Crickets in the Tumbleweed?
Are you there, readers? It’s me, Kate. With 11 bright, breezy ideas to re-engage subscribers
Therapeutic Writers on Substack is a space to gain clarity, confidence, inspiration and community for mental health, personal growth and wellbeing writers. Tools, tips and behind the scenes at Letters From Therapy. Join us!
Hi friends
How do you feel about your engagement and open rates?
To speak to a room full of people, only to be met with silence, you’d be inhuman not to feel something: Rejection? Shame? Despondence?
When our posts take hours, or even days to write, packed with all our knowledge, heart and soul, maybe even some blood, we wait, open hearted. Will it be ‘this one?
Then the tumble weed rolls in. The deafening crickets arrive.
No replies, low open rates, and rather than growth and upgrades, your subscriber count even starts falling.
If this resonates, you aren’t alone. It happens to me often, including last month.
I posted, and a chilling silence enveloped me, broken only by the sound of a single violin.
The truth is, on Letters from Therapy, my open rates have been in decline since I started. They were pretty high at 55%, (paid subscribers can see the figures below) but the fall, and declining engagement rates lead me to deep reflection and curiosity: Is this still working?
It can feel lonely as a writer, but I pick my weary heart off the floor, and look at the stats a little closer.
If we mis-interpret what is happening, we may draw incomplete, or incorrect conclusions:
We might take it personally.
We might doubt the work.
We question our voice.
We may wonder if it is all a waste of time.
We might give up prematurely.
What metrics should we follow anyway?
How can we turn echos to responses, and should we even try?
Disengaged subscribers can feel like a rejection.
I recently shared a post on Letters from Therapy that took some research and time, for paid subscribers with a free preview (paid subscribers are usually rather quiet in my experience, though free previews often convert). It was a super-useful post, though I had no comments all day, and as I wondered if I had missed the mark. Then, these two comments came in.
“This is so helpful, Kate, personally and professionally. 🙏 I enjoy all your posts but think this might be my favourite one so far.”
“Wow, what a brilliant piece - so open, vulnerable and insightful - Thank you for all that you do Kate”
I hear that as our audience grows, engagement and open rates will drop. Compared to industry standards, an open rate of over 50% is exceptional, 30%-50% is good, 20-30% is average.
To understand why people don’t open or engage with emails, read my experiences and learn 11 bright, breezy strategies to revive engagement, do upgrade if you have’t already.
Past posts: Uplifting Songs Around the Campfire | The Wounded Healer-Writer | 724 New Subscribers: is Going Viral all it’s Cracked up to be? | Harmonise your Substack with Ikagai | the Campfire - Inspiring Quotes | 32 Editing Tips | The Highly Sensitive Therapeutic Writer | Introduce Yourself!
Posts coming soon: My thoughts on AI; Handling Self-Disclosure and Privacy on Substack.