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It's been a while since I checked in.
To be totally honest, life got busy with 7 kids and all my other commitments. Lame excuse, but I hope you understand.
Even for someone like me who lives in the creator/newsletter space every day, it was hard to want to write when other things took priority.
And to be even more honest, I felt like I was losing my own voice and sense of self trying to keep up with a content treadmill I wasn't sure I wanted to be on.
A break was good for me and helped me figure out where to take things moving forward in a way I can support long-term. More on that another time.
But now I'm back in the game, and you should expect to see me around more often sharing what I'm learning and letting my voice come through (yes, I actually write these emails instead of having the robots do it for me).
Anyway, I just got back from Kit's Craft + Commerce conference in Boise.
I love having amazing conversations and connection with some of the best people on the planet!
But one idea has been rattling around in my head: Your subscriber count might be the most flattering number in your business...and one of the least useful.
The theme that kept coming up on stage and in between workshops & keynotes, wasn't "grow your list" it was knowing WHO your subscribers are and how that relates to your bottom line.
This was the same theme I saw at The Newsletter Conference the past two years. The most important metric is WHO not HOW MANY and what first-party data do you have to prove it.
It seems this shift is happening because sponsors used to chase reach and audience size. But now they want the right audience, not just a big one.
They're asking who's actually behind the email addresses. Are they quality subscribers who are in their target audience. They want to know what people do, where they work, and what they're in a position to buy.
A list of 5,000 people you genuinely understand will out-earn a list of 50,000 strangers pretty much every time. I've seen this at SparkLoop and with the creators I work with privately. Some of them with 500 subscriber lists outperform too.
I know it feels good to watch your subscriber count grow every day, but that growing number never tells you which subscriber is a CEO, or a podcaster, a potential sponsor, or someone about to spend real money.
Kit's announcement of Subscriber Signals is huge! So make sure to check it out.
It digs into the depths of internet (just kidding, I don't know how it works) and puts a real person behind each email address. It surfaces the influential folks who are already on your list. You can even set up alerts to flag high-value subscribers the moment they join.
If you sell sponsorships, it'll even build the audience report for you with the real data sponsors are looking for. For a peek behind the curtain, here's what my list looks like (you're part of a great group).
At SparkLoop (the company I work for during the day) we just announced something similar that will help you understand your audience and surface potential sponsors. Check out this video from our co-founder Louis sharing all about our new Signup Flow.
Since it's been so long, hit reply and let me know what you're most proud of in the past six months.
Here's to being human!
Robby
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