A calendar that respects the lifecycle
Read positioning, existing flows, upcoming product facts, audience sizes/preferences, and team capacity. Treat dates as proposed unless a launch or deadline is confirmed. No provider access is required to plan.
Build the editorial inventory
List useful education, real product examples, customer questions, substantiated proof, and actual offers. Do not invent testimonials, releases, discounts, or time pressure to fill dates. Segment only when a different message produces a useful decision; a tiny list rarely needs a complex matrix.
Choose a sustainable cadence and explain it as a hypothesis. Include deliberate no-send days and preparation/review time. Existing onboarding, account notifications, support threads, and scheduled broadcasts share a recipient's attention.
Produce the calendar
Save marketing/calendar.md with date/timezone, audience, exclusions, lifecycle state, one job, angle, source/proof, subject direction, CTA/destination, owner, implementation status, and primary metric. Include a 30-day overview and complete briefs for the first two sends.
Set a frequency cap, message precedence, and deferral rules. Recheck suppression and relevance at actual dispatch. A scheduled broadcast must not restart a paused outbound sequence or include unsubscribed contacts. Essential account messages retain their own eligibility rules.
Quality and learning
Read calendar example. Ensure the calendar is not a sequence of repeated sales asks. Explain how each item helps the reader progress. Record assumptions instead of forecast revenue. A monthly calendar is not authorization to schedule or send; prepare concrete drafts first and stay within the user's approved scope.
Choose one review date, cohort, and metric. For small samples, review replies and task friction. Do not declare a campaign winner from an open-rate fluctuation.