It’s rare for me to run across an online video I truly enjoy start to finish, but this is one of them.

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As someone who has been on both the in-house corporate client side and the independent creative contractor side of marketing projects, this really hit home for me.

Pictures Say 1,000 Words - Make Them Relevant

If you’ve been on a business-to-business company website or read a brochure, white paper or other collateral lately, you’ve seen them. The stock photos of good-looking, smiling people (both genders and multiple ethnic groups represented of course) dressed in suits in some kind of office environment or in front of a white background.

Although I don’t claim to be a master graphic or website designer, I do know irrelevance when I see it. What purpose do these images have, other than adding a visual element to break up the text? In fact, these types of images are detrimental in that they make a company’s marketing completely unremarkable and they blend in with their competitors.

Pictures are worth 1,000 words, arguably more in marketing, where you have about 3 seconds to capture your audience’s attention. Making the images in your marketing relevant to the information being presented and engaging to your target reader is imperative if you want to clearly communicate with and persuade them.

Explain your Product or Service Visually to Reinforce the Key Points

I’ve found graphical explanations of products and services to be effective, for example the image below used in a case study I did for a software company. The image quickly communicates the message on the page and resonated well with the non-technical purchase decision makers the case study was intended for based on feedback from the company’s sales team.

Thumbnail Images Work Great on Landing Pages

For landing pages promoting a white paper or other marketing collateral for download, thumbnail images of the document quickly let the visitor know what the page is about and intrigue them by offering a ’sneak peek’ at the contents. I used a thumbnail image (created with Adobe Photoshop) of a white paper written for a software client on a landing page I did for them. After doing A/B testing of two versions of the landing page in which we tested which image worked better, the image below was the winner.

I’m not saying don’t use stock images. There are many terrific ways to use graphics and imagery available on sites like iStockPhoto.com to get your message across in a meaningful and interesting way. I use stock photos (see the goldfish on my website home page Flash for instance), but always choose unique images that directly reinforce the messaging in the written copy.

With so many creative visual ways to express your message, resist the urge to play it safe with standard images. Your sales team will thank you when the leads start rolling in

Consistently Valuable Information = Loyal Subscribers

For most B2B companies email newsletters are an extremely effective vehicle for building prospect and customer relationships, establishing thought leadership, and generating leads. Achieving these goals, however, requires that these newsletters contain valuable content for your readers, or your clients, partners and prospects will simply stop reading your newsletter.

Most B2B newsletter subscribers opt-in looking for best practices, tips, trends, news, and a viewpoint, and do not want to be overwhelmed with marketing/sales messages. The objective of your newsletter is to establish or enhance a relationship based on trusted content. This content then drives readers to your Web site where they take a desired action – register for demo, call a sales person, download whitepapers and in some way move the prospect or customer to the next level of the relationship.

To ensure that your B2B newsletter continuously delivers value, consider the following 20 tips for better approaches to format and content.

1. Opt-In Page Expectations — An effective content strategy starts with your opt-in process. Be certain you manage subscriber expectations at the start. Describe in a sentence or two the type of content your newsletter contains and the value it will deliver readers. Also provide a link to back issues so that prospective subscribers can see exactly what to expect.
2. Identify and Stick to an Editorial Focus — Your recipients only have room for a limited number of newsletters on their list of “must read” newsletters. Identify the core focus of your newsletter, establish an editorial approach and then stick to it.
3. Establish Regular Columns and Features — A key to sustaining ongoing value is to institute recurring columns and topic features. Subscribers will know what to expect and it also allows you to plan and focus the content and develop a real position and expectation in recipients’ minds.
4. Table of Contents — If you have more than two articles include an “In This Issue” section at the top of your newsletter. Give them a quick sense of what the articles are about and provide a link down to each article within the newsletter.
5. Use Short Teaser Articles — For articles longer than three or four paragraphs, use short “teaser” introductions that whet your reader’s appetite and motivate them to click through to the entire article posted on your Web site. This makes it easy for readers to determine their interest in the topic and enables you to track which articles and topics are of most interest.
6. Sidebars — Use sidebar boxes and columns for promotional and supporting information that is not the primary focus of the newsletter. This includes company and new product information, news, events, resource links, brochure links, etc. This enables the reader to easily find this information while clearly separating it in their mind from the primary editorial value of the newsletter articles.
7. Have a Personality — Just because you are producing a corporate newsletter doesn’t mean it can’t have a personality. You want the reader to have a sense that there are humans on the other end of the newsletter. Establish someone as the editorial face of the newsletter and don’t be afraid to have them interject some humor and personal flavor. Humor can be great, but be careful not to offend.
8. Tips and Best Practices — In my experience B2B readers love “tips” and can’t get enough of them. (This article is no exception!) No matter what profession, workers are always interested in practical ideas and best practices they can put to use. Consider including a Quick Tip feature and focusing some of your articles around actionable tips.
9. Benchmarking and Statistics — Your customers and prospects are keenly interested in how they are doing compared to other companies. Providing benchmarking information and industry statistics will keep readers coming back for more each month.
10. FAQ/Ask The Expert — Columns devoted to answering questions are a great way to generate reader interest and feedback, while simultaneously enabling your company to establish its expertise in particular areas.
11. Case Studies — Customer case studies are always of interest to readers. They provide practical examples of success stories and strategies, and enable you to convey your company’s value proposition.
12. Use Click-Through Stats to Refine Editorial Focus — Continuously monitor which columns and type of articles are driving the most clicks. Use this information to refine both topics and editorial style.
13. Monitor Web Analytics — Check your Web site log files on occasion to determine which articles and content on your site are most visited. Use this information as key input into your editorial focus.
14. Reader Surveys — Consider conducting reader surveys a few times a year. An annual survey can uncover changing needs and interests among your readers. Additional reader surveys can be conducted on specific topics on which the results form the basis of future articles.
15. Ask Sales and Support — Other employees are great sources of ideas for content. Sales and support staff in particular can have great insights as they are dealing directly with customers and prospects on a daily basis.
16. Competitor and Industry Newsletters — Read industry and competitor newsletters and make a list of future story ideas based on interesting topics in these newsletters.
17. Subject Line is Key — Tie your subject line to a specific article in your newsletter that will generate the most opens. Don’t feel limited to use the same words used in an article title. Think newspaper headline style and craft a subject line that will stand out in your recipients’ inboxes.
18. Subtle Self Promotion — While educating your readers with tips and best practices, insert subtle, but supporting, references to your company, product or service. Done well it won’t seem out of place for your readers and helps achieve your overall goals for the newsletter.
19. Feedback — Provide a “Feedback” link after each article so that readers can easily send you feedback and suggestions for other articles.
20. Partner/Customer/Expert Articles — Solicit articles from your clients, partners and industry experts. Using these external sources will help position your newsletter in readers’ minds as having greater interest and value beyond your company’s self promotion.

Need some creative inspiration? View B2B e-newsletters I’ve created that utilize the above tips.

What newsletter strategies or content have been effective for your organization?