Not sure how to plan your email content? What if I told you that all you need is about an hour to plan out a month of email content with this tool?
Okay, this might sound crazy, but it’s totally possible. I’ve tried lots of “strategies” to plan email content ahead of time. Mostly it’s me just making a huge list of things I want to send to my email list. Then I set it aside and forget about it. These days I use a more organic approach and this sheet helps.
But, you can spend just an hour or two planning email content each month. Let’s say you send out an email each week to your readers. You need four emails with unique info, interesting stories and maybe even some downloadable goodies. You don’t have infinite hours to plan this, I know. Perhaps this tool I built can help you organize and plan your email content ahead of time, allowing you more time to actually create the content.
Here’s how this works. You sit with your planning sheet (get it at the end of this post) and brainstorm email content ideas. Then you make a list of steps you need to take to create that email content. Then you start ticking off those steps. Take photos of new product, check. Write content, check. Create and schedule emails, check. Have a well deserved glass of pinot, check. Or something like that.
I use Mailchimp to create and schedule my emails. I also have an automation that shares my blog posts from the last month. That’s one week down and I don’t have to do anything!
Here are a couple important email marketing hints:
Leave room for more “organic” stuff. Maybe something really exciting happens one week and you just have to share it with your email peeps. Don’t feel like you have to stick with your schedule. Perhaps you push one of your scheduled things out a week … BANG! That’s one week for the following month down!
Don’t be afraid of recycling content. Refresh old content you’ve used before. Update some old info and put a little spin on it to remind your readers about a specific service or product you offer.
