{"id":3661,"date":"2019-10-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/the-best-content-planning-tools-for-email-marketers\/"},"modified":"2020-04-20T15:27:40","modified_gmt":"2020-04-20T15:27:40","slug":"the-best-content-planning-tools-for-email-marketers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/the-best-content-planning-tools-for-email-marketers","title":{"rendered":"The Best Content Planning Tools for Email Marketers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Email marketing comes with a lot of moving parts and sometimes, it\u2019s hard to stay organized. During a recent webinar about <\/span><a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/litmus.com\/blog\/what-it-takes-to-scale-your-email-program-webinar-recording-qa\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">scaling your email program<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, the topic of managing email content planning came up.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The discussion touched on data uncovered in the 2019 State of Email survey, but there\u2019s still so much to explore.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What are email content planning tools?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">First things first, what is an email content planning tool? When you think of content planners, you may think of scheduling social media campaigns or organizing content marketing efforts. However, they\u2019re just as useful for email marketing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Email content planning tools are documents, communication channels, or project management systems that help email marketing departments stay on task, on time, and on budget.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you don\u2019t use a planning tool, then you\u2019re missing out on:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Starting work on special campaigns well in advance, and never getting surprised by how quickly holidays are approaching again<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Identifying gaps in email strategy or engagement throughout the month, quarter, and year<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Being able to more easily hand off work or bring new team members up to speed<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Easily delivering a clear list of all your team\u2019s efforts to your boss at the end of the year<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Having a single, organized place to keep ideas (that <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">isn\u2019t<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> your inbox)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Which planning tools are best?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instead of creating just another list of popular planning tools, we\u2019ve asked real email marketers about what tools they use day in and day out. Here&#8217;s what they said:<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"post-24300 media-24300\" class=\"alignright nudged\"><a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/the-best-content-planning-tools-for-email-marketers-chart-1.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\" shaded alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/the-best-content-planning-tools-for-email-marketers-chart-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1150\" height=\"1465\"><\/a><\/figure>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Email marketers use a mix of tools<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The first thing we noticed\u2014that you\u2019ll see if you start to add up the percentages above\u2014is that it\u2019s common to use more than one tool. Email marketers may use different tools to organize various aspects of a project, store ideas across different phases of a task, or collaborate between different teams. In total, 16 different tools were used by at least 1% of respondents.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Keep it simple: Google Docs is most popular<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best. The single most popular email content planning tool among marketers is the Google Suite. 60% of brands use Google Docs and Google Calendar, and Google\u2019s tools are even more popular with large email teams. 70% of teams with more than 11 full-time email marketers rely on Google Docs and Google Calendar to plan email content.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">On top of being simple and widely known, using Google Docs offers flexibility. By starting with a blank canvas, email marketers can collaborate on ideas or create templates for sharing project briefs.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Microsoft products are popular, too<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just because Google products are the most popular doesn\u2019t mean that Microsoft products have gone out of style. 50% of brands rely on them for email planning. When looking at large email teams, 61% use Microsoft Word, Excel, and Outlook. Just like Google products, these standard tools are flexible to fit the needs and processes of different email marketing teams.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Large teams use different project management software<\/span><\/h3>\n<figure id=\"post-24301 media-24301\" class=\"alignnone\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"post-24301 media-24301\" class=\"alignright nudged\"><a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/the-best-content-planning-tools-for-email-marketers-chart-2.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\" shaded alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/the-best-content-planning-tools-for-email-marketers-chart-2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1150\" height=\"1465\"><\/a><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the most interesting insights from the data was how tool preferences differ between large teams and the global averages. Teams with 11 or more people working full-time on email face additional considerations based on the size of their organization. While the two most popular apps are the same across the board, large teams do have some unique preferences.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">For example, on average, 9% of teams use Basecamp, while in large teams, 16% choose the software. Similarly, 21% of large teams use Confluence, compared to only 9% in the global average. One of the most significant differences appeared in the results for in-house solutions: While the global average of using a \u201chomegrown\u201d planning tool is only 6%, nearly three times as many large teams work with their own solution.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Robust project management tools may be better equipped to handle many different departments, clients, or projects that are typical of a bigger email marketing team or company.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">How to choose the right tool for your team<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The list of content planning tools other email marketers love most is a great starting point for your research. But each team\u2019s needs and preferences are unique, so chances are the stack of email content planning tools will be, too. So how do you choose the right tool for your crew? First, think about how many people will use it. Are you a team of three that can easily manage between a Google Doc and a Slack channel? Or do you need to pass information between a <\/span><a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/litmus.com\/blog\/organizing-email-teams-centralized-vs-decentralized-team-structures\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">decentralized marketing team<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In addition to considering how many people you\u2019ll need to collaborate with, think about how you work with teammates. What\u2019s the <\/span><a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/litmus.com\/blog\/wasting-time-getting-emails-approved-heres-fix\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">creation and approval process<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> like, and what information does each team need to complete their task? Take stock of the tools you already have at your disposal and get creative about how to use them to get organized.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Want to know what other trends are shaping email marketing? Get your copy of the <\/span><a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/litmus.com\/ebooks\/state-of-email-2019\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">2019 State of Email Report here<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Email marketing comes with a lot of moving parts and sometimes, it\u2019s hard to stay organized. Content planning tools can help email marketing departments stay on task, on time, and on budget.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of creating just another list of popular planning tools, we\u2019ve polled hundreds of email marketers about what tools they use day in and day out. Here are a few interesting finds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"blog_category":[53],"class_list":["post-3661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","blog_category-tips-resources"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.5 (Yoast SEO v27.7) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Best Content Planning Tools for Email Marketers - Litmus<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Email marketing comes with a lot of moving parts and sometimes, it\u2019s hard to stay organized. Content planning tools can help email marketing departments stay on task, on time, and on budget. Instead of creating just another list of popular planning tools, we\u2019ve polled hundreds of email marketers about what tools they use day in and day out. Here are a few interesting finds.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/the-best-content-planning-tools-for-email-marketers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Best Content Planning Tools for Email Marketers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Email marketing comes with a lot of moving parts and sometimes, it\u2019s hard to stay organized. Content planning tools can help email marketing departments stay on task, on time, and on budget. Instead of creating just another list of popular planning tools, we\u2019ve polled hundreds of email marketers about what tools they use day in and day out. 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Content planning tools can help email marketing departments stay on task, on time, and on budget. Instead of creating just another list of popular planning tools, we\u2019ve polled hundreds of email marketers about what tools they use day in and day out. Here are a few interesting finds.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/the-best-content-planning-tools-for-email-marketers","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Best Content Planning Tools for Email Marketers","og_description":"Email marketing comes with a lot of moving parts and sometimes, it\u2019s hard to stay organized. Content planning tools can help email marketing departments stay on task, on time, and on budget. 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