Your B2B email newsletter is a critical element in the digital marketing communication mix but is often deprioritized or overlooked.
Why Is It Critical?
Because it’s often one of the only regular touchpoints you have with all past, current, and prospective clients and is an invaluable opportunity to make an impression and stay top of mind.
For our clients that regularly send newsletters, it’s not uncommon for them to get a new business opportunity every time they send it out. Your CRM is often full of untapped potential – and a monthly B2B marketing newsletter is a great way to tap it. It’s also a great way to passively nurture prospective client relationships while building up credibility.
How to Provide Value in Your Newsletter
So, you’ve bought into the idea of a newsletter – now how do you craft a newsletter your customer base wants to read and not immediately delete?
Here are some tips:
Spend Time on the Subject Line
Include a catchy email subject line that entices your reader, but is representative of your newsletter’s contents. It should never be misleading.
We’ve seen good open rates for clients that have given their newsletter a clever publication name and use that for the subject line, along with the month. This approach gets users familiar and excited to receive the monthly newsletter. We’ve also seen high open rates for subject lines that pose a question or include an industry-appropriate emoji. Always keep your target audience in mind.
Include Just the Right Amount of Content
Include the right amount of content in your newsletter. Too little content and it likely won’t grab enough of your audience’s attention. Too much content and your audience are likely to glaze over or feel overwhelmed and skip past all of it.
We recommend 3 to 5 short blurbs of content with links for the reader to explore more.
Read more: Tips to promote your thought leadership on and off your B2B website.
Focus on Relevant Content
Your newsletter content should be educational and useful to your target audience. The newsletter is no place for company propaganda. Items such as blogs, case studies, ebooks, upcoming events, or industry tips/news are things to include in your newsletter.
If you do have a new product or service launch that could help your clients, then that’s another great thing to add. The newsletter should always be helpful to your target market and focus less on salesy content.
Use a Professional, Responsive Design
I’ve seen one too many newsletters that have great content but bad design, which is just going to make readers unsubscribe quickly. First and foremost – your email newsletter needs to be responsive and work on all types of devices and email platforms.
Also, keep the design clean and straightforward. Your design should include a beautifully branded masthead, a relevant graphic to support each content blurb, and a branded footer with your social media links and contact information.
Send Your Newsletter Consistently
Just like a magazine or trade publication, your newsletter should go out on a regular schedule. Monthly or bi-monthly is my recommendation for most B2B firms. To stick to a schedule, it’s best to keep things simple and not reinvent the wheel every time.
Here are some tips for accomplishing that:
- Promote your blog content or other types of thought leadership you regularly create, such as webinars, case studies, speaking engagements, and include it in the newsletter.
- Repurpose older, evergreen thought leadership content – it’s ok if it isn’t new, as long as it’s still relevant. The newsletter is a great way to get more mileage out of your content, and your audience won’t know the difference.
- Use the same design template and only swap out content-related images/graphics as needed.
- Be choosey of the email programs your use – some are much more user-friendly and can be a huge time saver.
- Designate one person in charge of the newsletter or hire an agency to manage it for you.
Follow all of these tips to create a newsletter that your audience will look forward to receiving each month.
