The Inbound and Content Marketing blog

Newsletters often get a bad rap - we’ve all received boring ones that fail to offer any useful information and provide "updates" on topics about which we neither know nor care. But, believe it or not, newsletters don't have to be tedious.

In fact, email is still a powerful weapon in your inbound marketing arsenal. They can help you to nurture leads and delight customers, by providing useful information that answers their questions, solves their problems, and generally piques their interest. Regularly sending out informative and usefulcontent can strengthen the relationships you have with the people that need or are already using your product or service.

But where do you start? How do you come up with engaging newsletter content that doesn't bore the socks off your readers? If you're stuck for email newsletter ideas, here are three easy ones to get you started:

Email is one of the most successful inbound marketing tools at your disposal. Done right, it can help you to nurture leads and turn them into customers - and, of course, it can delight current customers too. But it’s also very easy to approach email in the wrong way.

Think about your own inbox. It’s likely that it’s filled with lots of emails that you find irrelevant, unconvincing or just downright boring.

These negative reactions could be due to a number of reasons: the sender contacts you too often; the content is not compelling; or perhaps you’re no longer interested in the brand. So, perhaps you open an email and then decide not to read it; maybe you delete it straight away; or you might even unsubscribe from the mailing list altogether.

Safe to say, these are precisely the kind of actions that you don’t want your business’ audience to take. But what can you do to ensure as many people as possible open your emails, read them - and, then, respond to your call-to-action?

As an inbound marketer, how can you send effective emails? 

Email is easy, right? You design your campaign, your content is penned and you have included the offers that you want to highlight to your contacts, and now it’s time to hit send. No, not quite yet!

Done well, B2B email marketing is a highly efficient and cost-effective means of generating new revenues, repeat business and stronger relationships with your clients. But done badly, as we all know, it is an area of marketing that is shrouded with risk: risks around your reputation as a purveyor of interesting, useful content ("that link is broken"); risks around your spoiling your relationship with your clients ("my inbox is drowning…!"); risks around your relationship with ISPs – with the danger of being black-listed if you are sending large volumes to an un-opted-in mail -  the worst outcome here.

So, how can you ensure that the emails you send do not fall foul of these inherent hazards, and achieve the engagement, interest and response that you desire?

We would all like an easier life, right? And for us B2B marketers, working in a digital world that is in a constant state of evolution, we would dearly love someone to guide us in the right direction, ensure we weren’t making mistakes, offer the advice and expertise we need as we venture forth.

Let us do exactly that then by offering you 8 infographics from the world of B2B online marketing that provide knowledge and useful guidance to make life easier for the marketer - from social etiquette to SEO copywriting to online testing.  In each case below, we've given you a snapshot image - just click on it to view the full infographic.

But here’s a thing, the CSI guy smells a rat and the Coroner says she’s found a pulse! Holy schmoley, there’s life in the old dog yet it would seem.

But what are these newsletter ideas that still work?

The way things were way back when

Newsletters appeared in the 16^th century, pre-dating newspapers which were first published in the 17^th. The first newsletter was circulated in England in the 1630s and featured stories about locals residing overseas. (Hhmm, human-interest stories, I wonder if that might work today?)

Fast-forward a few hundred years and there are thousands, nay, hundreds of thousands of newsletters, magazines and newspapers, and we’ve not even got as far as the Internet age yet.

Then Sir Tim gets inventive and before you know it there is more content published every two days than was published from the dawn of civilisation until 2003.

So, your business has developed a decent contact mailing list, which is now receiving your B2B email marketing campaigns and eNewsletters.  And you’re having some success with email open rates, but why aren’t your contacts clicking through to the content, or events, or product information you’re promoting?  The fault often lies in the ineffectiveness of your Calls to Action.

What can you do to remedy the situation? Here are our Top Ten ways to create calls to action (CTAs) that will work for your emails and your customers:

With a new survey from the DMA suggesting customer approval ratings for email marketing are at an all time high, your B2B email marketing should be able to achieving the same level of satisfaction with your audience. But with stiff competition for space in your customers’ inboxes, how do you ensure that your email marketing is successful?

Effective B2B email marketing hinges on three main challenges: finding your customers, getting them to opt-in, and keeping them opted-in after that.  In a nutshell, “find them, catch them, keep them”.

The best way to do this by creating email marketing templates which are customised for your company and designed to appeal to the relevant personnel in the companies you are attempting to reach. Don’t just use generic downloaded templates, unless you want your brand to come across as generic and dull.  With this in mind, here are a few key dos and don’ts to consider when creating an email marketing template.

One of the biggest challenges of any content marketing strategy for B2B businesses is the need to regularly come up with new ideas which will engage both existing and potential clients. Whether you’re compiling your latest email newsletter or thinking up new posts for your business’ blog, here are a few suggestions and tips for topic choices which may help.

Current events and news related topics – Keep a close eye on new developments relevant to your sector, in the mainstream press, trade journals and other sources. Google’s ‘news’ search feature can be particularly useful for finding stories that you can report on in your blog or eNewsletters.

Commentary on key issues – Articles which are similar to newsy posts, but with an emphasis on providing your own unique take on important developments and trends. Such articles can be instrumental in emerging as a ‘thought leader’.

In today’s technology-driven marketing environment, every business needs to consider how new media publishing can reach and influence their customers and prospects.

Newsletter ideas for regular, interesting and informative publications can help you to forge and maintain professional relationships. They can increase your visibility, enhance your reputation and position you are a leader in your field.

But there are a number of new media publishing formats to consider including blogs, vlogs, email, podcasts, web based publications, and mobile apps. Knowing the right new media publishing format is an important consideration.

Newsletters have always been an effective way to promote your business, but the explosion of social media and content marketing has made them more valuable than ever.

Here are some newsletter ideas that will get your company noticed.

• Distribute by email and see exactly who is engaging with your content

• Test across major email clients before sending (Litmus is a great resource) and avoid problems with rendering