Creating a calendar of marketing activities is important for any brand so there are planned and systematic marketing activities throughout the year. It is also necessary to make specific calendars for each of your communications channels. Taking emails for instance – if you are a marketer who sends out high volume emails through emailing software like Maxmail – why not plan out your emails at the beginning of the financial year?
There are two core reasons to send out content to audiences: when you have compelling content and when you have timely content. Knowing this will help you start to plan your annual email calendar. First take a look at all your planned marketing activities and input according emails to correspond with the respective campaigns. You then need to look at the timeliness of sending it out. If you have sale in March for instance, wouldn’t the ideal time to send it be at the end of February? Another area to look into is spending patterns; people tend to spend more during the holidays or special occasions. Can you also plan and send corresponding emails to make then look into your products during those times?
Another area than can be planned in advance is newsletters sent by email. If you send out either monthly or quarterly newsletters, then you need adequate time to plan for it, instead of beginning work when you realize that you are close to the sending deadline.
Planning for your content in advance also means that you know when there is a gap in communication – this will enable you to create interesting fillers in the form of free downloads or random information on your brand that a buyer may not know about. Having a plan that creates regular interactions with your audience will help you remain top of mind when a buying decision is at hand.
Most marketers tend to send out last minute emails when they realize that their sending frequency has begun to falter or remember there is a sale coming up. As a result the content may not be very appealing to audiences due to it not getting the attention it needs during the actual drafting of the content. This can be easily avoided by planning in advance, giving you proper time to make any changes as well.
If you are a high volume email marketer, start planning today for a year-long calendar that keeps you in contact with your customers in a timely and necessary manner and you may see a change in your consumer pattern in no time.