Visual Marketing: 99 Proven Ways for Small Businesses to Market with Images and Design

54. Showcasing Talented Women: Creating a Calendar with Distinctive Photography for Yearlong Marketing

Sterling Women is a group of women business professionals who get together to learn from one another, network, and make new contacts. When founder Kristina Bouweiri decided to create a calendar showcasing some of the group's members, she initially planned to pay for the printing herself and give the calendars away as gifts. But advertisers jumped at the opportunity to get in front of Sterling's powerful women. In the end, the calendar served as a marketing tool for the featured women, as well as an ad platform for advertisers, who helped underwrite the production costs of the calendar.

“It was a win-win for everyone,” says Bouweiri, CEO of Reston Limousine (pictured with one of her firm's cars, representing the month of December).

Why It Works

The calendar is an appealing way to show each woman's strengths and achievements through visual interpretation, furthering the purposes of the networking group. Each businesswoman is photographed by photographer Teri Moy in an environment that relates to her work. The photographs are creatively staged and exquisitely rendered, making the calendar images miniature works of art. The calendar serves as a reminder throughout the year of the women and their businesses, as well as the advertisers who appear in the calendar.

Success Metrics