Growing a B2B Newsletter in 2024: Strategies for Success

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Most B2B newsletters aren't very effective. Or if they are, they don't get the credit they deserve. Because when marketers start B2B newsletters, they go about it all wrong.

The newsletter goes out every week. It might even see some steady growth. But if you own the newsletter and activity is your only success metric, you risk being first on the chopping block when hard times hit, and that's never fun.

So instead, let's make you the most valuable marketer on your team and transform your newsletter into the shining star of your marketing department. But before we do that, there are some prerequisites that you need to understand and define for your newsletter.

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I'm sorry, what's, do you write your newsletter intros like that? I mean, don't you want to use like a better hook or something? Enlighten me. Have you ever seen Mr. Beast? You gotta be super high energy. Hit him with a fast zoom, you know, make a grandiose claim. You could be making six figures on your newsletter in only 30 days if you just do this one simple thing, you know, that kind of thing.

I'm good, man. No, I think people care more about the substance, tangible takeaways and real world experience. But I appreciate the feedback. Substance? You think people watch Mr. Beast for the substance? Okay, first, totally different use case. Second, may I please go ahead? You do you man.

Defining Business Outcomes for Your Newsletter

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What business level outcome is your newsletter helping you achieve? It's a simple question, except for most it's not. Take a second to think about it.

Like any good marketing program, your newsletter is simply a lever you can pull to achieve some greater outcome. So step one is defining the outcome that you are helping achieve. The outcome that you are trying to achieve is going to affect everything about your newsletter from the style to what's contained in it, which we're gonna get to in a minute.

But remember, these outcomes should be tied directly to the metrics that the business is measured on. Typically, these are things like revenue pipeline, product usage, or retention. Think about every marketing activity as a means to accomplish some higher level order that leads to you getting a raise.

Identifying Your Target Audience

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So, as an example, let's say the company is striving for 95% customer retention this quarter. Then one outcome to get there could include increasing overall NPS from 50 to 60. That's the outcome. Once you know that outcome, it's time to figure out how you can pull the right levers to help achieve it.

This is where your newsletter comes in. So as we said earlier, a newsletter is one of those levers that you can pull. So in this scenario, one way to increase NPS from 50 to 60 might be increasing communications with the customer base. One way you plan to contribute to that is through your newsletter.

So you've figured out the reason you're doing the newsletter to begin with. Now you need to define exactly who the newsletter is and isn't for. The more niche you get on this, the better.

In fact, some of the best writers I know don't write their newsletter for a title or a persona. They write it for one very specific real person that they know fits within that persona. This makes the creation process so much easier. All you need to do is ask yourself if that person would find value in whatever it is that you put together in your newsletter. And when you write for a specific person in mind, you can even go out and get their opinion and feedback on your newsletter.

But if determining the outcome you're writing for is the why and knowing the specific reader who you want to read it is the who, there's still a giant gap in this process. You need to learn what that person actually needs in their inbox every week.

Types of Newsletters: Content Curation vs. Thought Leadership

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So we're gonna break this down into two very distinct types of newsletters. Why you should use each and some examples of each done well, so you can go and learn from them.

First type of newsletter we're gonna talk about is the content curation newsletter. Some of the biggest newsletters on the planet simply curate a bunch of high quality, relevant content from a variety of sources on a specific topic. Rather than creating original content, the newsletter selects and organizes articles, blog posts, videos, podcasts, and other media that they believe will be valuable and interesting to their readers.

If you choose to go this route, your newsletter is responsible for keeping your subscribers informed while saving them time by filtering through the vast amount of information available and delivering only the most pertinent pieces directly into their inbox.

How to Create a Content Curation Newsletter

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So in order to do this effectively, you have to become efficient at finding articles. So here are three simple ways to find articles that will blow your audience's mind every week.

In only a few minutes, toggle and look up what's trending in relevant subreddits. The beauty of Reddit is that the content there is typically coming from the community, and you're not just sharing an article, but a conversation. You can also get involved in that conversation to build authority before your audience even gets there.

Second, use AI search tools like Perplexity to infer what articles will resonate the most. A lot of marketers are still struggling to figure out how they're going to use AI. This is one way you can use AI to your advantage every week. But pro tip, use these tools to find the articles not to break down and summarize them. That's your job.

And third, if you're a little bit more old school, search the Google News tab. This has been around forever, but still works and can help you find good content to showcase.

Great Example: Chamath Palihapitiya's "What I Read This Week"

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One of my favorite examples of a content curation newsletter is "What I Read This Week." Chamath is one of the most successful venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. So as you can imagine, he's constantly reading and staying up to date on what's happening in the industry.

In his weekly newsletter, he not only shares things he's reading, but his thoughts, breakdowns, and insights on each of the articles as well. I call this curation plus commentary, and it's a perfect blend of saving your audience time, educating them, and building thought leadership, which we'll get into in a minute.

You're not gonna mention ABM? What about ABM? Content curation is a strategic ABM play, bro. How do you figure? Listen, all you do is you reach out to the companies that you're curating content from and you use that as an opportunity to start building that relationship.

Using Context and Commentary in Curation

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If content curation is a direction that sounds interesting to you, keep the CURATE framework in mind when putting it together: context.

Remember to always provide context on why you're sharing the specific article. Let the reader know why an article is worth their time. You want them to regard you as the person in the know, sharing the best content for them. So if they don't read it, you quickly become spam.

Do me a favor, rewind it back to the beginning of the video. "If you own the newsletter and activity is your only success metric, you risk being first on the chopping block when hard times hit, and that's never fun. So instead, let's make you the most valuable marketer on your team and transform your newsletter into the shining star of your marketing department."

You see, before we ever got into the context of this content, I set the stage so you knew exactly what you were getting into. Think of it as a teaser. It reinforces to the audience that they're in fact, in the right place.

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Take the same approach when summarizing the articles in your newsletter to ensure that the reader is going to find value before actually diving in. Unique POV: Provide your unique point of view and insights within the summary of the articles curated. This is your opportunity to not only curate, but also build trust.

What if you don't have a unique POV? Then why are you sharing it in the first place? You're not sharing articles just because you read them. You're sharing articles because they sparked an idea and are relevant to your readers.

You know how you got that friend group that you share memes and reels and TikToks with? Yeah, you gotta think of your newsletter as that friend group. But for work-related content. If you're going the curation route, it's typically because you read a lot of content and you have things to say about it. If you're just finding articles at the last minute to check the box, it's not gonna work.

The Thought Leadership Newsletter Format

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Next, let's talk about accuracy. Always select high quality sources to curate from.

You just told me to think about this like my friend group where I share memes, and didn't you just tell everybody that they should look at Reddit to find stuff? Okay, so when I say high quality content, I don't always mean from the most credible sources. Listen, your audience is following you because they trust you. If you're on a subreddit and you think your audience can benefit from that conversation, that's your call. This is where your context and your unique point of view come back into play. Let them know that you're sharing it and why you believe it to be true, and that's what matters.

Next up is timing. You know that friend group analogy that rang so true with you? Well, getting 40 memes in your DMs in a day might be okay, but when that translates over to your inbox, it's super annoying. Decide on and communicate the cadence at which your newsletter's gonna be released. Then be dedicated to delivering on that day and time.

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Engagement: A good newsletter isn't a one to many exchange. It's a one to many to one exchange. You want your audience replying to your email, giving you feedback, letting you know what they like and don't like. When was the last time you DMed a meme and got no reply? Kind of sucks, right?

You need to encourage replies to your email. One way I like to do this is to prompt engagement by highlighting questions and conversations from previous content. It shows the rest of the audience that if they ask a question, you take the time to actually respond to it.

Another popular newsletter format is the Thought Leadership Newsletter. These newsletters focus on sharing original thoughts, insights, opinions, and analysis. You can provide these insights yourself or you can interview thought leaders in your industry and extract those insights.

One of my favorite thought leadership newsletters is from Jason Lemkin, founder and CEO of SaaStr. The beauty of this newsletter is that you get the best of both worlds. You get the personal opinions and back channeled information from one of the great minds in SaaS, Jason Lemkin, and you also get deep insights from the research that the company is pulling together on trends throughout the industry.

This type of newsletter is great for establishing the sender as a credible and authoritative voice, teaching your audience about things that they wanna know about and shaping the way that they think about the world, or at least the category that you play in.

Avoiding Promotion-Only Newsletters

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So to create an effective thought leadership newsletter, consider these three things.

You need original content. Unlike content curation newsletters, thought leadership newsletters prioritize original content. Rather than compiling information from various sources, draw inspiration from what you're doing on a daily basis to create content around instead of what's trending in the news.

Insights: This is where a lot of newsletters fall short. They write to check the box, but the level of insights are typically slim to none. If you're not sharing deep, valuable insights, you will quickly become spam. I've read more newsletters than I can count that took a thousand words to say absolutely nothing.

But what's a good insight? Honestly, this kind of depends on who you're talking to and who your audience is. But the key is delivering information that is unique to you that can't be found anywhere else.

After that, you need to consider your targeting. One of the misconceptions around thought leadership newsletters is that you need to have deep expertise. You don't. What you do need is really defined audience and strong targeting, because sometimes building in public and sharing your journey with an audience in the same stage as you is far more effective.

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The last type of newsletter that we're going to cover is way more common in B2C, but there are a lot of B2B companies that still use it. It's the promotion newsletter. Spam. The promotion newsletter is derived from the past when marketing teams would write eBooks, blast the list and try to drum up as many leads as possible for the sales team. But drumming up leads should not be your goal with the newsletter, at least if you want it to grow and be successful.

Blending Newsletter Formats for Maximum Impact

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You don't need to stick to any one format. Blend these formats. Try new things. Create segments within your newsletter that curate, influence and build community. The possibilities of your newsletter are only limited by your creativity.

Start with the outcome that you're trying to achieve and build out the newsletter the best way that you think you can achieve it.

Conclusion: Unlocking the Potential of B2B Newsletters

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To learn more about how marketing automation and technology can help you grow your list and your business, check out these other videos. Thanks for watching.