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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 2022
September 5 – Labor Day in Canada and US
September 9 - 14 – Fashion Week in Paris
September 11 – Grandparents Day
September 21 – International Day of Peace
September 22 – September Equinox / First Day of Autumn
September 25 – Rosh Hashanah begins at sundown
Monthly themes
- National Latinx/Hispanic Heritage Month (runs from September 15 to October 15)
October 2022
October 1 – International Music Day
October 1 – International Coffee Day
October 4 – Yom Kippur begins at sundown
October 10 – Indigenous Peoples’ Day USA
October 24 – Diwali
October 29 – National Cat Day
October 31 – Halloween
Monthly themes
November 2022
November 1 – Day of the Dead / Dia De Los Muertos
November 3 - Happy Birthday Cakemail ;-)
November 6 – Daylight Savings Time ends at 2:00 am
November 11 – Veterans Day
November 11 – Single's Day in China
November 12 – Video Games Day
November 24 – Thanksgiving
November 25 – Black Friday
November 26 – Small Business Saturday
November 27 – Artists Sunday
November 28 – Cyber Monday
November 29 – Giving Tuesday
Monthly themes
- “Movember” — Raising awareness for men’s health issues
- Height of holiday preparations and shopping
December 2022
December 18 – Hanukkah begins
December 21 – Winter Solstice (shortest day of the year)
December 24 – Christmas Eve
December 25 – Christmas Day
December 26 – Hanukkah ends
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 2023
January 1 – New Year's Day
January 16 – Martin Luther King Jr. Day
January 19 – Get to Know Your Customers Day
January 22 – Chinese New Year
January 23 – National Pie Day
Monthly themes
- New Year
- Resolutions
February 2023
February 2 – Groundhog Day
February 6 – Waitangi Day
February 12 – Super Bowl LVII
February 14 – Valentine's Day
February 20 – Memorial Day
February 20 – Family Day (Canada)
February 21 – Mardi Gras
Monthly themes
- Black History Month
- Heart Month
March 2023
March 7 – Purim Starts
March 8 – International Women's Day
March 17 – St. Patrick's Day
March 19 – International Client’s Day
March 20 – Spring Begins
Monthly themes
- Spring
- National Nutrition Month
April 2023
April 1 – April Fool's Day
April 6 – Passover Starts
April 7 – Good Friday
April 9 – Easter
April 13 – Passover Ends
April 22 – Earth Day
Monthly themes
- Autism Awareness Month
- Oral Health Month
May 2023
May 1 – Mental Health Week Begins
May 1 – Labor Day (EU)
May 5 – Cinco de Mayo
May 9 – Europe Day
May 14 – Mother's Day
May 18 – International Museum Day
May 21 – World Meditation Day
May 22 – Victoria Day
May 25 – National Wine Day
Monthly themes
- Vision Health Month
June 2023
June 14 – World Blood Donor Day
June 18 – Father's Day
June 28 – Pride Day
June 21 - Indigenous Peoples Day (CA)
June 24 – Quebec's National Day
Monthly themes
- Pride Month
- End of School Year / Graduation
July 2023
July 1 – Canada Day
July 4 – Independence Day
July 7 – World Chocolate Day
July 14 – Fête nationale française (FR)
July 17 – World Emoji Day
July 31 – Memorial Day
Monthly themes
- Summer Activities
- Vacations
August 2023
August 4 – International Beer Day
August 8 – International Cat Day
August 9 – Book Lover's Day
August 26 – Women's Equality Day (USA)
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.
