The Ultimate Marketing Content Calendar

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1 Flexmail presents The ultimate marketing content calendar Why you absolutely need this: A content calendar is an essential tool to plan your marketing campaigns for the coming year. The benefit of using the calendar format, rather than just a long list of content to be published, is that you can visualize how your content is distributed throughout the year. This allows you to: Plan content around key events in your industry or important dates See where you have gaps in your content plan, with plenty of time to line up more content Make sure you have your content ready to publish In this calendar we already included some holidays and interesting days that you can use to build your content around. And every month has a little tip to get your inspiration flowing. What you definitely need to include: The further ahead you plan your marketing content the better placed you are to produce a consistent flow of content that builds your brand s expertise in your chosen subject areas. Looking at the year ahead, you might see several industry or world events that you want to plan content around the content calendar is a place to store and manage this information. Make a note of key events in your industry and your own events Plan around seasonal events, such as Christmas or Easter Ensure you are creating a variety of content throughout the year Make sure to include your deadlines for everyone in the team Plan ahead so that content creation isn t always a last minute rush Also include specific themes, potential headlines and subject lines Think about aims and potential target groups beforehand to ensure efficiency Don t forget first drafts and final deadlines Are you ready? Let s get started!

2 January means time for a fresh start. Can you help your audience with some original New Year resolutions? It can be great input for an article. And how about your resolutions? Make sure you have your strategy and content plan in place for Do you have the right follow-up in place for your different target groups? Now is an excellent time to have a critical look at your follow-up messages: order or registration confirmations, sales follow-up messages. Do they need some freshening up? Is there any room for new follow-up messages? You need to make sure that your contacts feel taken care of. By optimizing the design and content of those messages, you can greatly improve your conversions throughout Using automation and web tracking you can easily set the right outreach plan in place for your audience. JANUARY Trivia New Year s Epiphany Bubble Bath 4 5 Cuddle up of the Media Religion Dress Up Your Ditch New Years Pet Resolutions Compliment Fun At Work Poetry (Flanders)

3 FEBRUARY Cancer Nutella Carnaval Chinese New Year Radio Valentine s Darwin If you decided to skip the New Year clichés in your communication, Chinese New Year could by a great way to get noticed. Also try to think outside the box for Valentine s content. An anti-valentine s discount could give you a great introduction in the inbox. Sweater Singles Awareness

4 MARCH The first day of Spring -- what signs of renewal do you see in your field? Can you or your clients do some cleaning up? March also includes St. Patrick's, and the start of light Savings Time (spring forward!) You could also do something around fresh products. Compliment Do your messages already include a preheader? This first text of your message will be displayed right after your subject line in clients like Gmail, and on smartphones. A great preheader supports or amplifies your subject line and can come in hand to sedure your reader to open. Also keep into account that March also welcomes the beginning if the gardening season. Down Syndrome Poetry Beginning of Spring Women s Plumber s Consumer Saint Patrick s of 20 Rights Happiness Water Start of Summer time Theatre Easter 27 Easter

5 APRIL April fool s 1 Children s Book Autism 2 3 April Fool's -- you could do a funny spoof! There are lots of special celebrations that offer opportunities for story connections. 4 Health Are your messages already mobile optimized? Research shows that 80% of people would delete an if it doesn t look good on a mobile device. Make sure you test yours. Pay extra attention to your links. A new responsive template could be a good idea. Parkinson Circus Heritage Secretary 21 Earth (Flanders) Dance Jazz

6 MAY Labour 1 2 Press Freedom Asthma Remembrance Ascension Mother s Firefighter s of the Midwife No Diet Mother s can give you lots of interesting hooks, especially if you re in B2C. Everyone has a mom and no matter what kind of business you have, you can pay tribute to, or celebrate moms everywhere. You can do a Bring Your Mom In special or a Moms get a special % off deal. Europe Pentecost 9 European of the Stroke Fair Trade Pentecost Biodiversity Africa The Belgian Pride

7 JUNE Ah, warm weather is arriving. Use this seasonal change to propel your marketing this Children s Environment month and apply it as inspiration to your designs: brighten it up! Also, school is almost done. Maybe you want to introduce some Summer program you re 6 Oceans creating? Or make use of Picnic to do something nice for your loyal customers or your team. Think about special actions that 13 Blood Donor Father s Picnic you want to create to spice up your results this summer. Refugee Beginning of Summer

8 JULY Send an that not only welcomes the warm weather but welcomes new customers, too. If a customer has bought a new product or signed up for a new service in the past six months, applaud their actions with a well-crafted thank you or milestone . You can continue to use this throughout the following years. Flanders National Holiday (Belgium) Friendship 30 31

9 AUGUST Summertime can be a slow season for some companies. Your customers are often out of the office or on vacation and aren t as responsive as the rest of the year, but that doesn t mean your marketing should go on hiatus. You can use this month to try different tactics and ideas. Take advantage of the extra time to create content for your next newsletters Youth Left-Handers And it s almost time to go back to school If you re planning to do something special, make sure you start planning your communication in time! If you re in interior design for example, you can give ideas for the decoration of dorm rooms. Assumption Eat Outside 31

10 SEPTEMBER It s back-to-school time. Use this month to market to both parents and students. Also, if you re in B2B, this is the time to take your frequency up a notch, as we re getting into the most busy months of the year. 5 Back to School Open Monument (Flanders) First Aid People are returning from holiday, and get back to work with fresh ideas and renewed motivation. September is a great month for new launches and introductions, so try to come up with original campaigns to get their attention. 12 of Agriculture Alzheimer of the Customer Beginning of Fall Deaf Holiday of the French Community Tourism Heart

11 OCTOBER Vegetarian Music Open Business 1 2 Adapt your design to the new weather conditions to make your newsletters look fresh to your audience. What can you do around this season? Halloween can also be a fun inspiration for your campaigns Animal Teachers Smile Food October is also a great month to send out surveys. You will learn more about your contacts and the new input can be a great inspiration for next year s strategy. Stutter Start of Winter time Halloween 31

12 NOVEMBER Are you already asking your customers for feedback when they ve made a purchase? If not, try to set up an flow for that purpose. It will improve your service and you ll get great input for your marketing and your business. You can use these testimonials with your products or services: it s great social proof. On top of that, once they ve entered their review, you can take them back to the website where you can introduce him to other new products. If you want to do something special for the holidays, don t forget to have your strategy in place before December starts. Diabetes Television All Saint s Armistice Liberty Science of the Student s Entrepreneur Men s

13 DECEMBER Send out gift idea s early for maximum result! During the holiday season everyone wants the gift-giving process to be easy. Remind your customers that your company has plenty of time-saving ways to purchase a gift. 5 Volunteer AIDS Also make sure to plan your Christmas and New Year messages in time. Try to do something original: stay clear of the cliché images with Santa Clauses. You want to make sure you stand out in the pile of messages your audience will receive at the end Start Christmas of Winter eve Christmas Year s Eve New