the format, an owner and notes.
3. Event Planner: seven steps that count back from any event, from six weeks out to the follow-up after it ends.
4. Monthly Review: the numbers to read when each month closes, with columns for the target, the actual and the decision you make.

Every cell is editable. Change the months to match your manufacturer's program calendar, your lender promotions or your local season.

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These are the moments most US stores plan around. Holidays move a little each year, so put the actual dates in your copy.

Tax refund season often lifts special finance and down payment activity, so buy here pay here and used stores tend to plan their heaviest months early in the year. For the event mechanics, the weekend sales event playbook walks through a single weekend.

A car store's calendar peaks around holiday weekends and model year changeover. Specialty stores run on different clocks, and the template bends to fit them:

• Boat dealers: winter and early spring show season, then launch season in spring, with service and storage offers in the fall.
• RV dealers: spring and early summer for camping season, plus fall offers on units before winter storage. Buyers drive farther, so zones and travel friendly messages matter more.
• Buy here pay here stores: the first quarter, when refunds arrive, is often the year's biggest; plan payment reminders and customer retention around it.
• Auto brokers: fewer events, more referral and repeat business, so the calendar leans on past client outreach and new model arrivals.

Whatever the clock, the rule is the same: book the big moments first, then fill the gaps with inventory pushes and community work. Leave a little room each quarter for the aged unit or strong offer nobody saw coming.

Events and campaigns are the peaks. Social posting is the steady rhythm between them, and it is the part most stores drop first when the floor gets busy. The Social Rhythm tab gives you a dealership social media calendar for every week:

Consistency beats volume. Five real posts a week from your own lot outperform a burst of stock photos followed by silence. Caption every video, show real units, and never post a customer without their permission.

LeadLocate helps with the making. Design Studio in the CRM builds image ads, GIF ads and MP4 video reels from your live inventory and OEM offers, with your logo, in social and print sizes, and you post them from your store's own accounts. For Facebook Marketplace, the MyInventory.Link Chrome extension fills the listing form from the CRM car view, and the rep reviews and publishes. The Facebook Marketplace strategy guide covers the posting habits.

A calendar with no names on it is a wish list. Put one owner on every row, with a backup, and make the owner responsible for the month end check too.

The Event Planner tab counts back from each event:

1. Six weeks out: pick the event, the inventory and the offer. Confirm manufacturer or lender program terms.
2. Five weeks out: build the event landing page and its form, and set the campaign selections and the media budget.
3. Four weeks out: make the creative, online and in the store.
4. Three weeks out: write the texts, emails and voicemail drop scripts for past customers and open leads who agreed to hear from you.
5. Two weeks out: schedule the messages, brief the team and set the floor schedule and lead assignment for the event days.
6. Event week: post daily, answer every lead within minutes and confirm every appointment the day before.
7. After the event: follow up every unsold lead, then review the results by channel.

Six weeks sounds like a lot until the first time a holiday weekend goes live with a landing page that was finished on Friday night.

Here is how a Labor Day weekend event moves through LeadLocate, step by step from the calendar row:

• The page: the marketing manager builds the event page in Lead Pages, with its own address and form, so every submission is labeled with the page it came from.
• The campaigns: the store makes its selections in Leads Manager, the zone, the offer as a Custom Offer, the schedule and the budget, and our team builds and runs the campaigns, in your own ad accounts on request or through the webXintel Ads Network.
• The creative: Design Studio makes the image ads, a GIF for texts and a short reel from the units on the calendar row.
• The outreach: texts, emails and voicemail drops to customers who agreed to hear from you are written ahead and scheduled for the right day and time, and anyone on the DNC Blacklist shows Will not send.
• The weekend: round robin assigns every new lead, Automated Templates send the first text, and appointments land on the shared calendar.
• The follow-up: Follow Up Processes keep working every unsold lead after the weekend ends.

The automotive marketing automation page shows the scheduling and follow-up tools in more detail.

The last column on the calendar, the month end check, is what turns a schedule into a learning system. Read these five numbers in a short monthly meeting:

1. Leads by source
2. Time to first response
3. Appointments set and appointments shown
4. Units sold by source
5. Cost per sold unit by channel: the media spend divided by the units it sold

Add one social check: posts published against the plan. Then make one decision per number: keep, change or stop. Move next month's budget toward the channels with the lowest cost per sold unit, and write the change into the calendar before the meeting ends.

In LeadLocate the activity, company and management reports and the Reports dashboard hold these numbers, and tracking phone numbers per source make calls countable rather than estimated. The marketing attribution dashboard guide shows how to read sources side by side.

Bring the GM, the sales managers, the used car manager, the service manager and whoever runs marketing. Plan on about ninety minutes:

1. Write in the fixed dates first: holidays, manufacturer events, lender promotions and local events you always support.
2. Give each month one inventory focus, based on what you expect to have too much or too little of.
3. Choose the two or three campaigns per month that support that focus, and the channels for each.
4. Put an owner and a backup on every row.
5. Agree on the month end check for each row and the day of the first monthly review.
6. Copy the Social Rhythm tab into your weekly routine and name who posts each day.

Refresh the calendar every quarter. The first version will be rough; the monthly review is what makes it sharp.

Running it in LeadLocate is priced in parts: your plan, month to month with no long term contract; a login to start with more users as an add-on; usage credits for bulk texting, bulk email and voicemail drops; and the media budget your store commits to campaigns. See the pricing page for current figures.

How far ahead should a dealership plan its marketing calendar?

Plan the whole year in one meeting, refresh it every quarter, and start each event about six weeks before it runs. That gives time for the offer, the landing page, the campaigns, the creative and the scheduled messages.

How often should a car dealership post on social media?

Aim for a steady rhythm, such as five posts a week plus stories, built from real units and real people on your lot. Consistency week after week matters more than the exact number.

Who should own the car dealership marketing calendar?

One person, usually the marketing manager or the GM, owns the calendar as a whole, and every row has its own owner and backup. Owners also report the month end check for their rows.

Does the template work for RV and boat dealers?

Yes. Every cell is editable. Move the peaks to show season and launch season for boats, or spring and summer for RVs, and widen the zones in your campaigns because those buyers travel farther.

Is the calendar template free?

Yes. Download it in Excel to edit or as a PDF to print. It has four tabs: the annual calendar, the social rhythm, the event planner and the monthly review.

Can LeadLocate make the creative for our posts and events?

Design Studio in the CRM builds image ads, GIF ads and MP4 video reels from your live inventory and OEM offers with your logo, sized for social and print. You post them from your store's accounts, and our team runs paid campaigns from your Leads Manager selections.

Watch the recorded demo to see Lead Pages, Design Studio, scheduled messages and reports working together, or call 844-376-2274 and we will help you plan your next event.

Prefer to talk right now? Call or text 844-376-2274.