Someone asked a great question in a private community I'm part of this week.
They work at a B2B website agency and are in charge of their newsletter. Their question was simple:
"What's most important to you in a B2B newsletter?"
They listed a bunch of options:
Branding and voice
Relevancy to trends
Debating B2B myths
Actionable advice
In-depth discussions
Human connection
All of those are fine things.
But they're all secondary to the one thing that actually determines whether a B2B newsletter succeeds or fails.
Your newsletter needs to help your audience become better at their jobs.
That's the whole game.
Not entertain them. Not impress them. Not win design awards.
Help them do their work better. Every single issue.
Let me break down exactly what that looks like and how to structure a B2B newsletter that people actually look forward to opening.
Start with your audience's weekly problems
Most B2B newsletters are written from the company's perspective. What do we want to say? What should we promote? What news do we have?
Flip that completely.
Start with your audience's Monday morning. What challenges are they dealing with this week? What decisions do they need to make? What skills do they need to sharpen?
For a website agency, the audience is likely founders, marketing leads, and business owners who either have a website that isn't performing or are about to build one.
So your newsletter topics should look something like this:
The 5 Website Sections Your Site Needs to Get More Conversions
How to Think About Design When Building Your Site
What Makes a Good Site vs a Bad Site in 2026
The Homepage Mistake That's Costing You Leads (And How to Fix It in 30 Minutes)
3 Things Your Competitors' Websites Do Better Than Yours
These are simple topics.
None of them are flashy or "creative."
But they solve real problems that your audience deals with regularly.
And that's what makes someone open your newsletter next week too.
The goal is to become part of their work routine
Think about the newsletters you actually read consistently.
Not the ones you subscribed to because the landing page looked nice.
The ones you open every single time.
I'd bet they all have one thing in common.
They make you better at something you care about.
That's the bar for a B2B newsletter.
Your audience should feel like skipping your newsletter means missing something that helps them do their job.
When you hit that level, you stop worrying about open rates and unsubscribes.
Because the people on your list are there because they need what you send.
The format that works best for B2B
I recommend a thought-leadership approach.
That means every issue has two core components.
Component 1 - Curated news and resources
Your audience doesn't have time to keep up with everything happening in their space.
Do that work for them.
Pull together the 3-5 most relevant articles, tools, reports, or updates from the past week.
Add a one-line take on each.
Tell them why it matters and what they should do about it.
This is low effort for you once you build the habit, and it's extremely valuable for your audience.
You become their go-to filter for what matters in their industry.
Component 2 - One original insight
This is the part that separates your newsletter from every other roundup in their inbox.
Every issue should include one thing your audience can only get from you.
Something from your direct experience working with clients.
For a website agency, that could be:
A before/after breakdown of a client's site redesign and the conversion impact
A common misconception you keep seeing on sales calls
A framework your team uses internally when planning a new site build
A real example of a website that looks great but converts terribly (and why)
This original insight is what builds your authority over time.
It's what makes people think of you when they need help with their website.
And it's what drives inbound leads from your newsletter.
Curation gets them to open. Original insight gets them to trust you.
The cadence question
Weekly works best for most B2B newsletters.
It's frequent enough to stay top of mind but not so frequent that it becomes a burden to produce.
If weekly feels like too much, bi-weekly is fine.
But whatever cadence you pick, be consistent.
A newsletter that shows up on the same day every week becomes a habit.
A newsletter that shows up "whenever we have something to say" gets forgotten.
What about voice and branding?
Those things matter.
But they matter way less than the content itself.
I've seen plain-text newsletters with zero design that have incredible engagement because the content is genuinely useful.
And I've seen beautifully designed newsletters with perfect branding that get ignored because the content is generic.
Get the content right first.
Make your audience better at their jobs.
Then layer in the voice and branding to make the experience more memorable.
Not the other way around.
The bottom line
If you're running a B2B newsletter and wondering how to make it better, stop asking "how do we make this more interesting?" and start asking "how do we make our audience better at their jobs?"
Answer that question on every single issue, and you'll have a newsletter that generates trust, authority, and eventually, revenue.