TL;DR:
If you aren't already aware, The Cut Sheet is a weekly email newsletter that highlights popular and/or most interesting posts from the previous week. When applicable, it also has interesting surveying-related news from elsewhere. In this post, I'm fishing for feedback to see if it's worth continuing.
Longer version:
For the last 3 days, I've been down for the count after receiving my second shingles vaccine. Because of this, I've decided not to send out The Cut Sheet this week. But it did get me thinking: Does anyone even read it or enjoy it? And regardless of the answer, why or why not?
So I've decided to post this poll and also ask for your feedback.
One of the reasons these questions cross my mind is that subscribers are pretty much staying flat -- actually losing some ground each week. There's about as many signups as there are unsubscribers, but some emails bounce every week. So the list declines by 1 or 2 subscribers every time I send it out.
About 35% of the emails are actually opened each week, and apparently this is pretty high from talking to other people. So that's good. I do notice a slight surge of traffic shortly after I send it out, too.?ÿBut I'm not sure the results are quite what I expected -- or maybe they are -- I just didn't know what to expect but I wanted to try something to help grow this website.
I would appreciate your participation in the poll, as well as some feedback in the comments to support your selection. As always, thank you for your participation here and in the community overall! 🙂
I don't post much, but I do read the forum daily during the work week, so I've already seen the threads I'm interested in by the time the email comes in.
I echo @ peter-lothian's comments.?ÿ That said, I think the news letter is more beneficial to those who are not everyday lurkers or participants.
Hypothetically, you have someone that is not working in the field but has signed up to ask a specific question or to research a specific topic. That person may not log back in for a month or more, but if he/she receives the newsletter and reads an article related to his/her topic of interest, they will log on just to get more details.
Thank you for for giving us the forum to interact with brothers of the profession from around the world. Your contribution to the profession is immeasurable, in my humble opinion.
I like it, but like @peter-lothian and @kevin-hines said; it is probably only beneficial to those that don't get here much.
I peruse through it, when it hits my inbox, but I've already read the threads...
Those of us who are regulars here look to the last part of the message for news items that we may not have seen from other sources.?ÿ I see this as a great marketing tool to awaken those who only tune in from time to time and those who rarely tune in.
Voted no. Similar reasons as the above posters. Preaching to the choir.?ÿ
Condolences on your suffering through the second shot, Congratulations on the coverage. Den
I don't think it would be bad for you, Wendell, to inject editorial comment about postings that make compelling points (or vice versa)?ÿ
Sneak in a treat somewhere for the first 10 to reply to you with a correct answer to a question that is somewhat imbedded in the middle of some paragraph.?ÿ Only those who read it and notice the potential reward benefit.
Our high school principal issues a weekly email on Sunday evenings listing outstanding things from the past week and what's ahead for the coming week.?ÿ He discovered most students weren't reading it, although their parents and community members did.?ÿ He instituted that little reward plan and student readership soared.
I like it, I always see stuff I've missed. ?????ÿ
Bump.
The general trend in media consumption is on-demand.?ÿ I come to this forum regularly, but on my schedule.?ÿ So when something shows up in my inbox that isn't something I need to address right now, I usually trash it.?ÿ I don't say that disrespectfully -- I appreciate the time and effort that it takes to produce a regular newsletter -- it's simply a matter of time management on my end.?ÿ I'll happily spend inordinate amounts of time reading and responding to posts on the forum, but only because I've chosen to do so.?ÿ Attempts to get my attention for non-critical matters via email don't work well.
From my perspective -- which may or may not be representative -- the return on investment in The Cut Sheet isn't there, despite the good intentions and considerable effort involved.
I also check in here daily, so the newsletter is not always opened but I noticed the RinexDates reference, that was cool!
Christof.
Thank you for the honest feedback (and the compliments, too!) -- I always know that the cool folks here will always give me real feedback without the fluff. I truly appreciate that and it's exactly what I was hoping for.
When reviewing the size of the list, opens and clicks statistics, it is a bit of a mixed bag, so hard to decide one way or another. But I can say that I was leaning toward maybe trying to find a better way to use my time to work on Surveyor Connect. I've gotten some really good feedback from people just replying to the newsletters, saying how much they like it. But at the same time, I have to look at whether it is effective or not (and how much compared to time spent working on it). I think having 30+ issues sent out so far is a large enough sampling to make decisions.
I need to continue it at least until mid-June, since I have Trimble advertising in that space (once per month).
I do have an alternate plan though, to keep a newsletter going, but in a different way. I've found a service that will aggregate the latest surveying-related posts in the forum plus external news articles, then all I have to do is pick the ones I want to send out. Then it will create a newsletter and send it for me. Pretty neat system with little time requirements on my side of things while still enjoying the benefits of the newsletter (both for the readers and for the website itself).
The time saved will allow me to maybe find other marketing channels. I do want SC to continue to grow, but only with legit users that are surveyors or very interested in surveying. I'm proud of the quality membership numbers we have and I want to keep it that way. Even if it means having smaller overall numbers than others in the same space. It's not about the quantity, it's about the quality.
So, anyway, thanks to all for helping in this research! I appreciate you!
@wendell The newsletter is a good reminder for me to check in with SC, I might not do it every week, but for me it serves a good purpose.
