Email Marketing Calendars, Part 1: Why You Need One
Email Marketing - Justin Premick - January 4th, 2008 - Permalink
I’m sure that by now you’ve watched, read and heard a lot of people making the typical New Year’s resolutions — lose weight, read more books, learn a certain new skill, visit that vacation spot they’ve been talking about for 5 years now…
There’s one problem with these resolutions: the things we need to do to stick to them start taking up more and more of our time as we go… and most people eventually abandon their resolutions.
Today, I’d like to suggest a resolution that I think you can keep… because once you get going with it, it gets even easier over time, and it carries a few benefits that can significantly improve your email campaigns’ effectiveness and profitability.
Background: What Determines When We Send Email?
In my experience, most small businesses sending email campaigns decide to send based on one or both of of these factors:
For most people, this translates to the following maxim:
Is That All There Is To It?
For too many businesses, yes. Their strategy stops there. They don’t plan out what they want to say in advance, and when they want to say it.
Instead, they wait until it’s "about time to email subscribers" or until something exciting gets dropped in front of them.
The big problem with this is that many of us say, “Oh no! I need to get something out to my email list today!” and rush to put together a campaign.
Our haste shows to our subscribers:
Surely There’s a Better Way…
Wouldn’t it be easier on you — and better for your subscribers — if you had a plan that laid out, in advance, when you were going to email your subscribers and an idea of what you were going to say?
I sure think so.
In my next posts, I’ll show you how with a little planning and an easy-to-use (and free!) tool, you can create better email campaigns, stress-free.
(Update: Parts 2 and 3 are online, discussing planning your email marketing calendar and content ideas to fill it.)
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Other Posts In This Series (Updated As New Posts Are Published)
Planning Your Campaigns and Calendar
What to Put On Your Calendar: Content Ideas
January 4th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Creating a calendar of content is what I’m working on right now. Very timely. I look forward to the next installation.
January 6th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
I’ve got more information on this topic in my blog, and the entry is called "Get a Life (cycle)". It was in answer to the question, "How often should I send email to my customers?"
http://www.blockbeta.com/blog/2007/7/20/get-a-life-cycle.html
January 7th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
I enjoyed your post here and plan to work on an e-mail marketing calendar for my campaigns.
Others reading this might be interested in a guide called "How to Make 2008 Your Best Year Yet" that walks you through, step-by-step, how to set goals and really achieve them. It has great action steps that help you achieve your goals.
It is a free download (you don’t even need to enter your e-mail address) available at http://www.how-to-reach-your-goals.com.
January 7th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Robbin and RL,
Thanks much for pointing out those resources - seems like planning and strategy are on everyone’s minds at the start of the New Year. Hopefully this series of posts will help people build both of those into their email marketing.
January 8th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Planning! Now there’s a concept. This is one of the most important things marketers can do. I agree totally it shows in the quality of your communications but — if you also use your stats — it shows in improvements to your results. And your customers win too since they don’t get last minute error-prone emails.
January 9th, 2008 at 6:06 am
Thanks for the great tips. I’ve made some of the mistakes you listed, and don’t want to do them any more!
January 10th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Excellent topic. It is about being intentional with subscribers, caring enough to ponder what, when, and how to say what you think will add value.
Keep it coming!
January 11th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Justin
Can’t wait for installment number two. Your tips are always right on the money.
January 14th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
So when’s the next instalment coming out?
January 14th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
I too look forward to the second installment. Great info on your blog!
January 16th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Hey all,
Just want to let you know the next post is now live.
Email Marketing Calendars: Planning
January 29th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Is there a feature on aweber where you can choose what dates you would like to send your emails. I know you can choose how often such as 7 days after the 1st and so on and so on…but what about implementing a calendar within aweber? It would be great if I could prepare my valentine’s day, birthday, or holiday email well in advance, and have it automatically sent out on a given date?
If this feature exists already, please let me know.
Thanks!
January 29th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Hi Kimmoy,
I think you’re looking for our Broadcast tool
— you can use it to create date- and time-specific messages, and schedule them in advance.
I’ll be talking soon about how to set up an email marketing calendar using a popular online calendar tool… keep an eye on the blog, or subscribe and we’ll let you know when it’s out!
As far as creating one within AWeber, there are a lot of powerful and easy-to-use calendar tools out there - creating our own would be kind of like trying to reinvent the wheel. Better to show how to use what’s out there in conjunction with AWeber.
January 30th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
[…] Over at AWeber.com you can find a brief, but useful series of three articles on setting up an email marketing calendar. Marketing calendars are so important that I’ll be devoting a post or two to them myself, though not specific to email campaigns. Check out the AWeber article here. […]
January 31st, 2008 at 4:35 am
With blogs does this work with new posts you make? If so is this wise if you add new content each day, or even several times a day?
thanks
January 31st, 2008 at 9:11 am
Hi Ed,
You can definitely apply this same concept to blogging (especially if you’re using our Blog Broadcast tool to create email newsletters from your blog posts.
If you’re interested in how using a calendar can help your blogging, here are a couple posts from other bloggers that you may find helpful:
Micro Persuasion
Problogger
Andy Wibbels
February 2nd, 2008 at 5:35 am
I sent out a targeted e-mail campaign yesterday, without graphics and mainly discussing my business link on the SUBJECT line of the e-mail. I also enclose my personal MYSPACE link, having moved off Facebook.
This is to help attract international customers although primarlily I focused on moving into doing Business with America, since September.
I am keen to learn more effective ways to HOLD customers attention and encourage them to start transacting based on E-mail action and daily business.
Thanks 4 your service.