How many of your readers do you know by name?

Last week, as I took time off to go metal detecting in England, I was struck by the thought that because the most successful newsletter creators are the ones that truly understand their readers, that a good measurement of progress is how many readers you’ve actually engaged with personally.

As I crept my way across the field, I challenged myself to list off as many reader names as I could.

Paul

Dennis

Ann

Wade

Flavian

Bethany

Josh

Russ

Jennifer

Ryan

Dawid

Margo…

The list goes on. They’re all people I met because of publishing Opt In Weekly.

Maybe you haven’t had a direct conversation with a reader (why not, though?), but you’ve begun to recognize the people who take time to respond and comment on what you send. Hopefully, you’re responding to these sorts of replies after each issue.

And while it’s great to recognize their names—heck, you could track this in a spreadsheet—I think the more important question is what else do you know about them?

Have you engaged enough to understand what their goals and challenges are?

Do you know if they’ve made a major career change recently?

Do you know what they aspire to become?

Do you know what sort of books they like to read?

Or if they’ve launched a TikTok account?

While this all might sound like data big tech would love to pounce on, gathering this information informally, through conversations or messaging back and forth, is insanely helpful in guiding your content strategy.

Rather than imagining a faceless crowd of strangers reading your work and attempting to guess what they’d find valuable, you’ll be able to settle your mind on one person and think “What would Tina find helpful this week?”

Your newsletter then becomes an ongoing conversation between you and individuals.

And there’s a very high chance that the problems one reader in your audience struggles with are shared by many.

Suddenly, your readers will begin thinking, “How did she know I have this problem and needed a way to solve it?”

If you haven’t yet, reach out to a few of your friendliest readers and try to book a 30-minute call to talk 1:1 with them.

Keep it casual.

Tell them it helps you get to know your readers and understand how you can improve your newsletter.

Ask them questions and let them tell you their stories.

Then, internalize what they’ve told you and use it to fuel your upcoming issues.

Get to know as many as you can.

Not only by name, but by what they need that you can provide.

Ashley Guttuso