Exit Five Newsletter #149

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Hello and welcome to the Exit Five Weekly Newsletter - read by 37,000 B2B marketing professionals around the world. Exit Five is a membership site designed to help you build a successful career in B2B marketing. Join 5,000 other members at exitfive.com.

By the way - this email was designed in Knak which helps you create email and landing pages in minutes without having to write code. Learn more about Knak here.

🐆The 7 Key Elements to High-Performing Emails

I don’t need to cite a laundry list of statistics to convince you email is one of the most important channels in B2B Marketing.

I know it and you know it – so let’s help you get better at it.

Pierce Ujjainwalla (co-founder & CEO at Knak) is an email expert… and after writing and studying thousands of emails, he’s identified the seven things that create emails that aren’t just read, they’re acted on.

It’s called the CHEETAH framework, and it breaks down how to:

• Captivate attention before the email is even opened
• Make your email feel like it’s coming from a real person, not a faceless company
• Increase conversions by matching email to landing page

If you’re planning to send more than one email this year, check out the free (and ungated!) guide to the CHEETAH framework here.

📧 How to Build a Successful B2B Newsletter From Scratch

You know the stress of hitting “Send” on an email that’s going out to thousands of people?

Imagine that, but instead it’s going out to 3.7 million people every single week.

When Arielle Gordis joined Monday.com, the CEO wanted to start a newsletter that was purely focused on giving value.

Not selling their product, not getting people to check out all their other content, just value.

He wanted it to be long and super engaging. And so good readers wouldn’t want to unsubscribe (you know, just a small ask…).

Millions of subscribers later, this is her exact strategy for bringing monday insights to life.

Come up with a consistent structure

Like many newsletters, monday insights follows a consistent structure every week:

• Workplace trends (what's happening in the world of work)
  
  
• AI updates (and the future of work)
  
  
• Thought leadership specifically for managers and navigating the challenges they face at work (conflicts on the team, being transparent, how to give feedback, etc.)
  
  
• "Water cooler chatter" (anything you would talk to coworkers about over coffee or lunch)
  
  
• Fun fact to encourage people to go back to the previous newsletter
  
  
• And an amazing cartoon (created by a New Yorker cartoonist!)

This means readers know exactly what they’re getting every single week. And they know that every issue will help them become better leaders at work.

A behind-the-scenes look at her process

Every week, Arielle would:

1. Research current workplace trends early in the week
   
   
2. Draft the newsletter mid-week
   
   
3. Review it ("probably seven times")
   
   
4. Send the newsletter every Tuesday

Inspiration came from absolutely everywhere. Research, conversations she had internally, with friends, nothing was off limits.

And it worked because the topics were triggered by real life experience. She wasn’t just throwing out an idea and wondering if it would resonate. She knew it would. Because people she knew were talking about it.

Example newsletter topic: How to support the parents on your team (around Mother’s Day). And she actually spoke with parents at Monday and asked them about what their managers do that really helps and what they wish their managers did more of.

Ever seen an open rate this high?

monday insights grew to 3.7 million subscribers with a unique open rate around 55% (compared to their benchmark of 30% for other marketing emails).

Even more impressive, the total open rate (which includes people reopening newsletters) can reach up to 95%, indicating readers return to the content multiple times.

Because they didn’t really include other links in the newsletter, this is how they measured success.

It’s one thing to build an audience that’s truly excited to read your content. It’s another to build something where people keep coming back over and over again.

Just start!

When Arielle first started, she was overwhelmed. As a perfectionist, nothing ever felt good enough. But her manager encouraged her to just start. And it became the absolute best part of her job.

So the next time you’re feeling stuck, remember that the first version isn’t going to be perfect. And guess what. The people around you aren’t expecting it to be. But the sooner you get started, the faster you’ll learn what’s working and what’s not.

And remember you don’t have to build a newsletter with millions of subscribers to give your audience value. Create content that genuinely helps them and they’ll keep coming back.

📺 UPCOMING EVENTS

📬 [MAY 13TH] Email Deliverability: What Every B2B Marketer Needs to Know

You spend hours writing the perfect email. Crafting the subject line, testing copy, timing the send.

But if your deliverability is off? None of it matters. Your message never even makes it to the inbox.

In B2B, email is still one of the most powerful ways to reach buyers, whether you're sending cold outreach, newsletters, product updates, or event invites. But behind every great email strategy is one thing that often gets overlooked: deliverability.

In this live session, Dave is joined by Sara McNamara, Revenue Operations & GTM Strategy Lead at Vector, and Alex Fine, co-founder of Understory, to unpack what’s really going on behind the scenes of email performance.

They’ll cover:

• Why your emails are landing in spam (even if they’re legit)
• What causes domain reputation to tank and how to rebuild it
• The metrics and signals that actually matter for deliverability
• Tools and tactics to get your emails opened, read, and replied to

If email is even part of your GTM motion, this session will help you spot issues, level up performance, and make sure your team’s messages are actually getting seen.

Bring your questions and join us for the live session.

Join Live or Get the Recording

🏢 OPEN ROLES

Who's hiring right now?

🔥 HOT JOB OF THE WEEK: Boost My School is hiring a Mid-level or Senior Marketing Manager (Demand Gen/Events) to own funnel messaging and campaign execution, drive lead gen through events and content, and represent the brand on the road. The ideal candidate is strategic, scrappy, and knows how to turn B2B SaaS marketing into real results.

Interested? Apply here.

Other open roles on the Exit Five job board this week:

• Exit Five is hiring a Growth Marketer (Contract)
• Exit Five is hiring an Event Planner (Contract)
• Walnut is hiring a Senior Content and Brand Strategist
• Buddy Punch is hiring a Head of Marketing
• Clearscope is hiring a Partnerships Marketing Manager
• Overjet is hiring a Head of Growth Marketing
• Ten Speed is hiring a Senior Designer
• Overjet is hiring a Head of Product Marketing
• Neara is hiring a Demand Generation Manager
• New North is hiring a Growth Marketing Strategist
• Valence is hiring a Product Marketing Manager

See all open roles

Have an open role and want to make sure the best B2B marketing talent sees it?

Just reply to this email and we'll send over more info on how you can post it on our job board + get it in front of 25k+ marketers.

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Thanks to our friends over at Knak for being our 2025 newsletter sponsor.

Want to sponsor a future newsletter or learn more about other sponsorship opportunities with Exit Five? Email hi@exitfive.com (or just reply to this email).

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