Report: Majority of Marketers Now Use an Email Content Calendar Year-Round

As marketers look ahead into the future, more of them are investing in content planning to gauge the ROI of their efforts, according to new research.

The “2018 State of Email Workflows” report from Litmus revealed that more than half of marketers (55 percent) are now using a content calendar year-round. About 69 percent use software other than (or in addition to) spreadsheets, calendars, and docs to specifically plan out email content. This is an increase from 49 percent who said the same back in 2016.

 

The study found that marketers who describe their email marketing programs as successful are 34 percent more likely than those at less successful programs to maintain an email content calendar year-round (66.1 percent vs. 49.5 percent).

However, not all marketers plan far in advance for their content and email marketing campaigns. The results showed that when it comes to planning individual emails, in particular, less than 20 percent of marketers create a brief for every email to set goals and establish KPIs.

Overall, only 17 percent of companies plan their content for more than three months out for peak season campaigns.

Interactive Content and the Buyer’s Journey

Previous research suggests that marketers who provide more interactive content to their customers and prospects are more likely to see engagement.

Demand Metric partnered with Ion Interactive to conduct the “Content Experience Impact and the Buyer’s Journey” report. According to their statistics, 63 percent of marketers say that their interactive content is “frequently” or “very frequently” shared, compared to just 32 percent of their passive content.

In addition, 96 percent of respondents say that content interactivity impacts customers’ decisions.

“Since companies that are growing revenue are nearly 1.5 times more likely to report their content is shared frequently or very frequently, it is important to reduce the barriers by ensuring that content can be shared with ease,” wrote the authors of the report.