We should not bring back the old company newsletter. There’s still time to build the useful one it should have become.
A company newsletter gives us a direct route to people who have chosen to hear from us. It does not guarantee attention, but it does mean we’re not starting every communication from zero. This is particularly useful in markets where buyers are out of the market most of the time. When the buying door opens, we are more likely to be one of the names waiting outside.
The mistake is to treat newsletters as a dumping ground for self-centred stuff. Nobody is waiting breathlessly for “three things we would like to tell you about ourselves this month”. The reader’s question is simpler: is this worth a few minutes?
A good B2B newsletter should help people understand how to do their job a little better. It might seem presumptuous to think we can do that, but we can. We have access to information, news and views that they don’t.
I would try to write a company newsletter as a detached ‘industry news and views’ publication. If I didn’t have the time to research this, or thought I just couldn’t be independent enough, I’d get a trade journalist to do it.
All that the newsletter needs to do is to demonstrate that our company is one that understands the market. We do this by providing interesting information about the market – not about us. If the newsletter is useful, people will keep allowing it into their inbox. The rest should follow.