Thread by @marie_dm_

I sent the 3rd issue of Women Make’s newsletter last week. What you don’t know is this issue was kind of a test for me. 🤔

After sending the second issue, I felt disappointed and my moral took a hit.

📉 Open rate felt from 74% to 23%. I know it was supposed to go down after the 1st issue but not that much. It made me wonder, should I continue it if so few people read it?

Plus I spent too much time on it. There was a lot of new members to include. I made research on each one, grabbed the appropriate links, made this section bigger as some members asked for it. Then went to talk to each one individually to add more personal facts. Wayyyyy too long.

I know you should “do things that don’t scale” at first but I spent hours on this. And people I’m contacting don’t reply at the same time so it’s a mess. Although I have a Patreon now, I don’t make a living from this. So I should be wise on how I allocate my time on this project.

Anyway, I needed to find out why people didn’t read it, do better for the next issue, and decide what to do next depending on the results.

Several problems I pointed out in issue #2:
• too long
• so long that Gmail wasn’t displaying it fully
• weird title
• i immediately shared it publicly before letting people read it from their mailbox
• i included more images and ‘styling’, unnecessary and heavier visually

Something people told me after issue #1 is that it was simple, clear and they could read it from beginning to end. I needed to get back to that.

For issue #3, I decided to begin with the template of issue #1 instead of #2 in order to stick to this one more. I removed sections I found useless or not pertinent enough. Made it shorter in general. And wrote a better title.

I asked new members to write a short bio about themselves and directly send me the links they'd like me to include. Less work for me, and more efficient. If some people don’t reply, then they don’t appear in the newsletter. As simple as that.

I also removed the men from the 'new members’ section. I think Women Make is about putting women in the forefront. Although I really appreciate men’s implication in this community, it makes more sense to only display the women.

I also removed the Twitter and Telegram buttons next to each member which were not clicked a lot, that cleared the design a bit.

I sent the mail with a small apprehension but felt like I did something better.

I waited almost 2 days before sharing it in public. That was a good idea. A few people tweeted and mentioned Women Make. Then I shared it. I didn’t not forget to mention all people present in it.

So what are the results?

Open rate went up to almost 48%! It’s a success! 🎉

I also moved from Mailjet to Mailchimp which gives an “industry average rate”. If I chose the right category then I guess the results are above average so that’s cool too.

Just so you see the difference in size, check the 2 screenshots from issue #2 and #3 😱

Makes me think of this quote from Mark Twain: "If I Had More Time I Would Write a Shorter Letter".

I guess the message here is just don’t discourage yourself because of disappointing results. Give your another chance before feeling too bad about it. You probably haven’t try everything. If issue #2 was not great, I managed to do #3 better! See you at #4.

I'd also like to add that building a community is hard. I'm not the first and definitely not the last one to do this. It's a lot of ups and downs. Sometimes I feel really discouraged and alone. Sometimes I feel strong and powerful surrounded by amazing people.

Like every other project, it's a step by step process. Try something, get blanked, try something else, people get enthusiasts, try something else again...

Recent examples:

#1 I'm experimenting with the creation of a subreddit for WM. It's new and not very active for now. But I still think it can become something important.

Redditers, subscribe here reddit.com/r/womenmake and give me your advice.

Thanks @taskett for your help on the Manifesto.

#2 WM is having its first event: "Just f*ing ship it in 30 days with Women Make"! 🚀 I'm really excited about it! There are already 32 participants and I think more will join.

You can signup here newco.app/programs/8-wom… or just support the awesome women taking part in it.

Well, looks like I'll keep going with Women Make 😁

To receive the next issue, signup to WM's newsletter 👩‍💻

👉 mailchi.mp/fff182fe2830/w… 👈

@threader_app thank you for compiling my own thread