How DTC Brands Create Email Campaign Calendar That Convert (10 Easy Steps)

Email marketing isn’t just about sending messages, it’s about sending the right message at the right time to maximize engagement and revenue, with a hook that captizates and compels subscirbers to buy.
‍

For e-commerce brands, a well-structured email campaign calendar will almost certainly guarantee consistent revenue generation while aligning with key sales events, product launches, and seasonal opportunities, as well as using email as a channel to drive visibility on unique pieces of content, products with slow sell-through, or extra profit per order through promoting high-margin products by understanding unit economics and creating email and SMS strategies accordingly.
‍

In this guide, we’ll break down a step-by-step approach to building an email calendar that helps brands hit revenue targets, optimize campaign performance, and increase customer retention, all without feeling stale, boring, or bland.

‍

‍

‍

Step 1: Reverse Engineer Success

If you define success like most DTC brands, then you need to have a revenue target and reverse engineer success from there. How much do you want to generate for the month, then what % currenly comes from camapigns, and based on that chow many campaigns should we send?

‍

➡️ Find the current % of revenue from campaigns over the last 90 days and divide by 3 to find a monthly target (Adjust accordingly if you know you're implementing efforts to drive better campaign results during this time)

➡️ Find your average revenue from campaigns over the last 90 days by taking the total amount of campaign revenue over the last 90 days and dividing that by the total number of camapign sent during that period

➡️ Divide the target revenue by the average revenue per camapign to find a totla number of emauils you'll likely need to send

‍

‍

Example:

• All email revenue last 90 days: $1,598,517.17
• Campaign revenue last 90 days: $1,074,656.64
• Number of campaigns last 90 days: 84
• Avg revenue per campaign last 90 days: $12,793.53
• Desired campaign revenue next month: $400,00 ($1.200,000 / 3)
• Number of campaigns: 31 campaigns
  
  • Note: This DOES NOT need to be 31 net-new campaigns and SHOULD NOT all go to the entire list. This can be a mix of net-new emails, re-sends of winning campaigns, and segmented to avoid list burnout.

‍

‍

Step 2: Identify Key Events for the Business

Identify non-negotiable events that will make the MOST sense to feature or highlight for your brand:

• 🏷️ Major sales
• 🎄 Major Holidays
• 🚀 New product launches
• 👀 New product teasers
• 🔁 Product restocks
• 📆 Company events
• And so on

‍

This will help build posts you can build around in the calendar, starting with the highest leverage email opportunities and non-negotiable touch points.

‍

‍

Step 3: Add in Emails That Align With Business Objectives

Identify opportunities that align with business-level objectives to see how email and SMS can assist as more than just a customer retention channel, but as a profit partner:

‍

• ⏰ Limited-time sales on slow-selling SKUs
• 📣 Promoting items with higher profit per order by looking at the SKUs unit economics (CM2)
• ⌛️Promoting items that are almost sold out
• And so on

‍

This will help build guide posts you can build around in the calendar, starting with the highest leverage email opportunities and non-negotiable touch points.

‍

‍

‍

Step 4: Find Unique Opportunities in the Month

‍

• National holidays for the month, week, or day in the given month to let people on your list know you care about what they care about
  
  • Example: 
    
    • National Sleep Day
    • National Feed a Rescue Pet Week
    • Mens Mental Health Awareness Month
• Seasonal events like touching on Summer being here, Spring ending, or the cold to connect with what your subscribers are going through
• Unique hooks for specific products that tie into seasonality to build a bridge between your products and where your subscribers are/what they're thinking
  
  • Example: "Fall Into Deeper Sleep 💤🍁" for a fall campaign for a sleep brand
• Find other areas business-wide you're looking to drive attention, action, or growth to
  
  • Subscription program
  • SMS list size
  • Mobile app downloads
  • Survey submissions
  • And so on

‍

‍

‍

Step 5: Fill in the rest with evergreen content

Not everything needs to be event-based. Evergreen content built around your best products and real customer desires creates consistent engagement.

You  can create evergreen hooks for your best-selling products that touch on an objection or something that they ACTUALLY care about.

‍

• Benefit: Create a hook around the end benefit to the consumer
  
  • Pet food brands new Forage collection: "Let Them Forage Like Nature Intended!"
  • Focus supplement brands: "What if clarity came without coffee?"
• Objection: Craft email angles that call out an objection you heard from surveys, support tickets, social media ad comments and so on
  
  • ‍
• Differentiator: Speak to something that makes your brand/product unique from competitors
  
  • Mushroom supplement: "Sustained energy and razor-sharp focus with our proprietary mushroom blend"

• Social proof: Touch on social proof elements that lend to your brands credibility
  
  • Review highlight emails: "See what they’re saying after their first hit!"
  • UGC highlight: See what [INFLUENCER] said after unboxing out [PRODUCT NAME] 👀
  • Award/media features: "Featured everywhere. See what the people are saying about us"

‍

‍

‍

📆 Want this done 100% for your DTC brand?

Fill out the form below and we can build a fully baked email campaign calendar for your DTC brand + consult on direction, and if you qualify, we can do full end-to-end campaign creation from ideation to emails scheduled, handling copy, design, implementation, and analysis.

‍

‍