Email newsletters are a very effective lead nurturing and intelligence gathering tool for B2B marketers–if used properly. It’s about the right content, and the right mix, combined with the right tools of the trade. Measure your current B2B newsletter content strategy against Brainrider’s best practices in this handy guide.
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Getting started
Make your subject line short, intriguing and personal
Short subject lines perform best, especially those starting with a question conveying urgency and stimulating your prospect’s curiosity. And, if your prospects are in one geographical area, a reference to that area makes the line more personal.
See more subject line tips from Pardot
Draw readers in with misleading or overpromising subject lines
Once you’ve crafted an intriguing subject line, ensure your email delivers on it. Don’t ask a question in the subject line that the content doesn’t answer or, worse yet, imply a sense of urgency that isn’t paid off with the content.
Open with an explanation
Explain what it is and why the recipient is receiving it, using clear, conversational. language.
Use big headers with images
Opening with a lot of visual flash in place of explanation will attract negative attention from spam filters.
Place unsubscribe link at the beginning
A way to opt out right at the top, as well as at the bottom, helps to avoid annoying recipients who probably aren’t your targets.
Bury the unsubscribe link or make it unclear
Making a puzzle out of unsubscribing to the newsletter could invite spam complaints—or at least sour recipients who could someday be real prospects.
Provide a clickable table of contents
Allow the recipient to see all the information options at the beginning, in order to go to what’s of most interest.
Go straight into the first article
Having to scroll through the whole newsletter without knowing what to expect may lead prospects to drop out and miss valuable articles.
Driving great content
Introduce each content item but then drive to your site
Aim to include no more than 1/3 of each article in the newsletter itself, then add a link to ‘Read More’ on your blog after each excerpt. This keeps the email streamlined, and easy to scan/navigate/read (and allows you to track engagement!).
Insert the whole article into the newsletter email
Packing several entire articles into your email body makes for a tough read and, worse, you miss the chance to track which topics most interested your prospects.
Re-purpose existing content
Why tackle new content creation every month when you have a wealth of existing content at the ready? Your blog posts, content assets, and even Tweets work well, as they’re content your prospects may have missed the first time.
Write everything from scratch
Creating 2-4 new articles per month is a difficult assignment to manage and could lead to delays in getting your articles out and even quality control issues, both of which make your business look less professional.
Curate other 3rd party content
Another way to lighten your content load while delighting your prospects is to curate third party content. You can assemble a diverse set of content options, like blog posts, media articles, and forum discussion threads, and act as a guide bringing these items to readers’ attention.
Maintain a unified voice (yours)
Avoiding curated content means you run through your existing content assets more quickly, but worse, it makes your newsletter bland, featuring only one voice (yours) and only one topic (your company).
Include your customers’ voices
Another great way to diversify the voices in your newsletter is to spotlight your customers’ success with brief case studies. This will also credentialize you, inspire your prospects, and give exposure to your valuable clients.
Make it all about you
Failing to take the opportunity to diversify your newsletter content with different voices, like customers and third parties, turns what should be an informative and thought provoking read into mere brochure-ware.
How can marketing automation boost the value of my B2B newsletter?
Your newsletter moves from an informational tool to a lead-nurturing sales tool when you employ marketing automation. Here at Brainrider, we strongly recommend Pardot as the marketing automation solution that delivers the most value to our B2B clients who use newsletters as a tactic. Here are four reasons why you should use marketing automation to deploy newsletters:
It’s easy to segment your email to targeted recipients automatically. Marketing automation platforms like Pardot house the name and preference information of your prospects, so segmentation is done at the push of a button, for 100 recipients or 10,000. Based on what’s in your system, a recipient list can be created based on known interests and preferences. Creating newsletters through marketing automation tools also allows for dynamic content, meaning multiple variations within one template, so you can swap out messages to serve different sub-segments as needed.
You can add more personalization easily and without manual work, thanks again to your marketing automation platform’s knowledge of your prospects. Information (called variable tags) can be pulled into the email, allowing you to address customers more directly. It means you can email 10,000 people but still build relationships by showing what you know about your prospects. For example, you can begin an email with “Hey [name]”, since you live in [city] and are interested in the [business type] business…”
Platforms like Pardot confer credibility to keep your emails out of the spam filter. Working through them confirms your status as a reputable sender, so you go to your prospects’ inboxes, not their spam filters.
Marketing automation platforms give you the tools to ensure your emails look great. You can use templates to create great looking standard emails without having to know much code, and even test your emails over multiple browsers to ensure they have a consistently great presentation for all recipients.
What’s Next?
Check out our previous blog post: “Make B2B Website Content Easier to Navigate in WordPress: 3 Smart Tactics“
Learn more about our Pardot Consulting Services
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