Data matters, but it’s not the whole story
As a writer, I try to ignore numbers and data as much as I can. If I stare at them for too long, they look like a bunch of mismatched scrabble tiles with no clear answer in sight.
But there are days where my swimmer brain wins and I look at the numbers and see patterns. On those days, I focus on the following (for a newsletter):
Open rates: This is [arguably] the most important because it means that I have grabbed the audience’s attension and they want to know more about something in this newsletter. It could be one item; it could be every word I’ve written this week. I don’t question it; I simply celebrate!
Click rates/click performance: Much of the information that I share in our newsletter, I learn from other sources. So I not only want to share those links, the hope is that people will want to learn more, too, by visiting the original article or website. Our clients, their sponsors, and our collective partners do amazing things every day — let’s celebrate and support them!
Bounce rate: Much like you need to clean your house, sometimes you need to clean up the audience in your mail delivery system. The purpose of this is not to get rid of people, but to ensure that you’re sending emails to deliverable addresses. Otherwise, you’re exhausting the energy of your mail delivery system and inflating one set of data numbers (# of people in your audience) while decreasing another set (open rate).
Do pay attention to the numbers. Data is important and understanding the knowledge of how your systems are working, whether you are tracking a newsletter, website, or social media, ensure that you are fully engaged with the reality of your marketing plan and/or online presence.
Don’t become so consumed with the data that you lose the essence of your company/brand. Growth takes time and will continue to fluctuate even once you start to hit your goal numbers. Set small, tangible goals and work towards maintaining them over a reasonable stretch of time.
