Staying organized is a trick that some people struggle with. It’s only natural, especially as a busy business owner! But when running a marketing schedule, you must have a stricter routine to see real success. And that’s where an email marketing calendar comes in.
Marketing calendars help you to strategize, plan, schedule, and execute. It’s your first point of call when launching your strategies and tracking results.
Having that day-by-day accountability, direction, and a “bigger picture” view is helpful. You can see why 63% of businesses use content creation calendars for their planning strategy. It is an absolute game-changer.
In this guide, we’ll introduce you to the best types of calendar structures, definitions, benefits, and more. Let’s tackle the organization head-on together. In less than 10 minutes, you’ll know how to transform your business and its profitability!
What Is an Email Marketing Calendar?
An email marketing calendar is a calendar that you either physically create or fill out online. It works just the same as any other calendar, with days, weeks, months, and maybe even years.
An email marketing calendar has everything from what email type you’re sending on which day to scheduled meetings. It’s responsible for keeping your email marketing campaigns on track.
You could add notes on subject lines and topics, perhaps brainstorming ideas about email designs. Or you could be more practical, specifying what time you wish to send an email.
Regardless, you have an email marketing strategy to utilize each day and a daily road map to success. It provides reliable direction and a framework to uphold accountability for you and your staff.
An email marketing content calendar provides a general overview of your goals and long-term plan. They often feature meetings (as we mentioned) and help hold the important details and framework together.
For instance, tracking monthly performance reviews for promotional emails or keeping staff up-to-date with brainstorming or training opportunities.
We’ll cover the benefits of these calendars in just a second. However, it’s important to understand how the layout will boost your business briefly. So, hold fire for a quick definition.
Marketing calendar services are like oiling the cogs on your mission for a fantastic business with plenty of profit turnover. They help things to run smoothly. The planning space is valuable; there’s room to track and analyze.
When picking a calendar, remember how much space you’ll need. Also, decide whether you want weekly, monthly, or even annual views.
There’s lots of variation in marketing calendars, so it pays to know what format best suits your business. At the end of the day, it’s a template — make it work for you.
3 Benefits of Marketing Calendars
With a thorough definition under your belt, you know enough for us to go more in-depth.
Understanding the benefits of marketing calendars is important so that you can motivate yourself to engage with this strategy. We don’t encourage blind faith around here; let us give you the cold, hard facts.
These are the three main benefits of using calendars in your marketing strategies.
1. Algorithms — Human and Non-Human
Everything has an algorithm. There’s a sweet spot for humans, just like an ideal number of reels to post weekly for Instagram. With email marketing, that’s around 10 to 19 a month or three to five a week.
The issue is that this amount of emails can be difficult to track. Can you remember the 10 to 19 messages you sent your best friend last month (perhaps it’s a lot more!)?
Even the most engaging conversations can be hard to keep at the front of your mind when you’re busy. That’s no good when your business needs analysis to reflect and improve your campaigns.
And what about the flip side? How often do you remember to message someone you don’t enjoy talking to? When something is a chore, we’ve got to show up with more motivation. Otherwise, it becomes all too easy to procrastinate.
With a calendar, you can routinely hit that sweet number and better meet the algorithm of optimally contacting email subscribers. This translates to much better results. Who doesn’t want that?
2. A Stronger Mentality
Less commonly discussed is how calendars build a stronger mentality — no matter what type of marketing you use. Having that structure is hugely beneficial for motivation.
But you also get a kick out of ticking all those tasks off. It builds a sense of mastery and confidence in marketing, which can really make all the difference to your mentality.
It can feel overwhelming to face an entire marketing campaign without structure. Honestly, we wouldn’t recommend it, as it is so easy to forget. It’s useful to have that solid base to work from.
Everyone should invest in mental strength, so why not reap the benefits for yourself and your business? You’ll be better armed to face all the daily challenges and more enthusiastic about meeting your campaign goals.
3. It Facilitates Improvement
Having the chance to improve is absolutely vital when running a business. Things like knowing your target audience inside out grows with time, and it will ultimately be a journey.
Tracking progress and seeing where your weaker spots are is really valuable. You can trace your actions and plan how to move forward.
Organization is really the key component here. For instance, if your click-through rate sucks, you can track that and improve. Your calendar will already have a review meeting lined up.
You could even jot down stats, using the calendar’s daily tasks as a place to record results, too.
A marketing calendar is a fantastic way to take specific steps towards success. Everything is planned out, and you can give ‘past’ you a pat on the back for being on the ball.
The Perfect Email Marketing Calendar Template
Creating a marketing calendar can seem overwhelming, so let’s break things down and give you a template to use. Feel free to pinch this layout or adapt it as inspiration for your own business needs and preferences.
Let’s take a restaurant marketing calendar, for example. If you’re managing a restaurant, you’ve already got things like staffing rotas to figure out. In fact, with the state of the average restaurant staff turnover, you may well be bogged down in interviews, too.
So much goes on your normal calendar that it leaves little room for high-quality marketing planning.
Instead, this is where your perfect email marketing calendar template comes in.
If you’re operating with a weekly calendar, you could break it down by day. We know that the optimum number of weekly emails is three to five. So you don’t need to fill out tasks every day. Here’s a rough template:
- Monday: Send weekly “Drink of the Week” discount exclusively for email subscribers (expires Sunday).
- Tuesday:
- Wednesday: Send a newsletter with useful recipes or relevant information (like cuisine history).
- Thursday: Meet at 1 pm for a 30-minute session to plan next month’s content with the team.
- Friday: Announce any events over the weekend or host fun competitions, encouraging engagement.
- Saturday:
- Sunday:
You might plan your content a month in advance, or a weekly planning session may work better. It’s worth noting that on the ‘No email’ days, you’ll still be checking general emails and have automated responses running. Things like booking confirmation emails should run automatically and like clockwork to maintain customer-business trust.
3 Steps to Create a Marketing Calendar
With that inspiration in mind, what steps should you take when creating your marketing calendar? There are three main stages of the process, and it’s crucial that you tackle each properly. Here’s what to remember.
1. Establish Your Target Audience
Whenever you market anything, you should always start by establishing your target audience. It’s so easy to get sidetracked and end up not targeting the right audience. For instance, just because you use Instagram doesn’t mean your next-door neighbor’s nan would.
Before you launch headfirst into email designs, you need to know what will appeal to them. And the same goes for things like content tone and even topics of coverage.
2. Decide on a Realistic Schedule
Deciding on a realistic schedule is tricky, as your time is such an individual and precious thing. With emails, though, the general guideline is between three and five a week for optimal results. See which days you can commit to on a regular basis and establish a routine that works for you.
3. Plan Your Content
Only at this point do you start to plan content. Look at templates online and get as much inspiration as possible. Review your ideal customer profile and draft out a plan for each of your scheduled ‘email days.’ It’s up to you how much detail you add to your marketing calendar. However, we’d recommend at least an overview and a few guidance bullet points.
What To Budget
If you already have email marketing software, it shouldn’t cost anything. There are plenty of free social media calendars online that won’t eat up your budget. Even without a template, you can draw up a calendar or buy a normal one and add marketing notes. Alternatively, you can use a free digital calendar app.
If you need to purchase email marketing software, budget a minimum of $15 monthly for subscription-based options. We recommend that you invest in software to utilize automation tools like bulk send.
Otherwise, you’ll spend more hours doing unnecessarily time-consuming tasks (trust us: you don’t want to individually send 1,000 emails).
3 Other Ways to Stay Organized With Your Marketing
Email marketing calendars aren’t the only way to stay organized with your marketing. It’s really important to tackle this from multiple angles.
Marketing organizations aren’t always given the time and budget that they deserve. You might use schedule templates to stay on track with shifts. It’s easier to remember to organize something so in your face. After all, you’re going to need staff next week.
Marketing is more of an invisible presence. You don’t notice it as often or until it’s extreme — e.g., with zero or a massive increase of guests. Check out these three ways to stay organized with your marketing.
1. Have Software With Analytical Dashboards
Having software that offers analytical dashboards saves you a lot of time and makes organization easier.
Instead of having to a) remember to track and b) collect all that information, you get immediate feedback. It’s worth its weight in gold and is one of the main reasons marketing software is so sought after.
Whether you measure customer loyalty or your email marketing results, having easy-to-access analytics is vital.
2. Hold Regular Staff Meetings
Branding requires consistency. You can’t just set out as a one-man band when it comes to building brand associations. If you work as a team, you need to be on the same page. The best way to stay organized with your marketing is to host regular staff meetings.
You can discuss marketing approaches, let staff play to their strengths, and maybe contribute in alignment with their skill sets.
For instance, teenage wait staff might actually be brilliant assets to a social media marketing team. Just imagine the TikTok or Instagram reels.
3. Use SMART Goals
SMART goals stand for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely. It’s a way to focus on your goals and achieve more in a more efficient manner. Rather than setting open-ended goals, you have a better road map toward success.
For instance, just look at the difference between these three:
- Bad: I will send marketing emails\Okay: I will send three to five emails a week.
- Good: I will send three weekly emails (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) using a bulk send tool on X software.
- Best: I will send a promotional email, newsletter, and event notification each week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday). I will use a bulk send tool on X software and review progress in one month.
FAQ
Before you rush off, it’s a good idea to consolidate your understanding of what we’ve covered. There’s been a lot of information here, so let’s just recap the essentials.
Here are the top two FAQ that people ask about marketing calendars.
How should you write an email marketing calendar?
Follow three steps to write an email marketing calendar: establish your target audience, pick a realistic schedule, and plan content. Ideally, you should send at least three to five emails weekly to see optimal results.
You could include promotional content, newsletters, and discounts. It’s up to you how far ahead you’d like to plan. A good goal post is to plan a month ahead of schedule.
What’s the best way to plan an email schedule?
The best way to plan an email schedule varies on an individual basis. Chances are, no one perfect schedule will look the same. However, as a general rule, you should always start by establishing your target audience and setting a realistic routine.
Also, ensure you’re comfortable using email marketing software with bulk-sending capacities — you don’t want to fall at the first hurdle.
Beambox: Staying on Track With WiFi
A marketing calendar is one way to stay on track, but did you know WiFi is another powerful tool?
Most businesses offer free internet to guests as part of their customer experience. Yet some companies don’t know that they can actually use this as a chance to collect marketing details.
Have you heard of a captive portal system? It’s a low-cost way of temporarily blocking customers from accessing your network. Instead, it sends them to a customizable web page form where they input whatever details you request, like email addresses.
Once they comply, they gain full WiFi access, and you get marketing contacts. It’s a win-win solution.
You can start this strategy for as little as $20 a month as a tax-deductible expense. It’s easy to see why it’s growing in popularity among businesses, especially in hospitality, where WiFi is becoming an expectation.
Start your Beambox free trial today and take your WiFi organization as seriously as your email marketing calendar!
