Every day the inbox of our email gets full of messages of which only a small part arouse our interest. To ensure that your newsletter does not fall into the oblivion of our recipients and is perceived as valuable content, it is important to define a clear and concrete strategy before launching the shipments.
At HelloMrLead we have been working in this area for years, and after many trials and errors we have developed a method that works. Here we wanted to show you the strategy and organisation of a B2B newsletter step by step, to ensure you that all your work and time invested do not fall on deaf ears and your broadcasts do not end up in the junk mail of your contacts. By following these useful tips you will achieve one of the most important objectives of newsletters: to add value and that readers are really interested in receiving it. Let’s get started!
Clean and structure the databases
As we have just mentioned, at the moment we are composing a newsletter it is important to have previously created a strategy based on our objectives. In this way, the ideas you want to convey will be clear and it will be easier to select the content and posts that are most convenient to reinforce them.
The creation of a strategy begins by defining our databases, in the first place, we must divide our contact list into different databases according to their characteristics. In our case and given the particularities of our services, we have made four classifications:
- Former clients.
- Current clients.
- Potencial national clients.
- Potencial international clients.
During this division, factors such the size of the companies that our clients work in or the existence of international contacts, must be taken into account. Keep in mind it is not the same to address a multinational with headquarters located in different countries than a small company whose market is limited to the national or regional scope. Our messages and content will have to vary, as if our database contains contacts of different nationalities to which it is important that we address ourselves in the corresponding language.
Define the metrics, KPI’s and goals of your newsletter
The second step in the composition of our newsletter consists of defining the metrics that we are going to measure and the KPI’s and goals that will be taken into account in the emails that we will send to each of the databases that we have defined. Is everything clear? Before continuing we are going to clarify the following concepts. Metrics refer to messages that have been sent, delivered, opened, and the CTR or click rate. In this way, it is possible to measure from the sent messages how many have been delivered; of those delivered, how many have been opened, and of these, how many have been clicked within the newsletter. The KPI’s represent the most important indicators and they have a very specific purpose to find out if it is above, below or aligned with the desired goal. Finally, the goal represents the objective we want to convey.
At HelloMrLead, two of the databases that we work the most are those of our former clients, those to whom one day we provided our services and we would love for them to become part of our portfolio again; and the current clients we want to take care of so that they stay with us as long as possible. Taking to account these two criteria, we have defined the KPI’s and goals by the next way:
- Databases of former clients:
KPI’s: the open rate of the newsletter is higher than 20% and the click rate is higher than 5%.
Goal: for each monthly sending the newsletter, a potential former client is interested again in receiving the services of HelloMrLead.
- Databases of clients:
KPI’s: the open rate of the newsletter is higher than 60% and the click rate is higher than 20%.
Goal: 100% of the sent emails are delivered.
In your case, you can set the KPI’s and goals that fit the situation of your company, and remember that you should also consider the size of your database. If it is not very large yet, it will be difficult for the open and click rates to reach high numbers, while if it is made up of a large number of contacts, it will be possible to propose more optimistic rates.
Define the ideas, the messages and the objective you want to convey to each database
Once our metrics have been established, we reach the third step in which we will have to do a briefing directed at each of our databases. At this point, the three ideas we want to convey should be defined, as well as the messages that we will develop. It is important that we are clear that the ideas will be transmitted constantly through the sending of each newsletter, while the messages will be used to reinforce those ideas.
In this way, we can define the messages as those that we try to convey as advertising, such as, for example, the intention that we want the person receiving the message to internalise. In addition, the ideas will be constant throughout the year, while the messages may vary depending on the news and the different events.
The time has come to define the three main ideas and the messages that we will transfer to each of our databases. At this point of the process, at HelloMrLead we always take into account the social context in which we find ourselves, the situation of the sector and, of course, which are our purposes, we advise you to make this reflection before continuing!
- Databases of former clients:
Ideas: growth, knowledge and security.
Messages: since we lost the relationship we have continued to grow and become even stronger; we have expanded our knowledge and we are capable of doing great work.
- Databases of clients:
3 main ideas: innovation, strength and leadership.
Messages: we adapt to social changes, we continue to advance with new products and services and we are a reference for the sector.
Define the structure of your newsletter
To finish the strategy and organisation of a B2B newsletter step by step, we reach the last point. This section refers to the different parts that will comprise it and among them, the temporal factor stands out, in the first place, in which we will include a current news related to the sector or a recent company event.
Then, a pill of knowledge, since the newsletter will be accompanied by a post that will attract the reader’s attention and add value. In this step, the correct division of the databases that we have previously made is essential for us to be successful with the content that we will send later. And, finally, we must also decide which lead agent is to be sent in each newsletter to each of the databases and with which idea or objective. Some of the lead magnets that are used more frequently to attract potential clients are the ebooks, guides, editable templates, checklist, online curses or discounts.
At the time of making the sending, the chosen platform also counts. We have made a classification with three tools we consider more useful:
Before finishing, one of our last tips that we want to give you is that you make an inventory of resources that you will have and you will be able to translate in your shipping calendar, a good option to do this is to classify the posts that you have already published on your blog, associating them with the ideas you have defined. If you visit the blog of HelloMrLead you will see a variety of topics related to B2B marketing.
Here we show you our classification of the most recent articles related to our brainstorming:
Idea: “Innovation”
Resucitamos el mercado de marketing B2B en este 2020
Ventas B2B es una cuestión de métricas
La mecanización de los procesos comerciales
Have you found this post useful? If you want to expand the information you can also check our article “Define your metrics, KPI’s and objectives”, in which we talk about this topic. And if you want us to help you do not hesitate to contact us through the web so that you can attract the attention of your clients and potential clients and you can convey them your full potential.
