Asking that question changed how I approach my newsletter.
I’m equal parts writer and marketer – it’s one of my greatest strengths.
But sometimes the pendulum swings from one strength to the other and it makes me reconsider how I do things.
Even successful things like my newsletter that has 30k subscribers.
For more than a decade, I’ve written and shared a new piece of content in my newsletter every day.
But I’ve shared it like a marketer.
I primarily link to my writing on LinkedIn or my website instead of publishing the full text in the email.
That approach has served me well for several reasons:
1. It keeps the email short
2. I’m able to measure interest in the topic based on link clicks
3. I can see exactly who’s interested in what topic if I want to retarget them with a relevant promotion
4. I can brand my newsletter as a “one-paragraph email” which is a differentiator and encourages people to subscribe
That’s all effective, but…
That’s the marketer in me talking.
And lately I’ve been leaning into the writer in me.
(My recent post about writing a book is a perfect example of this.)
This embrace of my writer identity led me to wonder how a writer would approach my newsletter.
The answer was obvious:
Optimize for the writing, not the marketing.
Put the full text of my content in the email itself.
I started doing that a couple weeks ago and the results have been eye-opening.
I’m getting 4x more replies to my newsletter on a daily basis than I got before.
I’m not sure this is a sign that more people are reading what I write necessarily, but clearly they’re more likely to reply when they read it in the email as opposed to on my site or on LinkedIn.
And each morning when I open my own newsletter in my inbox, it feels like it was sent by a writer.
Given my current leanings, that feels good too.
I’m going to stick with this approach for a bit and see where it leads.
To be clear:
I don’t regret my previous approach and still believe it’s a VERY effective one.
Neither approach is better or worse than the other – it’s just one is a marketer’s approach and one is a writer’s.
I’m ready to be a writer.
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