Reading the Numbers
For all my talk about not fixating on numbers, I sometimes fall off the wagon. I was disheartened to see the percentage of people who open my newsletter had decreased. Were people no longer interested in what I had to say? It’s a good question to ask: if you’re serving readers, you want to offer them something of value.
But due diligence is also necessary. I examined the numbers, and I discovered some inactive subscribers. It’s fair that they’ve moved on, but their numbers were unduly influencing my open rate. Once I removed them, two things happened: the absolute number of my subscribers went down; the percentage of my open rate went up.
I could be disheartened by the lower total number of subscribers (I could have kept the inactive subscribers on the list to artificially inflate my total), but instead, I’m buoyed by the higher percentage of open rate—not because the number is higher, but because it means I’m measuring what I most value: getting my message to the right readers.
It reassured me that the numbers game is not about the total (and the misleading concept that the higher the number, the better). It’s about finding the right number, because behind every number is a real person.
It’s the same concept for us as writers. It’s not about the total number of readers; it’s about the impact we make on each individual one.