With a weekly newsletter, standard holidays, product releases, and other promotions, you can easily send over 100 campaign emails a year. How do you organize your customer communication and not go crazy in the process? Organization is key when it comes to content.
Building a system helps you create better content, send more emails, and drive people back to your site with that content—which means more sales.
In this guide, we’ll help you start building a content calendar so you can effectively drive more sales.
Use this Content Calendar Template to get started. Keep in mind that you don’t need to tackle the whole year today. If you don’t have time to plan for the whole year, just think about the next two months.
Add Calendar Events That Relate to Your Business
You always want to reinforce your brand and stay at the top of your customers’ minds. That’s hard to do if you don’t have reasons to reach out to them. Start with some standard events that relate to your brand, products or, better yet, your customers.
Here are some ideas to get you started (find the rest in the Content Calendar ):
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Monthly themes:
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National grilling month for food brands in July
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National golf month for sports equipment brands in August
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National healthy skin month for health and beauty brands in November
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Weekly observances:
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Fashion weeks for apparel brands in the second half of February
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Animal cruelty awareness week for animal/pet brands in the 3rd week of April
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Independent retailers week in the 3rd week of July
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Daily observances:
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Holidays
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Christmas, July 4th (US Independence Day), New Year’s Day
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Other important days
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Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Valentine’s Day
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Fun niche days
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Awkward Moment's Day on March 18
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French Fry Day on July 13
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International Talk Like a Pirate Day on September 19
Add Key Product Events for Your Business
If your products are seasonal, or you have a cyclical product lifecycle—you probably know when you’re going to be releasing new products or pushing products. These dates are perfect for promotional emails. Get them on the calendar!
Here are a few examples:
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Seasonal releases that happen at the same time every year
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New product releases
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Limited runs of new products
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Re-release of popular products
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Limited inventory
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Discounts or incentives
Brainstorm Content Ideas
Now that you have some events to anchor around, start connecting those events to specific things that are important to your customers. There are two types of emails you should send out:
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Brand-Building Emails . Content that reinforces you as a thought-leader and keeps you top of mind.
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Marketing Emails . Content that is specifically aimed at promoting products and driving traffic to your site to drive sales.
Each month you want a mix of brand-building and marketing emails. For example, if you’re running a health and lifestyle brand that sells activewear, you could call out specific notable days in April:
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Stress Awareness Month
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April 1: Three ways to increase stress (April’s Fools!)—tease April 4 winter closeout send
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Winter line closeout sales
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April 4: Send promotion for winter closeout
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World Health Day
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April 7: Three innovative public health ideas from around the world—tease April 15 Spring launch
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Spring apparel line launch
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April: Launch Spring line with product images
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Every Kid Healthy Week April 22-28
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April 22: Five ways to keep kids active in spring
These are just a few ideas to get you started. If you’re stuck, think about the kind of emails that your favorite brands send to you. What makes you click through? What makes you unsubscribe?
Review With Your Team
Make sure anyone on your team who contributes to emails knows the deadlines and when each asset needs to be collected and approved by. A lot goes into sending a simple email:
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Images
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Email text
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Subject line
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Website links
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Website banners
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Discount codes
Create, Send, and Learn
Content creation feels overwhelming when you don’t have a plan—but now you do. So, start creating and, as we say at Drip, “Just send it, baby!” You won’t screw up if you never send—but you also don’t learn or drive sales if you don’t send. So, even if something isn’t perfect or it’s not the best idea ever, just send it.
Using a content calendar gives you the foundation you need to stay organized, build confidently with your team, and learn what kind of content resonates with your audience. From there, you’ll gain more customer loyalty—and more sales.