How to Send a Calendar Invitation with Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, and Outlook

Step 1: Create a new event

If you have a Mac, you can create your invitation in Apple Calendar. If you have a PC, you can create it in Outlook.

For Google Calendar, you’ll create the URL directly from your calendar app (you’ll need to be signed in to your Google account to do this). It doesn’t matter what type of computer you have.

Apple Calendar

Outlook

Google Calendar

Step 2: Define your event details

Although Outlook, Apple Calendar, and Google Calendar events have slightly different formats, you will still need the same components for each of them:

• Event name
• Location
• Time
• Description of the event
• Your event landing page URL
• Optional event alert

Below are examples of how these details will look in different applications, as well as clarification of the information and format to use for each of these components.

Apple Calendar

Outlook

Google Calendar

Details you should include

Event name

Make sure the name reflects the actual name of your event on your website and in your other promotions (this is a no-brainer, but we’re being thorough here).

You may also want to include your business name at the end so registrants can quickly remember who is hosting the event when they come across it in their calendar later..

Location

The physical address of the event (one line, for example “123 Business Ave, Springfield, TX”) or the URL of the landing page, in the case of an online event.

Time

Enter the start and end dates and times of the actual event. Adjust the timing of the event to your time zone, because you are the one creating the .ics file. The time will automatically change to match each person’s time zone. For example, if you create the event file in Boston for a webinar in San Francisco that starts at 10:00 AM PST, you would enter the start time as 1:00 PM EST.

Alert (optional)

You can set up alerts so that attendees don’t forget about the event between the time you sent the invitation and the event time. In Outlook, you can set a time when a reminder triggers (such as an hour before).

In Apple Calendar and Google Calendar, you can set multiple alerts.

It’s important not to overwhelm people with too many alerts, as this creates a negative and intrusive experience. Below is an example of an alert sequence in Apple Calendar that reminds people of your event but is not visible to you:

Event landing page URL

Do you have a specific landing page for your event or webinar? Include its URL, as it serves as a reminder for those who don’t know the details of the event.

Include it in the URL section of an Apple Calendar invitation as well as in the body text of your Gmail or Outlook invitations if you haven’t already included it in the Location section.

Description

Here you need to include an excerpt of the event details. This goes in the “note” section of your Apple Calendar invitation, in the body of your Outlook invitation, or in the “description” text box in Google Calendar.

It is also helpful to provide your contact details in this section. This way people can contact us if they have any questions.

Step 3: Save and send your event

Once you’re ready to edit the invitation, you can save it to use as an attachment in your marketing email.

Outlook

Click your event in Outlook, select “Edit,” then click “More Options.” Once you see the pop-up window (shown below), enter the emails of the people you want to invite into the “Invite Participants” text bar.

When you’re ready, click “Send” at the top left of the screen to send the invitation to the people in your recipient list.

Apple Calendar

Double-click your Apple event to open it, then enter emails in the “Guests” text box. When you’re ready, click “OK” and the invitation will automatically be sent to the emails you included in the event details.

Google Calendar

Click on your event in your Google Calendar and click “Edit Event.” Then enter the emails in the “Add Guests” text box to the right of your event details (next to “Rooms”). When you’re ready, select “Save.”

If you’ve done it correctly, Google Calendar will show you a pop-up confirming that you want to send the event to guests. Click “Send” to ensure it is sent to the emails you included.

Step 4: Insert invitations into your marketing email

The easiest way to email an event for Outlook, Apple, and Gmail is to do it directly from the event invitation itself.

Each of these email providers gives you the ability to enter emails directly into the event and include additional text, attachments, etc.

Best of all, the invitation you will receive is clear and gives you the option to accept or decline the invitation directly from your email inbox:

However, there are a few workarounds you can try if you prefer to include the event URL in a marketing email.

Gmail Calendar

For Gmail Calendar, click “Edit” to open the event in a new window, then select the “More Actions” drop-down menu. From there, click “Publish event”:

In the pop-up screen, you will see an HTML code or a link to the event. Simply click “Copy” next to the link to copy the link, then open the email you intend to send and paste the URL.

However, you need to make sure that each email recipient has also been included in the event invitation list.

Apple Calendar

If you use Apple Calendar, you’ll also need to get a little more creative.

To bypass the option to send the event to a recipient directly from the event details, simply send the event only to your own email. When you open the invitation, you will see an .ics link attached to the email:

Simply download the .ics attachment, then drag and drop this calendar event into an email to send it to recipients.

Outlook Calendar

Finally, if you’re using Outlook, you’ll need to open your inbox and select “New Items” > “Meeting”: