B2B Newsletter Success: Crafting Emails That Drive Business Growth

A B2B newsletter is an email communication tool (which is also permission-based) that businesses use to send content, news, and offers to a targeted audience of companies on a recurring basis. 

These newsletters help businesses establish a dialogue with their customers to support sales, nurture relationships, and drive business growth.

If marketing were a competition, B2B newsletters would definitely win hands down, in our view. Did you know that 81% of B2B marketers indeed use email newsletters as a primary form of content marketing, and 59% of B2B marketers consider emails (from newsletters to promotional offers) as effective as social media and PPC for generating leads?

We explained what a B2B marketing newsletter is. You might be wondering what are its functions and benefits? How do you make yours among the best business newsletters?

Functions of B2B Newsletters

The best B2B newsletters are just like the Swiss Army knife for businesses—these will help you nurture leads, establish brand authority, drive sales, etc. Unlike a B2C newsletter, you are not presenting and selling a product to many prospects/customers. Rather, you want to demonstrate your expertise and know-how and convince and maintain a relationship with targeted clients/decision-makers (e.g., the CEO) to make a deal with you.

Here’s how B2B newsletters help you achieve your goals:

• Lead generation: B2B newsletters are a way to build relationships with your prospects. You can use these to share valuable insights and showcase your industry expertise to earn their trust. Because your prospects will read it primarily during work hours and have a productive and business-oriented mindset, you are more likely to convert them into qualified leads over time who are ready to do business with you.
• Brand building: With B2B newsletters, you are authentically showing how you will help your clients solve their problems. Staying in regular contact helps keep your brand top of mind for your prospective clients. When you keep sharing useful content regularly, you make it easier for potential clients to remember and trust you.
• Customer engagement: Newsletters are a great way to keep the conversation going with your existing clientele. The most effective B2B newsletters prioritize customer care. By this, we mean nurturing relationships both before and after a purchase. For instance, newsletters can include engaging educational content or practical tips and tutorials to help customers make the most of your product. When executed well, your brand will create a strong emotional connection with your clients.
• Content distribution: You expect more when you give more value. The same goes for content. When you keep offering genuinely engaging content like blog posts, white papers, and industry insights regularly, your subscribers will reward you with loyalty and sales. Don’t fall into the trap of “Are newsletters more effective than social media?” There’s never too much of a great thing. Use your newsletters to share valuable content. This not only attracts potential customers but also educates them, showing that your business is a knowledgeable resource they can rely on.
• Sales enablement: Just like blogs, social media, and whitepapers, B2B newsletters are another great tool to increase awareness of your offerings and capture your leads’ attention. When newsletters convey your story in the most effective way, you are being very attuned to what customers truly need. Next, you can nurture them with ongoing newsletters and help them through the consideration and then buying stages of the funnel. By educating your readers about your offerings, you help them understand how your solutions can benefit them. This also makes the sales process smoother and more efficient.
• Analytics and ROI: Newsletters can boost your revenue when combined with other marketing efforts. They help you stay connected with prospects, keep in touch regularly, and provide valuable data on how your subscribers are engaging with your content. You can quickly measure their effectiveness with A/B testing to improve your strategy. Plus, you can see what content resonates most with your audience.

Now that we have described the key functions of B2B newsletters, let’s explore the types of content you can include to keep your audience engaged.

Types of Content in B2B Newsletters

We have good news! An email has an average ROI of $36 for every $1 spent. 

Email is not going anywhere. Like B2C, B2B marketers should ensure that their email newsletters offer the best possible user engagement. These figures don’t lie!

So, thinking about what kind of newsletter will bring more customers? Should we reveal our favorites here? Just kidding, as there are limited options for B2B newsletters. 

• Industry news: One way is to keep your readers informed about the latest happenings within your industry.
• What’s new: You can inform your readers about the latest products/services you have released or share updates from your business.
• Invitation to events: Whether it’s a webinar, a conference, or a workshop, it’s important to let your readers know about your upcoming events.
• Insights and analysis: Why not follow the B2B newsletter best practices (which we’ll discuss later in detail) and use this tool to offer expert opinions and in-depth analysis on the topics your readers are looking for?
• Success stories: You can even highlight customer success stories to build credibility and trust.
• Educational content: These include how-to guides, tutorials, and best practices to help your audience solve problems and improve their business operations.

We believe understanding the types of content to include is crucial, but it’s equally important to know why sending B2B newsletters can be a strategic move for your business.

Why Send B2B Newsletters?

The B2B newsletter is among the best methods to share useful info about your company, products, or services. What’s better—it helps you enhance your brand image and build a strong and trustworthy presence in the eyes of your customers and prospects.

As a business, you can directly target the professional interests of your subscribers, giving them added value and avoiding redundant information. 

The best business newsletters also have the advantage of being a privileged communication channel to help companies speak directly to their contacts, provided the content is well-targeted. A well-designed and regularly sent newsletter can help you maintain and develop your brand awareness.

We have at least ten reasons to convince you to send B2B marketing newsletters:

1. Collect emails: Speak directly to your prospects by targeting their inboxes; that’s how you initiate inbound marketing.

2. Personal connection: Newsletters allow for a more personal tone, so you can have closer relationships with your audience.

3. Track metrics easily: They also let you measure success with clear metrics such as open rates, conversions, and clickthroughs. You can also refine your content strategy with A/B testing.

4. Save recipient’s time: The focus of all the best B2B newsletters is to provide valuable content that saves your readers time. Otherwise, they would have been searching online for themselves.

5. Utilize industry monitoring: They are the best medium to share your industry insights and establish yourself as an opinion leader with minimal effort.

6. Become a sector reference: It also creates anticipation for your newsletter, positioning your brand as a key resource in your industry.

7. Promote word-of-mouth (WoM) marketing: Best business newsletters also encourage decision-makers to share them with their network, leveraging the power of WoM.

8. Promote your events: You can promote and report on physical events via newsletters; such news helps enhance your reach and impact.

9. Enhance partner relations: Use your newsletter as a bargaining tool, sharing news and exchanging mailing lists with partners.

10. Simplify content production: Newsletters need less frequent and technical content as compared to blogs and whitepapers, making them easier to manage and produce in-house.

To ensure the effectiveness of your B2B newsletters, we highly recommend following best practices that ensure your content resonates with your audience.

B2B Newsletters Best Practices

Every day, busy professionals receive many emails, including newsletters. They crave content that is to the point, simple to understand, and offers solutions to their problems. Of course, they will ditch lengthy ones, so better keep yours short and relevant!

If you want to include in-depth content, better add it as a downloadable resource. Here we will review a few B2B newsletter best practices for those interested.

• Understand your audience: To better meet the needs of your audience, use segmentation and personalization in your content. Divide up your email list into segments according to things like job title, industry, and previous brand interactions.
• Craft value-driven content: Make sure your writing is insightful, timely, and succinct. Concentrate on offering answers to the problems and difficulties that your audience faces.
• Optimize design and layout: Ensure that your newsletter has a professional layout and is compatible with mobile devices. Make use of eye-catching images, concise headings, and a tidy layout.
• Incorporate strong CTAs: Make use of calls to action (CTAs) that are both clear and compelling to direct readers to take the desired action, which could be contacting your sales team, downloading a whitepaper, or attending a webinar.
• Maintain a consistent schedule: To keep your audience interested, send out newsletters regularly. Maintaining consistency fosters reader anticipation and trust.
• Ensure compliance: Follow privacy regulations like the GDPR and CAN-SPAM Act to protect your audience’s data and maintain their trust.
• Use analytics and A/B testing: Analyze your newsletters’ performance metrics and test various components, like subject lines, content, and CTAs, to make continuous improvements.

Advanced B2B Newsletter Practices

Apart from the above best practices, consider implementing these advanced strategies:

• Hyper-personalization: You can use data insights to develop highly customized content. For instance, you have data from previous email exchanges and purchases or even preferences that can be used to customize your newsletter.
• Interactive elements: Incorporate surveys, gamification, and quizzes to boost subscribers’ interaction. Your newsletters can become more memorable and engaging by including interactive content.
• High-quality original research: Share unique research and insights that are valuable to your audience. Conduct surveys, studies, and reports to provide exclusive content.
• Deep-dive analytics: Make use of thorough analytics to comprehend and raise conversion and engagement rates. To gauge the success of your newsletters, keep an eye on metrics like open, click-through, and conversion rates.

B2B Newsletter Example

To illustrate the above concepts, let’s look at one of the best B2B newsletter examples designed for a hypothetical company, “Tech Solutions Inc.”

To Sum Up

B2B newsletters can help you grow your business by creating leads, converting them into your customers, and maintaining relationships with your target audience. To get the desired benefits, make your content valuable, use hyper-personalization and interactive elements, and continuously analyze the results. You can create impactful newsletters by following the B2B newsletter best practices and the example. Lastly, don’t forget to constantly assess and improve your B2B newsletters.