We all know email marketing is one of the most effective ways to make money online. You own your email list (unlike your social media accounts), people on your email list have given you consent to show up in their inboxes (which means you already know they’re interested in your area of expertise–and your potential offers) and the number just don’t lie: The email marketing sector is valued at $10.89 billion in 2023 and expected to reach $17.9 billion by 2027, according to Statista.
Still, I often hear from fellow entrepreneurs that they’re either not emailing as much as they’d like or they don’t have a real email marketing strategy in place and simply pop open a Google Doc every week willy-nilly.
Well, not on my watch.
If you’re ready to have a simpler system in place to plan your monthly email marketing (read: you don’t waste 3-5 precious hours every week inside ConvertKit just staring at a blank “New Broadcast”), this post is for you. Below, you’ll find five easy-peasy things you need to look at every month to make planning your email marketing a breeze.
1) Look at Upcoming Holidays
Retailers use holidays as an excuse to sell all.the.time – why not you? Even if you don’t decide to create an entire promotion around a specific holiday, you can still mention the holiday in your email by weaving it into the fabric of your email, either through storytelling, the language and words you use (such as puns or metaphors) or with a particular promotion or sale.
(It’s also good to know when the holidays are, so you know when not to send emails as well.)
And don’t just stick to the ‘normal’ ones–be sure to scope out a site like “Days of the Year” for fun, obscure and just plain silly holidays.
2) Decide on Promotions, Sales or Launches
This one seems obvious, but it’s worth mentioning: If you have a general marketing or promotional calendar, your email marketing plan should support that. So, what specific offers are you promoting this month? When? And for how long? The answers to all of these questions will help you plan out what types of emails need to go out, when.
If you have a 2-week long course launch this month, your email marketing calendar will likely look much different than a month where you’re only offering a 24-hour flash sale. And that’s totally okay–and expected!
3) Look Up Industry Events
Like holidays, industry events give you another fun reason to email your list outside of your ‘usual’ content. Leverage these special occasions to create timely, relevant email campaigns – and make a few extra sales, too.
4) Map Out Educational/Value-Based Content (or Your Newsletter)
So, what should you plan to send when it’s not a holiday, launch week or the weekend before the biggest conference in your niche?
You probably already have a set cadence for sending missives to your list, whether that’s daily or once a week on Tuesdays at precisely 10 a.m. Regardless of how often you email, take time to map out what you plan to share inside those value-based emails. Of course, tying your ‘regular’ content to your current promotions – or skipping the regular content for the promotional content – or you might have a specific
Your job is to align your content with your goals and the needs of your audience, while also supporting your business goals (aka your planned promotions, launches and sales). And be sure to mix it up: a blend of educational, entertaining and promotional emails will keep your subscribers most engaged.
5) Put it All in a Content Calendar–and Block Out Batch Days to Create it, Too!
Once you have all of this written down, it’s time to input it into your content calendar, babe. Going through this process will help you iron out any of the details–including email themes/topics, subject line ideas, audience segment (aka who needs to receive which email), and which team member is responsible for what to bring the email to life.
And by the way, if you’re the person responsible for creating your marketing content right now, here’s another pro tip: Go ahead and block out content batch days to actually write your emails. (Trust me, this will save you loads of time and prevent those last-minute scrambles to write an email minutes before hitting send. Plus, you’ll be amazed at how much more focused and productive you can be when you’re in the zone!)
And there you have it, my email-savvy entrepreneur. Having a clear roadmap to follow each month will save you from staring at any dreaded blank Google Docs wondering, “What the heck should I write this week?” so you can stay more consistent with your email campaigns–and the dollar dollar bills they bring in, too.
