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Creating an email marketing content calendar helps you keep track of your content, ensures that your content is relevant and engaging, and allows you to plan ahead. Having a content calendar can help you avoid the last-minute scramble to develop ideas and helps your email marketing campaigns be more successful.
What is an email marketing calendar?
An email marketing calendar is a tool that helps you plan, schedule and execute your email marketing campaigns. It includes all the important dates and deadlines for your campaign and can also include information about your target audience, content, and goals. A well-planned email marketing calendar can help you stay organized and on track, ensuring that your campaigns are successful. In addition, it can also help you measure the results of your campaigns and make necessary adjustments. Ultimately, an email marketing calendar is a valuable tool for any business that wants to develop and implement effective email marketing strategies.
Why is an email marketing calendar important?
There are several reasons why an email marketing calendar is important.
Here are a few of them:
- It helps you keep track of your send dates and ensures that your content is timely and relevant.
- Mapping out your email strategy in advance can ensure that your messages align with your overall marketing strategy.
- It can help you avoid sending too many emails in a short period of time, which can lead to subscribers feeling overwhelmed or unsubscribing altogether.
- It helps you keep your email list engaged.
- It ensures no surprises or forgotten dates that could lead to missed sales or business opportunities.
- By knowing exactly how many emails you will send out and when you can budget better and know your email marketing spend for the entire year. This also helps you to optimize your team resources.
In short, an email marketing calendar can help you stay organized, stay on schedule, and keep your subscribers happy–oh, and make more sales!
How to create an email marketing calendar
The first step to creating a strong email marketing calendar is to look at a regular calendar. By taking a gander at what's coming up within your chosen time frame (we suggest a year, but you could also do it quarterly or even monthly), you can identify different days you'll want to plan around.
Essential holidays
These are the holidays that are celebrated by a majority of the population. In many parts of the world, these are holidays like Christmas, New Year's, Independence Days, Easter, Halloween, etc. Basically, the big ones.
Optional holidays
Optional holidays aren't the days we typically have the day off of work for, but they can still be important to different companies. These are days like Mother's Day, Earth Day, Flag Days, and more.
"Fun" holidays
Who hasn't uttered the phrase, "There's a holiday for everything these days!"? Well, the truth is that there is a holiday for just about everything. From hot dogs to chocolate to wiener dogs–if there's something worth celebrating, there's a day on the calendar to celebrate it. Sure, most of these can be ignored, and not all require a full-blown out campaign.
But, what makes these holidays fun is that companies can do something special for them. For example, if you're a dog-grooming business, then you might want to find every dog-specific holiday you can and offer discounts for owners of that particular canine. A pizza place? Then you may want to circle Thursday, February 9, 2023, on your calendar because that's National Pizza Pie Day.
Important sales days
Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Summer Clearance Days–these are all examples of important sales days that happen throughout the year that the public can expect and that many spend their cold hard cash during. Find the important sales days for your company and make sure to hit each one to help drive revenue.
Company-specific days
Another great opportunity for businesses is to honor their own company-specific days. If you're a beloved company (or want to become one), doing something special for your anniversary or milestones (1 million hamburgers sold) can boost the bottom line.
Here is your email marketing content calendar
Fortunately for you, we've done some of the work already. Here is a list featuring some of the days we mention above. Of course, you know your business better than we do, so don't just take our word for it. Instead, focus on the ones that make the most sense for your audience, products, and business goals.
We've even provided some links to templates we offer to guide you!
September
First Monday – Labor Day in Canada and US
First Sunday after Labor Day – Grandparents Day
September – Fashion Week in Paris
Rosh Hashanah
September 21 – International Day of Peace
September – September Equinox / First Day of Fall
Yom Kippur
Monthly themes
- National Latinx/Hispanic Heritage Month
October
October 1 – International Music Day
October 1 – International Coffee Day
October 9 – Indigenous Peoples’ Day USA
October 29 – National Cat Day
October 31 – Halloween
Monthly themes
November
November - Diwali
November 1 – Day of the Dead / Dia De Los Muertos
November 3 - Happy Birthday Cakemail ;-)
November 11 – Veterans Day
November 11 – Single's Day in China
November 12 – Video Games Day
Fourth Thursday of November – Thanksgiving USA
Friday following the Thanksgiving USA – Black Friday
Saturday following the Black Friday – Small Business Saturday
Sunday following the Black Friday – Artists Sunday
Monday following the Black Friday – Cyber Monday
Tuesday following the Thanksgiving USA – Giving Tuesday
Monthly themes
- “Movember” — Raising awareness for men’s health issues
- Height of holiday preparations and shopping
December
December – Hanukkah begins
December – Winter Solstice (shortest day of the year)
December 24 – Christmas Eve
December 25 – Christmas Day
December 26 – Boxing Day
December 26 – Kwanzaa begins
December 31 – New Year’s Eve
Monthly themes
- Height of the holiday season
- End-of-year fundraising
January
January 1 – New Year's Day
January 15 – Martin Luther King Jr. Day
January 17 – Get to Know Your Customers Day
January 23 – National Pie Day
Monthly themes
- New Year
- Resolutions
February
February 2 – Groundhog Day
February 6 – Waitangi Day
February – Chinese New Year
February – Super Bowl
Tuesday before Lent – Mardi Gras
February 14 – Valentine's Day
February 19 – Family Day (Canada)
Monthly themes
- Black History Month
- Heart Month
March
March 8 – International Women's Day
March 17 – St. Patrick's Day
March 19 – International Client’s Day
March – Spring Begins
March 23 – Purim
March – Easter
Monthly themes
- Spring
- National Nutrition Month
April
April 1 – April Fool's Day
April – Passover
April 22 – Earth Day
Monthly themes
- Autism Awareness Month
- Oral Health Month
May
May 1 – Labor Day (EU)
May 5 – Cinco de Mayo
May 6 – Mental Health Week Begins (CA)
May 9 – Europe Day
Second Sunday of May – Mother's Day
May 18 – International Museum Day
May 21 – World Meditation Day
May 20 – Victoria Day
May 25 – National Wine Day
Monthly themes
- Vision Health Month
June
June 1 – Pride Day
June 14 – World Blood Donor Day
Third Sunday in June – Father's Day
June 21 - Indigenous Peoples Day (CA)
June 24 – Quebec's National Day
Monthly themes
- Pride Month
- End of School Year / Graduation
July
July 1 – Canada Day
July 4 – Independence Day
July 7 – World Chocolate Day
July 14 – Fête nationale française (FR)
July 17 – World Emoji Day
Monthly themes
- Summer Activities
- Vacations
August
August 4 – International Beer Day
August 8 – International Cat Day
August 9 – Book Lover's Day
Monthly themes
Don't hesitate to contact us if you feel there are major events missing. And don't forget to celebrate on July 7!
There you have it–the beginnings of your brand-new email marketing content calendar! We hope it serves you well and helps you improve your business over the next year. For more strategies and help with email marketing, check us out at Cakemail. You can even start for free.
