If you’re like me, you only open a small portion (dozens? hundreds?) of email newsletters that you’re subscribed to. So I set out to find out what that is Really Good newsletters that you open regularly have one thing in common.

Email newsletters have been in the zeitgeist for some time, especially as more and more authors have left online publishers to strike out on their own.

I spoke to half a dozen experts in the field, including both tech and content specialists, to find out the difference between B2B newsletter marketing and other types of email, walk you through best practices, and share some indie insights. Discover newsletters that you can apply to your own brand.

Table of contents

What is B2B newsletter marketing?

B2B newsletters can be defined broadly.

A company could send out guidance and best practices in its industry every two weeks; Another might send out weekly interviews with master marketers (that was a shameless plug for a newsletter I sometimes write for).

The most important thing is to understand how B2B newsletters differ from traditional email marketing. If your inbox is even half as full as mine, you’ll receive a steady stream of emails about special offers, new product alerts, and reminders to purchase that new gadget you put in an online shopping cart and promptly abandoned.

These traditional marketing emails are important to your overall marketing strategy, but today we’re talking about something completely different.

I spoke to Lia Habermannwho founded and writes the successful ICYMI newsletter and teaches social media marketing and influencer marketing at UCLA. She says that “the difference between email marketing and (B2B) newsletters is really a difference between performance marketing and content marketing.”

She explains that the main goal of performance marketing, like email marketing, is to increase conversions. “You’re trying to generate leads and increase sales. The email has a purpose that goes beyond the email itself.” These emails can be linked to a specific campaign or initiative.

“With B2B newsletters, the focus is on creating value within the email itself. The subscriber doesn’t have to click to get the value of what the newsletter promises.” – Lia Haberman, creator economy expert and founder of ICYMI -Newsletters

Newsletters, like content marketing, focus on creating value in the email itself. The subscriber doesn’t have to click to get the value of what the newsletter promises.”

This may sound counterintuitive, but a regular newsletter cadence establishes your brand as an authority in its field.

And if you offer your potential customers real value that serves their purposes and not yours – congratulations – then you’re well on your way to building trust.

Take HubSpots Masters in Marketing newsletter. as an example. Every week we interview a marketer who is breaking new ground and innovating in the field.

It reinforces HubSpot as a source of thought leadership and high-quality marketing expertise that you can’t get anywhere else.

3. Leverage monetization potential.

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t necessarily need tens of thousands of subscribers to make money from your newsletter.

Ferrari – admittedly a brand whose fans have a little more money to burn than the average bear – has just 5,000 subscribers Ferrari market newsletter.

Paid subscription options range from $10/month to $90/year (presumably that’s chump change if you drive a Ferrari). Annual revenue attributed to the newsletter alone is reportedly between $2 And $4 Million.

4. Take advantage of effective sponsorship opportunities.

If you have a niche, engaged audience that is valuable to other brands, you can sell space in your newsletter.

Assess your brand and audience to ensure the sponsorship reinforces the trust you are building. If you run a cat sitting business, sell sponsorship space to the manufacturer of your cats’ favorite treats, not a food delivery service.

5. Use audience segmentation to offer readers what is most valuable to them them.

Audience segmentation is arguably more valuable than adding new subscribers. Alexis Grant tells me — although she warns that segmentation and adding subscribers aren’t mutually exclusive and that “a list can easily become stale if you don’t add new people.”

“I think segmentation is more valuable than adding more subscribers – although you want to do a little bit of both.” – Alexis Grant, founder of the newsletter They Got Acquired

Grant runs the newsletter They were taken overand she uses audience segmentation tools like Correct message “Serving people exactly what they want.” When you sign up for They Got Acquired’s newsletter, there is an optional survey to identify niche demographics like founders who are looking to sell within the year.

One of Grant’s goals is to bring more users to their platform called You have received collected datathat provides data and insights that can be used to identify competitors, expand buyer lists, and strengthen your negotiations.

This platform will likely be more valuable to a founder looking to sell within a year than someone looking to sell within five years, and Grant can tailor her content accordingly.

6. Establish a direct line to decision makers.

A niche audience can be worth its weight in gold through targeted networking.

Take Al Iverson‘S Spam Resources Newsletterthat focuses on email marketing and deliverability. Iverson told me he only has about 1,300 subscribers — but they were the perfect 1,300 people to reach during a recent job search.

“My newsletter gave me a direct line to over a thousand contacts in my industry - which was instrumental in finding my next career opportunity.” – Al Iverson, Founder, Spam Resource Newsletter

“Through my newsletter I had a direct line to over a thousand contacts in my industry,” he says. “It was crucial in finding my next career opportunity.”

How to Create a B2B Newsletter People Want to Read

Content strategy

I spoke to several experts and kept hearing the same thing: Write good newsletters that serve your audience – not your brand. (If you want more examples, I’ve put together a list 23 of my favorite marketing newsletters.)

Haberman suggests hiring writers with journalism or creative backgrounds to write the kind of engaging newsletter that people will want to open.

“Marketers can be great writers,” she says, “but the mindset of a marketer and the mindset of a writer are two different things.”

Marketers will naturally come from the perspective of “advocating for the best interests of the company.” Writers will ask themselves, “What does the audience want to hear from me?” versus “What is the message I need to convey?”

Former HubSpotter and founder of Newsletter examples Brad Wolverton takes up Haberman’s recommendations. “Think like a journalist,” he suggests. “Your job is to share the most useful information.”

The information in your newsletter should be curated, be of high value to your audience, and strike a balance between branded and external content.

Lessons for brands

Invest in creativity. This requires more than just hiring creative people to write content – it also requires giving them trust and freedom. This can be a hard pill for brands to swallow, but consumers don’t want an email from a well-functioning marketing department. They want a voice, creativity and a sense of the faces behind the newsletter.
Resist the urge to be selfish. It’s tempting to use newsletters to increase website engagement and nothing more. Think about what your audience wants and find the right balance between branded and external content. It will strengthen your credibility, trustworthiness and authenticity.

Technical strategies

Most email marketing platforms offer some level of technical support, but I wanted to know what you should consider when looking for the right platform and getting started with a newsletter.

So I spoke to Kaylee Jenzena technical marketing manager here at HubSpot who worked on this The hustle and bustle and other HubSpot newsletters.

Jenzen suggests you consider the following:

Optimizing deliverability. This includes making sure your emails aren’t so long that they get truncated by certain email providers, managing DNS records and unsubscribes, and inbox placement strategies (e.g. how to make sure you’re not on the “Promotions” tab of the subscriber list). Gmail inboxes.
Shared or dedicated IP addresses. Jenzen says that this is a strategic decision. If you run a small newsletter or don’t send regular emails, you benefit from a shared IP address and “the additional outflow of emails from other senders.” But “it’s a double-edged sword,” she says. “If you have a bad sender who sends spam or even malicious emails, it can impact your ability to get emails into an inbox.”
Best practices for images and formatting. It’s a common misconception, says Jenzen, that a large file size for an image necessarily affects deliverability. But there are things to keep in mind; For example, sometimes the alt text for an image can end up in the plain text version of an email.

There are a wealth of AI personalization tools available to independent newsletter operators. (All major email platforms I’ve used including HubSpotsincluding AI personalization tools.)

Lessons for brands

Don’t compromise on technology. As Jenzen told me, “You get what you pay for.” Not every newsletter needs the Cadillac of email marketing platforms, but if you’re trying to save some money by using a platform that meets your technical needs If you don’t do it justice, you risk serious damage to your brand.

Use AI. Personalization is a great way to learn about AI. Let artificial intelligence use data to deliver a personalized experience – your readers are not a monolith, and AI allows you to treat them like the individual people they are. Leverage real people to provide personality and contextual information that AI cannot.

Get inspired: Checkout The publishing pressa thrice-weekly show with the latest news for YouTubers, and What is SEO?which provides advice and interviews on SEO for news and publishers.

Here’s how: We have a detailed step-by-step guide to creating an email newsletter and tips for creating great content.

Audience engagement

Audience engagement can be measured in different ways depending on your priorities (for example, one of my colleagues wrote about The Hustle prioritizing click-through rate over open rates).

Trust-building tactics, such as focusing on readers’ wants and needs
Personalization techniques
Segmentation strategies
Response management

Get inspired: Checkout FINGERa newsletter about drinking in America, praised for its advocacy; and of course The hustle and bustlethat I would read every day, even if I didn’t work here.

Here’s how: We’ve rounded up 22 of the best newsletter tools to attract subscribers.

Technical optimization

Technical optimization often requires in-depth technical know-how.

Since it’s likely that your email marketing platform of choice will offer technical support, I haven’t gone into detail here – but here are a few things to keep in mind and questions to ask when setting up your newsletter bring the way:

Here’s how: We have a free downloadable guide with email marketing best practices and a planning template.

Creator-led content. Lia Haberman says she understands that companies may be hesitant to hand the reins of a branded newsletter to a single content creator. She quotes Washington Post TikTok guy Dave Jorgensonwho has talked about creating a WaPo film universe in which he introduces new “characters” – other content creators – so that the creative burden doesn’t rest on him alone. Apply this principle to newsletters by introducing readers to multiple authors.
Focus on personalization. Personalization doesn’t just mean adding first names to the subject line (although that’s a valid tactic!). As Grant shows, AI segmentation tools can add real, measurable value to your brand by providing readers with content tailored to them.
The focus is on building trust. This is admittedly a difficult question because the natural inclination of marketers is to promote the brand. But if you write for your readers and not your brand, you’ll be set up for long-term marketing gains.
Value-based monetization. There are many ways to monetize your newsletter, but be careful. Does it offer your readers real value? If the answer is no, you risk alienating her.

I also asked experts what new practices they see in this area. Keep an eye on the following:

Integration of newsletters with other marketing channels.
Using advanced segmentation techniques, especially as AI gets better at it.
Integration of multimedia content.

How it differs from email advertising and what brands can learn from independent producers