How to Create an Effective B2B Newsletter

When designing B2B newsletters to reach integrators, you want to share content that they will look forward to opening and reading. This group of customers isn’t known for their high tolerance of digital spam, so it’s more likely that they’ll trash your message if it doesn’t immediately offer them something valuable.

After scheduling our sister site Commercial Integrator‘s newsletter for a few years, I’ve seen how thin the line is between what kinds of newsletters perform well…and which ones get trashed.

Here are some B2B newsletter best practices you can use to better target your integrator customers:

B2B newsletter subject lines

Chloe Sisson of Zen Media says the most essential tip is to focus on subject lines. After all, if you can’t even get respondents to open the email, what’s the use of focusing on the content within the email?

“Add some sort of shock value or intriguing phrase. Make it creative while still keeping it relevant to the email’s topic,” Sisson says.

“I know you probably have a bunch of content you want to share with your email chain. However, keep the content in your emails simple and straight to the point.”

Because these clients likely sift through tons of your competitors’ emails each day, it’s important to keep the subject line short and direct.

There are many useful tools to identify whether a subject line is relevant and to help you avoid spammy-sounding iterations. Email Subject Line Grader tests and scores your subject line’s word count and usage, while SpamCheck does exactly what it says on the tin.

Keep track of your open rates, because they are most often a reflection of how well or poorly you are crafting subject lines. AB testing can help you narrow down language choice and overall tone.

The importance of earnest content

Marketing in the B2B space — especially marketing to integrators — should be less about products and more about tailored solutions for the benefit of your audience.

In short: it’s not all about you and your company’s sales goals. No matter what pressure forces from above are putting on you to translate brand messaging into quick sales, it’s important to view newsletters as synonymous with long term, quality content.

“What’s really important is that it’s not just showboating who you are,” says Annie Raygoza, Director of Client Services, WebEnertia.

This means either finding or creating useful, relevant content to share in your newsletters which appeals to the specific interests integrators have in your company’s tech category.

One of the best ways to find topics: talk to your product engineers. They’re the ones who are determining which new products adopt certain features, so understanding why those features are important should help you come up with targeted messaging in your newsletters.

Christopher Tompkins, CEO at The Go! Agency, suggests you ask yourself and your team the following questions when designing newsletter content:

1. What do you want to say?
2. Who are you talking to and why do they care?
3. What do you want them to do?

After the send

There are a few data points you should monitor regularly after your sends go out.

Raygoza recommends you regularly check on your send list. Are there any “stale” contacts; i.e. those who haven’t opened an email in months? Are all of your new contacts receiving content?

“What happens a lot is that we have this initial list and then you start adding to it. Over time, the list becomes old and stale. So implementing a practice of continuously looking at your list and saying, ‘are these people even at this company anymore?’ is a good idea.

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“If they’re not, where are they? I know this person moved to another company, so is there an opportunity to start a relationship together? Get that information.”

It’s also important to track which content is more successful so you can build on that success with more quality content. Is your audience clicking on some type of articles more so than others?