Creating a 90 Day Email Marketing Plan

Let's create a 90 day email marketing plan to leverage our resources in order to get the most out of our digital marketing efforts. Email marketing is where many times you'll see the biggest return on your investment. If you're not doing email marketing, you're missing out on converting your potential customers. Let's not miss out on the opportunity!

What does it look like to make a quarterly email marketing plan?

Create a timeframe for email distribution

If you are considering starting an email marketing campaign, I think the mindset shift that has to happen is that you don't need to email every day. We have 90 days in the quarter, but that doesn't mean that you have to send an email every day. What that means is that you want to sit down and brainstorm what 12 emails could look like.

You may think you don't have 12 different topics to write about for your email newsletters. Just cut that number in half. You can email every other week or once a month. You don't have to email 12 times in order for you to leverage email marketing for the quarter.

My suggestion is to choose whichever time frame - pick one and stick with it! The biggest benefit of email marketing is that every email marketing software allows you to draft and schedule in advance.

Choose an email marketing software

You can't do email without an email marketing software. If you're emailing right now and you're not using an email marketing software, you're breaking somebody's law, somewhere. It is impossible to do a legal email, to any group of people, whether they have subscribed to you or not without using email software.

By using an email marketing software like MailChimp or Constant Contact, you will be able to craft your emails in advance and then schedule them out. You will have emails going out into the world and you can move on with your life and run your business because you drafted them in advance.

Create an email template or format

The next part of creating an email marketing plan is deciding on a format or template for every email.  You need to decide that every email is going to have, for example, three elements - what you have going on this week, what's coming up this month or some salient bit of information for your industry.

An example would be if your business has many team members, you could highlight a different team member in each email. This way, those who read your email will be learning something about your organization.  If you have a product based business, you could highlight different products.  Just choose whichever elements work for you and stick with that format.

Actually, what ends up happening is that we feel we have to be spontaneous or creative when writing our emails. Creativity is great but not necessarily in your email marketing plan, right now. I want you to be regimented as you learn and master this process - you want to give yourself a foundation to stand on.

By creating some sort of template or format for yourself , you will stay on track with what you want to write for each email.  What do you want your emails to look like? Having a template set up with the elements or topics you want to discuss will save you time when it comes to drafting a new email.

Pro tip - if you know that you're going to have weekly spontaneous events, like a weekly sale or promotion that you haven’t decided on yet - you can set a reminder on your calendar to edit the email once you know what the promotion will be.

What is the goal of your email marketing campaign?

What are you trying to accomplish with your email marketing plan over the 90 days? How can my potential customers help me reach that goal?

We need to be thinking, how can our potential and current customers help us get to where we're trying to go. Think more strategically when crafting your emails, they will be more impactful, but we have to be thinking about what we want to accomplish with our email marketing plan. 

Then let our customers know what they need to do and how to participate with us on this journey. We're almost in a relationship with the customer. We need to let them know what we need from them - they will have no idea what to do to help you achieve these goals. So by using email marketing, this is a really great place to start.

Do you want more advice on how to craft your email marketing message? We've got an article that takes a deeper look at creating a great branding message. What's Holding Your Small Business Back - A Quick Look Into Your Business Brand