Instagram digests can be a powerful addition to your B2B email strategy, allowing you to showcase social content, highlight trends, or keep your subscribers in the loop on what’s happening with your brand.
In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the benefits of using Instagram within your email newsletter—and how to make it happen efficiently.
Why Create an Instagram Business Newsletter?
Instagram is a visual powerhouse, and businesses are increasingly relying on this platform to increase brand reach and engage with their audiences.
All too often, however, the hours spent crafting social content begins and ends within that platform…not great for ROI, since the estimated lifespan of a typical (non viral) post on Instagram sits at about 48 hours.
Fortunately, there are a variety of ways to extend the impact of your content efforts through some cross-channel promotion and integrating your Instagram content in your newsletters.
Simple, yet effective from multiple viewpoints:
- Visual engagement: Instagram posts bring an aesthetically appealing element to your emails, helping to maintain visual interest and a soft CTA to continue to engage with the value you deliver.
- Repurposing content: Leverage the content your team has created on Instagram to maximize the value of your team’s efforts.
- Cross-platform promotion: Encourage your email subscribers to follow you on Instagram for more updates, expanding your brand’s reach.
For B2B brands especially, it can be a strong way to link your marketing channels and increase overall brand recognition and engagement…a powerful combination when you consider the insights from Marigold’s 2024 Global Consumer Trends Index:
50% of consumers have made a purchase from an email in the last year, compared to 48% for social media advertisements, 43% for social media posts, 24% for SMS/MMS messages, and 21% for banner advertisements.
How to Integrate Instagram Into Your B2B Newsletters
There are a few different ways to incorporate Instagram into your newsletter:
Method 1: Manually insert Instagram content by adding image blocks, text, and links.
This is easily the most time-consuming method, but it does allow you to curate your social content so that it aligns with your B2B newsletter messaging.
Method 2: Use an Instagram widget to automatically pull content into your newsletter
Many ESPs have Instagram integrations that will automatically pull images and links into your newsletter content. The upside is that it’s almost instantaneous and requires very little effort on your part to maintain. The downside is that you don’t have control over which posts display, which can be frustrating if the latest posts on your feed don’t align with the messaging and appearance you want for your newsletter.
This method also isn’t available with every ESP.
Method 3: Use a newsletter builder that allows you full control over curation and email building
This is the method that we’ll focus on today, since it allows you the best of both worlds: the tool curates your latest Instagram posts and allows you to pick and choose which appear in the newsletter itself.
Step 1: Audit Instagram Content
Before you create your digest, take a look through your social content to decide what makes the most sense to feature. For B2B newsletters, top post types include:
- New product launches or features
- Industry event coverage
- Customer testimonials or case studies
- Behind-the-scenes insights into your business
Step 2: Curate Instagram Newsletter with Feedotter
Feedotter is a newsletter builder that empowers competitive email marketing teams to curate and build content-rich emails that send directly through your ESP. With its smart integration, Feedotter makes it easy to pull in your Instagram posts and include them in your email newsletter—saving you from the manual copy-paste process.
Here’s how to do it:
- Set Up Your Email Newsletter: In your Feedotter account, set up a new newsletter and choose a template design.
- Connect Instagram: Add Instagram as a content source, so Feedotter can curate the content from your Instagram feed.
- Curate Instagram Posts: With Feedotter’s automation, the Instagram posts you’ve selected will be available to insert in your email with a single click. Depending on your template, you can feature multiple posts in a grid format, or highlight just one key post per email.
Note: During this time, you can add the rest of the content, from intros to blog posts, using the same method of adding new content sources that are ready to add with a single click…images, text, links, and all.
Step 3: Segment and Personalize for B2B Audiences
Not all of your subscribers will be interested in the same Instagram content. You might choose to segment your emails to send more tailored Instagram digests to different subscriber groups.
Step 4: Add Value with Captions and Links
While images from Instagram are engaging, adding context can increase the impact of your newsletter. Use the captions from your Instagram posts to tell a story or provide additional insights. If a post features a product, you might choose to link directly to a relevant landing page, or invite subscribers to follow your account for more updates.
Step 5: Send
Feedotter is a newsletter builder, which means that the email itself is sent through your ESP. If you’re using one of Feedotter’s ESP integrations, you’ll be able to send directly from the Feedotter interface. Otherwise, you can use the export feature to copy the HTML over to your email platform. Some tweaks may be needed to adjust this switch.
Step 6: Track and Optimize
Once you’ve sent your Instagram digest, track its performance using your ESP’s analytics. Monitor open rates, click-through rates, and which posts are getting the most engagement. Based on these insights, refine future digests to feature the types of Instagram content your audience finds most appealing.
Conclusion
Instagram digests are a creative way to keep your email audience engaged while showcasing your visual content. With Feedotter and your ESP working together, you can automate this process and regularly share your latest Instagram updates with your subscribers—without the hassle of manual curation.
Ready to get started? Leverage the power of Feedotter to automate your Instagram digest, and watch your email engagement grow! Book a demo today.
