The Q4 2024 Email Marketing Calendar

If you want to grow your Shopify business, a well-planned email marketing strategy is critical. Email marketing is the only channel that gives you a direct line of communication to your most engaged audience, allowing you to turn subscribers into loyal customers. And with an ROI (return on investment) of ~$40 for every $1 spent, email certainly outperforms every other channel.

But where do you start? What does a successful plan look like? And how do you know what works?

We’re here to help.

Our Q4 2024 Email Marketing Planning Guide helps you map out your email marketing for October through December.

Watch the video below for a quick overview of how to use the guide. Continue reading for more details on each calendar component.

Set quarterly goals

Did you know you’re 42% more likely to achieve your goals if you write them down? That means the first step to achieving your goals is setting them. Our email marketing calendar guides you in defining your strategy with a set of simple prompts.

• How did email marketing performance shake out during the previous quarter?
• Who are the people reading your emails and what are their needs?
• When are the important dates and seasons for your business?
• What business goals do you want to achieve through email marketing?

Taking the time to record current email marketing metrics, a description of your target market, important dates, and high-level goals will seriously improve your marketing. Follow the prompts to get started.

Note: If you can spare a few moments on this, do what you can and come back to it. The deeper you understand your business, brand, goals, and audience, the better and more successful you will become.

Let’s take a closer look at each goal setting section of the email marketing calendar.

Goal metrics

These are the metrics you aspire to. Check standings from the previous quarter and use them as a base to formulate target ambitions.

Audience insights

Describe who you’re sending to — their demographics, interests, and potential problems (that your product or service can solve!).

Important dates

Note key marketing dates like major sales and promotions, high-traffic seasons, product and collection launches, and events (both virtual and in person).

Email marketing goals and objectives 

Your goals are the marketing outcomes you want to achieve; your objectives are the actions you’ll take to get there.
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📌  PRO TIP: Successful Shopify merchants — those generating serious revenue (20%-40%) from email marketing — do these three things:

1. Send good newsletters consistently
2. Utilize various list growth strategies (like an email popup)
3. Activate multiple email automations

Are you armed with the right email marketing software? Find the best choice for your brand by starting with identifying your business growth stage.

Build your quarterly email marketing calendar

With your goals established and objectives in mind, it’s time to put together a plan. 

Enhance your email marketing game with: 

• A “focus of the quarter” recommendation to elevate your email marketing program
• Ideas for what to send each month of the quarter, based on ecommerce events and holidays
• A featured newsletter of the month to provide variety among your promotional campaigns
• A subscription to Google Calendar reminders so you stay on top of major ecommerce events

Use the editable email marketing calendar each month to sketch out your plan. Click on any date and enter the information you'd like. We’ve also included a reminder of the following month’s marketing events to help you stay ahead.

Let’s take a closer look at how to use the calendar pages.

Add your business’ important dates to the calendar

Remember the dates you previously wrote down on the metrics page? Add those to your calendar pages first to make sure you plan emails around those events.

Decide on a consistent send schedule

A critical part of email marketing is consistency, so define how frequently you want to send. Is it monthly, weekly, or multiple times a week? Mark your dates for email prep and testing, too.

Add the marketing events that make sense to your brand

Holidays and cultural events are great opportunities to take advantage of increased web traffic and drive sales — that’s why we mention the major marketing events that happen each month. Think about what matters to your brand.‍

Consider campaigns
During the busiest retail seasons, one email just won’t cut it. A campaign is a series of newsletters that serve a common purpose or promotion, and can maximize your marketing efforts. We give you a few ideas each month, but you should also consider creating campaigns around your own events.‍

Map your messages for the month

With your email cadence and key events staked out, it’s time to craft a content plan. Your newsletters are important tools for building customer relationships and driving folks to your site. Use your newsletter content to help you reach your goals.

Prep for what’s ahead

Sometimes key marketing events happen in the first parts of the month or are so significant that you'll need extra preparation. Look ahead. Do you have any new business goals or events you need to add to the calendar? What marketing content are you considering for the next month?
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Measure your efforts with review pages

Successful Shopify merchants know that if they want to improve something, they need to measure it first. Review pages help you track your progress and lessons learned at the end of each month and quarter. 

Examining sales metrics, subscriber engagement, and list growth is essential to understanding how your actions affect results.‍‍

Let’s take a closer look.

‍Monthly review

Document performance each month. Where did sales land? Is your engagement improving? Did your email list grow? Look at your email marketing overall, then look at your newsletters and automations individually.

Use the takeaways, achievements and opportunities sections to expand on your email performance and connect it back to your goals. What worked well? What didn’t? What would you like to remember for next month — or next year? 

‍Quarterly review

You've completed three months' worth of marketing; take a moment to reflect on all the work you've put in. Pat yourself on the back! It may not always feel like it, but you are making progress, and now it's time to build on that progress for next quarter.

On the quarterly review page, you'll want to track your growth, engagement, and sales like before. What trends are you noticing? In addition to that, were any campaigns successful in particular? Remember, your future self will thank you for all the insights you create.

📌  PRO TIP: Prep for next quarter. Think about the bigger picture. What are the quarterly events that you need to be aware of? Common large quarterly events include:

• Getting rid of old inventory to make room for new
• Change of weather/season
• Seasonal ecommerce events 
• Bringing in new stock

Make it a great fourth quarter

We've seen Shopify merchants make massive revenue gains simply by sending consistently, starting a few automations, and implementing basic list growth tactics. We want that same success and more for you.

By using this email marketing calendar to set goals, create a plan, and measure your progress, you’ll be able to increase your chances of success and make your email marketing work for you.

Happy planning!