It May Be Time for a Change

Amazingly (to me anyway), I have been publishing TNT – These Nine Things, the newsletter I use to share interesting items I come across online, for almost 4 years, at least as of this writing at the end of 2017. Many of you have been subscribers for the entire stretch, some have come along more recently. I love the opportunity to find things that others may have overlooked and pass them on. As frequent readers know, I try to mix practical advice and information with fun, wonder and whimsy – and sometimes things that defy description.

My plans are to continue dropping into your in-box three times a week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday morning, but a recent review of the feedback I get from my email program has gotten me to think about mixing things up a bit. I can look at data like open rates and click through rates for every TNT I’ve ever sent, and one statistic has popped out that seems consistent enough to remark upon and to cause me to try to do something new.

My Wednesday TNT has always been an “intensive”, meaning that all nine of the links I share relate to the same topic. A sampling of the topics going back to early 2014 includes Alternatives to PowerPoint, Chilling Out Online, The Future of Texting, Emotional Intelligence, Millennials, Exposing Fake News, Understanding Blockchain, and Net Neutrality. By the way, if anyone would like a copy of all of the Wednesday Intensive Topics can get the full list. Just email me (dickd@innovaision.com) and put “Send Weds Intensive List” in the subject line and I’ll pass it right along! If you see something you missed, I’ll be happy to send you a copy of the links for that edition.

I like digging deeper into a single subject every week, but the reader response rates for the Wednesday Intensive TNT is typically lower than for the other two days of the week. When you see consistent data – particularly data that you don’t like to see – it’s a good idea to respond and consider changing things up.

Rather than scrap the idea of a weekly deep dive into a subject, I’m going to try something new to see if it makes a difference. For the next several weeks the Wednesday edition of TNT will be presented in a more narrative fashion, rather than the list you are accustomed to getting. I’ll still work nine things into the narrative, but will also try to include more context and analysis as I do. So, you will be getting more of an article than just an accounting of resources. (An article which could also be a blog post, btw – I love multi-purposing). I’m going to see if that format changes the open rate for the positive. If it does, I’ll continue. If it fails, I may decide to ditch the intensive format altogether.

Of course, feel free to send any feedback on this idea to the email I already listed above. In the meantime, I hope you will enjoy and respond to the change!