HubSpot - 💵 Follow the money

Lesson 1: Hire creative writers — and let them be creative.

When I think of the most successful brand stories of the past few years, The Washington Post’s unlikely pandemic-era ascent to TikTok fame is near the top of my list. So is Duolingo’s occasionally (often?) unhinged bright green owl.

In both cases, the creators behind those successes (Dave Jorgenson and Zaria Parvez, respectively) were given the creative freedom to experiment outside traditionally rigid corporate boundaries.

But even if your marketing goals don’t include TikTok superstardom, the same principle applies to that B2B newsletter you’ve been trying to convince your boss to let you start.

Haberman, who writes the successful ICYMI newsletter, speaks with conviction on this point: Hire writers with backgrounds in creative writing and/or journalism. And let them be creative.

It’s the key to “creating that kind of personable newsletter that people actually want to open and read versus thinking of it as a promotional vehicle.” And that’s the key to building trust and credibility with your audience.

Haberman isn’t dunking on your wordsmithing — she’s very clear that marketers are great at many kinds of writing. But — time for a hard truth — writing B2B newsletters might not be the best fit for a career marketer.

And if you’re thinking about a B2B newsletter solely as a marketing play, you’re missing out on a major opportunity to build that elusive customer trust. This isn’t the vehicle for your product marketing; your goal should be producing a useful newsletter that people enjoy subscribing to (like, dare we say, the very one you’re reading now).

Lesson 2: Follow the money.

“One of the most important things that people forget is to follow the money,” Haberman tells me. No, this isn’t a parable about corporate greed — far from it. Instead, it’s a reminder of how pragmatism can pave the way for passion projects.

We all know that one of the most fundamental rules of marketing is understanding your customer.

For newsletter creators and other content creators, Haberman says that means knowing who’s “going to pay your bills and where your money is coming from. Make sure that you're devoting the most time and care and attention to that so you can continue to support your passion project.”

Take Haberman herself: She loves writing ICYMI, but it’s her corporate consulting that pays the bills. That shapes her priorities: “It's time to close that tab and focus. What are the things that I'm actually supposed to be doing?”

For individual content creators, get strategic about your revenue streams. How are you making money? “If it's through sponsorships, for example, are you looking at the content you're putting out, the relationships you're building, the networking you're doing, and making sure you're growing that pool of potential sponsors?”

Lesson 3: Vulnerability is the new authenticity.