An email marketing calendar is essential to plan the approach and strategy of each email campaign effectively. There might be specific dates when emails need to be sent out due to an event or holiday and there is no better way to map everything out than within a clear and concise calendar format.
There are many benefits to having a calendar plan. Firstly it allows you to plan multiple months in advance to ensure that there is a clear strategy in place to nurture and convert customers where necessary. By having an organised plan in place, you will never miss an important date or event and will allow plenty of time to get everything ready.
How do I Create an Email Marketing Calendar?
Here at Pod Digital, we follow a series of vital steps to put together an email marketing strategy and populate our client calendars:
1. Define your email marketing goals and what success looks like for your business
Consider where you would like your business to be in five years time and the steps you need to take to get there. What do you consider success to be?
Your goals could include a revenue target that you’d like to achieve or you may want to build a stronger community surrounding your business. Discuss this internally and determine the top five goals that you’d like to work on.
Once your business goals have been defined, you can use these to create an effective strategy and email marketing plan. If you’d like to work on increasing revenue through email marketing, focus your emails on products that generally perform well. Alternatively , consider up-selling or cross-selling with other products to increase the average order value. There are many strategies to take into account during this stage of the process.
2. Consider your target audience
Always take into consideration your target audience when planning your email marketing strategy. Who are you wanting to reach with your campaigns? The more you know about your audience, the better you can connect with them and develop stronger, more personal relationships.
People aren’t likely to read an email that isn’t relevant to them, so ensure that your campaigns are being sent to the right people at the right time to make the biggest impact. When this is done right, click-through rates and conversion rates will increase and your account will be as healthy as ever.
3. Review previous performance
If you have implemented any email marketing in the past, then you should review the performance of those campaigns to see how your audience engaged with your content. Which emails had the highest conversion rate and why might this be? Review these emails carefully to understand as much as you can about your audience to be able to schedule emails that you know will perform well. Use the data that you have to make informed decisions. Always consider lower-performing emails during this process. Why did these emails not perform well and how could you have improved these?
4. Brainstorm important dates for your email marketing calendar
Your email marketing calendar could include business-specific dates and events, such as the anniversary of starting your business or seasonal events and holidays for everyone to celebrate. Consider international and national holidays during the planning stage: some of these may be relevant to your industry, but be sure not to overuse these. Your audience will likely relate to these emails, nurturing the relationship that you have with them, which is a key part of email marketing. Some of the more well-known days, such as ‘International Women’s Day‘ allow your audience to feel like part of a community and will be more likely to convert.
5. Organise all the information into a calendar
Consolidate everything you have found into a format that works for your business. By planning out what you are sending and assigning to specific dates, you can identify any gaps that need filling or overly busy months that need addressing. This email marketing plan will help you stay on track and ensure you’re taking the right steps to achieve your business goals. Consider the day of the week and the time of day when organising content to ensure that your campaigns have the highest chance of conversion.
Now, you have all the information you need to create an organised, highly-converting and successful email marketing calendar.
At Pod Digital, our experienced team creates top-quality email marketing calendars to effectively plan out your digital marketing strategy. We can take full control of this for you or simply help you to make strategic decisions depending on what you need most. Book your free consultation today to discuss your email marketing strategy and get started.