Master Your Email Marketing With Content Calendars

Table of Contents

• How Do I Create an Email Marketing Calendar?

• How Do I Create a Marketing Calendar Template?

• What Should a Content Calendar Layout Include?

• Email Content Calendar Template (Best Examples)

• Get Started With a Content Calendar

Marketing and content planning are like two peas in a pod - they complement each other perfectly, creating the recipe for success. Having a balance of the two will help you stay ahead and create efficiently.

When you’re first starting out, creating a content plan might not be at the top of your list–but without a content plan, you won’t be able to keep track of which content most resonates with your audience. You won’t know if it is aligning with your marketing goals in the long term, or if you are pushing your content at the right time.

Important details, no?

A well-crafted content plan ensures that your marketing is coordinated, consistent, and on point. You stay on track with your content goals, building a stronger foundation that aligns with your long-term marketing strategy.

This blog shares how to create your marketing calendar, what factors you should be considering, and how to use the template that best suits your needs.

How Do I Create an Email Marketing Calendar?

The thought of creating your email marketing calendar can seem overwhelming when you don’t know where (and how) to start. The good news is that making a calendar for marketing isn’t complicated. It's quite similar to creating a content plan for your social media channels.

There are three things you need in order to optimize your marketing efforts: a content calendar, a posting schedule, and a testing plan. But what are the pillars that will help you build the foundation for a successful marketing plan?

The Right Timing

Determine the best days and times to send out your emails, as well as how often you will send them. Timing is crucial because you want to ensure that your emails are opened and read by your audience when they are most likely to engage with them.

Relevance to Your Audience

You should consider what type of content your audience is most interested in and how you can deliver that content to them more often. This could include sharing helpful tips, promoting products or services, or sharing industry news and updates.

Categorize Your Content

You may want to send out promotional emails on Tuesdays, weekly highlights on Saturdays, and your most important email of the week on Mondays. Categorizing your emails in this way will not only keep your workflow organized–it will also keep your audience clear on their expectations.

How Do I Create a Marketing Calendar Template?

The first step is to understand your message and your audience. Once you know what your purpose is, and who you want to share it with, reaching your goal won’t be that hard. With this in mind, you can design a calendar that caters to your needs and helps you achieve your goal–just with a bit of planning and execution.

Your template should include the type of message you want to send out, your targeted audience (based on segmentation), who the task is assigned to, and its status. Let’s review each of these.

Type of Message

The first element to include in your content calendar is the type of message you want to send out. Are you sharing a promotional email, for example, or your weekly newsletter? How often do you want to send each of these?

Your audience has signed up for the value you add to their lives, and it is crucial to make sure that quality content is given the first priority. Once you have figured out your schedule, it’ll be easier to keep track of your campaigns.

For example, it’ll help you get a figure on how many promotional emails you sent in a month or quarter, and hence will help you understand what can be improved with your emailing strategy.

Audience Segmentation

Your content calendar should also include information about your target audience based on segmentation. This ensures that your content is tailored to the specific interests and needs of your audience. When done well, it’ll boost your campaign performance.

Status

Include notes on whether the content is still in the planning stages, has been drafted, needs to be reviewed, or is ready for publication. This also keeps your communication with the team efficient. For example, here are some basic status options:

• Not started

• Drafting

• Reviewed

• Ready to send

• Sent

You don’t have to use all of these; and, you can create as many other status options as you need to. Remember, this content calendar is meant to make your life easier in the long run–so don’t be afraid to tailor it to your needs.

Subject Line

The subject line may be the most important element of your campaign, in that your reader will make the decision to open your email (or not) based on the subject line. That’s why your content calendar should include a column for the subject line. This will help you keep track of the subject lines you have used in the past to ensure that you are not repeating them too often, and to keep track of what works–and what doesn’t.

Date and Time

Including the date and time that you plan to publish your content is crucial. You may want to use color coding or other visual cues to indicate important dates or deadlines. This keeps you focused on publishing or promoting at the right time, and on a consistent, dependable basis. When your audience can rely on receiving an email from you at a specific day and time, they’ll be more likely to read and engage.

What Should a Content Calendar Layout Include?

A content calendar is an essential tool for planning and organizing your content marketing efforts. A well-designed layout can help you keep track of your content and ensure that it is published or promoted on time. As mentioned above – status, subject line, and type of message are some of the things you should be including in your calendar. Here are a few more key elements.

Campaign

The first element to include in your content calendar layout is the campaign that the content falls under. This will help you keep track of which content is related to which campaign, so you won’t have to struggle to figure it out later.

Team Member in Charge

It is also important to assign a team member to each piece of content. Include their name or initials in the content calendar layout. This way, everybody in the team is on the same page and knows their responsibilities, which ensures that content is delivered on time and meets quality standards.

Target Audience

Which segment of your email list you are targeting will define the rest of the strategy for your campaign. Define your target audience in the calendar so that it gives you a clear picture of your focus–on the segments, and on your audience overall.

Email Content Calendar Template (Best Examples)

The best template is the one that works for YOU the best. Here are the top three platforms that you should consider for building your content calendar. And don’t worry–you don’t need to start from scratch (unless you really want to), because each platform also has templates to get you started. These platforms support your working patterns and are fully customizable based on how you work.

Asana

Asana is a project management tool that allows you to create tasks, subtasks, and projects. It also offers a calendar view, which can help you visualize your email marketing schedule differently. The major highlight is Asana’s pre-made templates, which can make setting up your content plan a breeze.

Notion

Notion lets you create databases, tables, and pages in a lot of ways–including a calendar. Notion offers a Kanban view, calendar view, and table view that you can switch between to get a different perspective on your email marketing calendar. Notion’s highlight has to be the level of customization and flexibility that it offers. Notion has both free templates, and templates you can purchase.

Google Sheets

Google Sheets is an all-rounder. One of the biggest highlights is that Google Sheets is free of cost, so if you are just starting, this could be your one-stop solution. It also integrates with Google Analytics, so you can track the performance of your email campaigns. You can create your own from scratch, or use one of these templates.

The highlight of all these platforms is the way they support collaborative tasks, which reminds me–now you can collaborate while writing your newsletters on beehiiv!

Get Started With a Content Calendar

Your email marketing strategy will only improve with the addition of a content calendar. This helps you curate the pre-production, production, and post-production of your campaigns.

On the subject of production, you also should consider features like segmentation, A/B testing, and collaborative writing, which will enhance your experience, and the experience of your readers.

With beehiiv, you can use those features, and more, to start creating all that content on your calendar your way.

We’d love to help you get on board.

Until next time, happy emailing!