You spent three hours on Tuesday's newsletter. Rewrote the opening twice. Changed the subject line four times. Finally scheduled it because you couldn't stare at it any longer.
Wednesday morning, you check your open rate. 23%. Is that good? Bad? You don't know. You google “average newsletter open rate” for the third time this month. The answers never help.
You scroll through your archive — 27 newsletters sent, some with replies, most with nothing. You can't tell which ones were good because the metrics all look the same. Open rates hover in the same range. Click rates are a coin flip. The numbers don't explain why.
So you compare yourself. You read other people's newsletters and think: “Why does theirs feel so effortless? What do they know that I don't?”
You've tried pasting your draft into ChatGPT. It tells you “This is a well-crafted piece that effectively leverages storytelling.” Then it suggests you “consider adding a bullet list for scannability” and reminds you to “provide value to your readers.” Thanks. Very helpful.
You've tried asking friends to review it. They say “looks good” because they don't want to hurt your feelings. You're still guessing.
The worst part isn't that your emails might not be working. The worst part is you have no way to know.
Every week it's the same cycle: write, hope, check, shrug, repeat. And somewhere around newsletter #30, a quiet thought creeps in — “Is anyone actually reading this? Is this worth my time?”