Email Marketing Calendar Guide For 2024 [+Template]

An efficient email marketing calendar is all you need to engage your target audience at the right time and give your marketing team the means to thrive.

But apart from that, having a consistent mailing schedule and knowing the type of emails you need to deliver will help you create a successful email marketing strategy for your business.

In this post, we’ll see how to organize your email calendar, from showing you the type of emails you need to send to crafting the perfect subject lines and copy.

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Without further ado, let’s get started!

What Is An Email Marketing Calendar?

First off, an email calendar is a tool to keep everything organized, from the email marketing campaigns you need to deliver to who is responsible for creating and monitoring them.

Your calendar should be constantly updated so your marketing team knows exactly what they need to do. On top of that, having one in place is an excellent way to nail your project management efforts and keep everything nice and tidy!

How To Create An Email Calendar

Below you can see a simple example of an email calendar:

The easiest way to organize yours is to create an Excel spreadsheet or Google Sheets document. You can pretty much add all the details in there and then share the file with your colleagues and team members!

Among others, your calendars should include:

• Campaign name
• Email owner
• Status of email campaign
• Target email list
• Send time

Email Marketing Calendar Template

If you aren’t a fan of creating things from scratch, you can use free email calendar templates. To give you a hand, we created one just for you!

If you want the full version, click on the button below and make a copy by clicking on “file > Make a copy.” Then, customize the template to your needs by adding or removing elements!

Get the template

How To Plan Your Email Calendar

Below, you’ll find 10 simple steps to create your email calendar and make your email marketing efforts easier. Let’s see!

1. Decide What Email Campaigns to Send

When you start email marketing, the first thing you need to do is decide what types of emails you want to create and send.

The choice of campaigns can’t, of course, be arbitrary. For example, B2C organizations will need to deliver more product-oriented campaigns with deals, discounts, etc., compared to B2B businesses. Let’s see the most important email types and workflows you can set up for both to give you an idea.

For B2C companies:

• Weekly email newsletters
• New product launches
• Promotional emails
• Seasonal campaigns

Here’s a product launch email marketing campaign by Patagonia:

And here are the most popular emails for B2B organizations:

• Blog content promotions
• Email surveys
• Free trials and follow-ups
• Webinars

Below you can see a webinar marketing email example by Growthhackers:

Apart from the industry-specific emails, companies will need to deliver essential messages to nurture and convert their email lists. Here are the essential emails that both B2C and B2B email marketers need to set up:

• Welcome emails
• Re-engagement campaigns
• Confirmation messages
• Announcement campaigns

You can create all of the above by getting your hands on an advanced email marketing automation tool like Moosend or Mailchimp.

Create a tab with important holidays

Of course, you shouldn’t forget to target the holidays as they’ll allow you to leverage the increased traffic and make more sales.

To be up-to-date, you can create a separate tab in your email marketing calendar and add the most important dates you can target.

For instance, you can create email campaigns for Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Black Friday, Christmas, and so on. Here’s a simple example you can follow to make yours:

Need a helping hand with your email designs? Make sure to choose a dedicated holiday newsletter template to save time and effort!

2. Assign Email Owners

While you might think that one person can create every email marketing campaign, assigning different team members to different emails is more productive.

First of all, having different owners for each campaign will save you time as they’ll manage to create them faster. Thus, you’ll create a process with people who will have a more in-depth understanding of what needs to be crafted to convert your audience.

For example, assigning Mary to your promotional and product launch campaigns will allow her to focus on this type of email and improve the effectiveness of these messages. As a result, you’ll build an efficient email marketing funnel that will run smoothly!

But how do you find the right people for each campaign? Just make sure that all of your email owners:

• Know how to use your email marketing service
• Are aware of the objectives of each campaign
• Have knowledge of the target email list and their pain points

After you find the best person for the job, you can start setting your goals.

Tip: To have better team control and encourage team collaboration, it would be useful to use team collaboration software. These tools will save you from potential problems down the line and increase employee productivity.

3. Set Goals for Each Campaign

Speaking of goals, after you decide the type of content and emails you want to send, you need to set the marketing objectives for each one of them.

Goal-setting is a crucial part of a successful email marketing strategy. To do it, you can start by creating SMART goals for your email campaign. This model will allow you to pinpoint exactly what you want to achieve, how to achieve, and, finally, see whether you made it or not.

Source

Now let’s see an example.

SMART Goal Summary: I will create an email campaign for my new product launch.

• Specific: I’m going to craft an email message to promote my business’s new product.
• Measurable: The goal is to increase brand awareness, excite my customers, and solve their pain points.
• Attainable: We can promote our new item by creating an engaging email campaign for our subscribers and potential customers. If we make the message intriguing, our email list will click on our call-to-action and check it out.
• Relevant: I want my team to create a campaign that will speak to our target audience, communicating the immediate benefits of acquiring the new product.
• Time-bound: The campaign/s should be created and scheduled before and after the new launch to get more people interested and lead them to action.

The above example is a simple process to help you set your campaign goals. After performing this simple task, you can add your objectives in your email marketing calendar for your team members to see:

4. Find the Best Time to Send Emails

The next step to organize your email campaign calendar is to determine the best send dates and times.

To discover the ideal sending times, you need to consider a few things first, like your:

• Subscribers’ age and gender
• Recipients’ device
• Email list time zone

Taking all of the above into account will help you find an efficient sending schedule for your audience. And while this process is more of a trial and error, you can rely on existing data to help you develop a consistent plan.

For instance, here are some of the best and worst sending times and days to help you out:

• Best day and time: Thursday – from 9 am to 11 am.
• Worst day and time: Saturday – from 4 pm to 5 am.

This info should be included in your calendar view by your email owners, so you know when your campaigns roll out:

Also, this process will allow you to check for sending time consistency and create a high-performing content marketing strategy that will nurture and convert your audience.

5. Target the Right Segment

I’m sure you’ve already heard about the power of segmentation – a process that allows you to divide your email subscribers into focused groups based on similar interests.

For instance, you can segment your audience according to demographics, location, age, gender, and so on.

This process aims to create groups of people with common interests and then leverage the data to send them targeted messages.

For small businesses and eCommerce stores, this will power up your engagement efforts and allow you to target your email list with the right message at the right.

You can create a variety of customer segments right from the start! All you need to do is add the necessary fields in your newsletter sign up forms, and voila:

As you can see, Bulgari manages to segment their new subscribers by dividing them according to:

• Their location (Country – Region)
• Gender (Title) and marital status for women (Ms./Mrs.)
• Interests (Jewellery, Watches, etc.)

Leveraging this type of customer data will help you target each stage of the customer journey more effectively and create an email marketing plan that will perform!

6. Craft Intriguing Subject Lines

Moving on, after setting your goals, selecting your campaign types, and segmenting your list, you can start creating your emails!

The first, and most important step, is to craft an intriguing subject line that will give you high open rates.

Since your email subject lines will determine your engagement, you need to include them in your email calendar. This way, you can keep track of what you send and avoid creating similar lines that get your audience bored.

To nail your subject lines, you need to:

• Add actionable language
• Show the immediate benefit
• Keep them short (40-50 characters)
• Avoid spammy words and use urgency

If subject lines are the bane of your existence, you can get your hands on a subject line tester to help out! For instance, Refine is a tool that will show you the performance of your copy and give you valuable tips on how to improve your open rates!

7. Design Valuable Email Content

After your subscribers click on your campaigns, they need to see a message that’ll be worth their time!

Use your creativity and email copywriting skills to craft unique content that will lead your audience to your desired action.

Here are a few things to keep on top of your mind when you come up with your messages:

• Personalize your content to appeal to your subscriber
• Use clear and actionable language
• Add a straightforward CTA button
• Highlight the immediate benefits

When you are done, you can add your email content to your email marketing calendar:

Adding an Email Content column will allow you to check what your audience receives and make your feedback process and proofreading efforts easier.

On top of that, you can copy-paste the content and use it to create seamless landing pages for your email list. That’s two birds with one stone!

8. Update the Status of Your Campaigns

Keeping your calendar up-to-date is one of the most time-consuming tasks you’ll come across.

However, if you don’t want to have an underperforming calendar, you need to frequently update your data, and more specifically, your campaign status:

To avoid confusion, make sure to label your completed campaigns with “Sent” (or any other indicator). Also, you can schedule future campaigns and add those you plan to sent to keep your team informed about your email marketing plan.

Need help scheduling your emails? Moosend’s email tool will allow you to set a specific date and time for your messages! You can try the feature by signing up for an account and head to Schedule Delivery, where you can select the date, time, and time zone:

9. Measure Campaign Performance

Up to now, we have seen the important elements of a great email marketing calendar. To take it a step further, you can also include additional data to give your team an overview of their email campaign performance.

To do so, you need to track important email metrics like your email open rate, click-throughs, conversions, and more. This information will help your email marketers improve their creations, from the subject lines to the email content.

Above, you can see some of the most popular email campaign metrics you can include in your calendar.

Of course, you can add any indicators you like according to your goals. For instance, you can also insert your:

• Email deliverability
• Leads generated from each campaign
• Revenue earned per email
• Click-to-open rate

10. Add Your A/B Testing Results

Last but not least, improving your campaign performance is a crucial part of boosting your engagement and hitting your revenue goals.

To do it, you can leverage the power of A/B Testing, a process that will let you find the best element combinations for your target audience.

Running various tests will help you see what works well for your recipients, from your subject lines to your content and even visuals!

So if you have created different versions of the same campaign, you can add the result to your email calendar along with the data you collected!

5 Tools To Nail Your Email Marketing Calendar

Now that you know what you need to do to create an email campaign calendar that’s neater than Marie Condo’s apartment, let’s check a few marketing tools you can use to streamline your efforts.

1. Moosend – Schedule Email Delivery

Moosend is your friendly email marketing platform, allowing you to create, automate and send your campaigns to your audience. The tool will allow you to craft beautiful and responsive emails, sporting a drag-n-drop builder with advanced elements.

On top of that, it will give you the ability to schedule your emails. This means that you can plan your email campaigns through the editor, select your recipients, and schedule it for a later date and time.

Best Features

• Schedule delivery option
• Email preview and delivery testing tools
• Reporting and analytics
• Automated workflows and pre-made recipes

Pricing: Moosend features a free trial you can try by signing up here for unlimited email campaigns up to 1,000 subscribers. Paid plans start at $9/month, giving you access to the SMTP server, landing pages, team members, and more.

2. Google Sheets – Plan Your Calendar

Google Sheets allow you to organize your schedule and data in simple spreadsheets. You can use the tool for free when you create a personal Gmail account or find it in Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) for Businesses for additional security and team control.

Google Sheets is a simple tool to help you plan your email marketing calendar; it is accessible and easy to use.

Best Features

• Share with your team members
• Built-in formulas and conditional formatting
• Variety of add-ons
• Excel compatibility (Chrome extension or app)

Pricing: Google Sheets is free to use along with Docs and Slides when you register for a Gmail account. For businesses, Google Workspace plans start at $6/user/month with the Business Starter.

3. Trello – Email Calendar Planning & Visualization

Trello is a content management tool that will help you visualize your email calendar through lists and cards. You can create and share boards with your teammates.

What’s more, it sports an array of built-in automation features, allowing you to streamline your projects and minimize tedious tasks.

Best Features

• Multiple boards
• Easy-to-set-up workflows
• Codeless automation
• Integrations with various apps

Pricing: Trello is free for individuals or teams who want all the simple functions to nail their projects. Then, paid plans start at $5/user/month with the Standard, offering more features.

4. Zapier – Data Exchange Between Apps

Zapier is an automation tool that will help you integrate your favorite apps. Through Zaps, you can exchange data between your applications and streamline your efforts.

For your email calendar, you can set up a variety of workflows that will send data directly to your Google Sheets, keeping everything organized and up-to-date without having to add it manually.

Best Features

• Integration with more than 3,000 apps
• Easy-to-set-up workflows
• Variety of triggers and actions

Pricing: Zapier has a free plan for 100 tasks a month and 5 Zaps. Then, pricing starts at $19.99/month, giving you 750 tasks and 20 Zaps.

5. Jotform – Email Marketing Calendar Templates

Jotform is an online form builder tool that also offers various templates you can use to build your email calendar, social media calendar, or marketing plan.

The tool will allow you to customize your template and add new columns and rows to create a calendar that will have all your data.

Best Features

• Various table templates
• Integrated calendar
• Online form builder

Pricing: Jotform has a free plan you can use for 5 online forms. For more, you need a paid plan, starting with the Bronze at $29/month, the Silver at $39, and the Gold at $99 per month.

Plan Your Email Marketing Calendar 

An organized email calendar will help you create a high-performing email marketing strategy that will work on autopilot.

To make it work, make sure to follow the above steps and get your hands on some helpful tools like Moosend (you can sign up for free), Google Sheets, Trello, and more that will make things easier for you.

Lastly, if you need some help with your calendar, you can easily grab and customize our email calendar template!

With that in mind, it’s time to create the best calendar for your newsletters! Woohoo!