January 20, 2026
Newsletters are a time-tested way for organizations to build stronger relationships with clients, prospects, partners and employees. But what makes a newsletter truly effective? Success requires compelling content and strategic promotion to grow a loyal readership. Whether you’re just launching or looking to reinvigorate your strategy, here are insights to help your newsletters stand out.
The value of newsletters in B2B marketing.
Far from being relics of early email marketing, today’s newsletters are curated, personal, and highly engaging—delivering value, updates, and insights straight to subscribers’ inboxes. They’ve continued to prosper amidst fleeting email and social media trends, reflecting how people still crave high-quality, direct content.
Utilize newsletters to keep your brand top-of-mind—with educational resources, industry insights, personalized cross-selling, upselling and more. You’ll create opportunities and deepen client relationships.
What should I include in my newsletter?
HubSpot recently conducted a study on the state of newsletters, finding that newsletters featuring opinions and hot takes on industry topics generate the highest open rates, click rates, and conversion rates. Your insights matter. Newsletters are an opportunity to set your brand apart, sharing your unique perspective on what’s happening within your industry. And this doesn’t mean you have to always address the latest trends. It could be as simple as fixing common misperceptions, developing your own best practices guide and sharing insights from your experts working in the field.
Leverage your newsletter to promote new blog posts and offer downloadable guides on tips and best practices. Consider creating a “Team Insights” section that includes short video clips of subject matter experts throughout your organization sharing their own tips, insights or advice. Brief videos of executives sharing company updates is another engaging way to encourage interaction and offer subscribers an exclusive look into your company.
Promote your newsletter to gain subscribers.
Create newsletter subscription landing pages, customized to target key audiences. Optimize for conversion by clearly highlighting the value subscribers will receive, and keep the forms simple to encourage completion. Only request essential information, including name and email address. Additionally, consider enabling CAPTCHA to reduce spam. Offering relevant resources as an incentive to subscribe can also be an effective way to boost sign-ups. Finally, send users to your landing page by placing prominent forms and call-to-actions on high-traffic pages of your website, such as the home page, blog or resources page.
Social media promotion is critical for growing your subscriber base. Share newsletter highlights and post sign-up forms on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. Consider using paid ad campaigns to promote your form to targeted audiences, reaching new prospects who would find your content valuable. Ask current subscribers as well to share it with their community. HubSpot found 42% of professionals rank direct recommendations from current subscribers as the most effective growth strategy.
New trends in newsletter marketing.
Particularly within B2B industries, there’s a shift towards using natural, relatable language, which encourages engagement and two-way conversations. Marketers are using AI to enhance brainstorming and content creation, enabling them to sustain and scale their efforts. They’re also leveraging automation to create workflows that keep leads engaged and provide valuable analytics for tracking performance. The HubSpot study found that the KPI marketers most often use to measure success is Views, followed by Clicks/CTR and Engagement metrics.
People are also seeing an increase in interactive content within newsletters, including quizzes or polls. With Mailchimp, you can embed a simple poll or survey in your email. For example, a fintech company may consider asking subscribers, “Which is your organization’s top priority for fintech investment in 2026,” providing a few options to choose from. In addition to encouraging engagement, you gain valuable audience insights.
Newsletters are here to stay, offering significant benefits from deepening client relationships to increasing lead generation. Leverage these trends and best practices to craft more effective newsletters, drive better engagement, and support business growth.
