On Believing Your Eyes and Ears

I’ll be honest. The election did not go the way I wanted or expected it to.

I’ll be working through my feelings about that on my own time.

But when I get something that wrong, I like to do a post-event analysis.

I’m not breaking out my TI-89 or anything, just taking stock of the assumptions I made and the data I overlooked.

It’s not a short list.

I think I let myself hear what I wanted to hear and believe who I wanted to believe.

There’s enough content out there to find proof of your preferred reality, accurate or not, and I found it.

I should stop doing that.

As my wife is fond of saying, “how you do one thing is how you do everything”. So I might as well start right here, with this newsletter.

I started this newsletter with goals in mind.

Chiefly, to be useful to the medical educators I’m writing it for.

But also to gain subscribers and grow a formidable community. To form connections and extend my network.

To do the near impossible: write an email that people actually want to read.

I started in August, and I’ve had some fun. I’ve gotten a few positive comments and texts from friends.

Is that enough? I could pretend it is. I could keep going and trust that it’s working. At least until I get tired of it and move on to something else.

Or I can believe my eyes and ears. Look at the results I’ve gotten so far and find ways to improve. Accept the true things that I don’t like and realize they can make me better.

Time to get objective…

Let’s look at the facts:

• Number of subscribers: 141

• Number of newsletter issues sent: 12

• Average estimated reading time per newsletter: 8.5 minutes

• Percent of subscribers who open the newsletter, on average: 62%

• Unique link clicks / emails opened: 13.7%

• New subscribers in October: 6 (4.4% growth rate)

Technically, a 62% open rate and a 13.7% click-through-rate are quite good for a newsletter.

But at only 141 total subscribers, those metrics are probably not worth much.

A growth rate of 4.4% in October is anemic in my book, and while I don’t expect to jump to 10,000 subscribers over night, I would like to see a steeper slope. I’d say a goal of 250 subscribers by the end of the year is ambitious but achievable.

An average estimated time to read of 8.5 minutes is too long. The original pitch was 5 or fewer, and with an audience that includes busy clinicians, that’s probably the upper limit.

My Plan:

• Continue publishing MedEdge newsletter weekly

• Cut the average estimated reading time in half

• Limit each newsletter to one specific topic

• Keep the SOAP Note format, but apply it more literally, as if the topic were a patient

• Write the newsletter only I can write

• Seek feedback and check key metrics monthly

Suggested Plan for You:

• Reflect on the narratives you’ve accepted in your life, and look for ways to see more clearly - even if it stings a bit

• Reply with your thoughts, both on the topic and my plan

• Answer the eval question below

• Help me reach my end-of-year subscriber goal by sharing the MedEdge with a friend or three 😊