The Big Newsletter Survey – Surprising Results and Insights!

Posted 27 April, 2013 by Danny in Blog, Danny, Discussion / 7 Comments

You remember a few weeks ago we talked all about Newsletters, Feeds and this kind of things? I had this big survey where I wanted to know my readers better and .. now finally I have the results:))

Also, starting today you all should get the new Newsletter!!! Wooot!! It took me some time to figure everything out and I hope desperately that everyone gets it correctly! If you have any problems please let me know so that I can fix it!! And.. I hope you love the new prettier look as much as I do….!

and a BIG THANK you to Ashley from Nose Graze (former Book Nook) because without Ashley, I wouldn’t have been able to figure some things out. She was phenomenal and fixed all the things that didn’t work.. THANK you!! Love you girl!!

But now,  let’s have a closer look at the Results from my Survey! 

 

Part 1 Email and Newsletters

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I was actually surprised to see how many people subscribe via email even though it’s just for their favorite Blogs! Only a small part does always subscribe via Email.

Next I wanted to know  how important it is to deliver a full post in a newsletter

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30% of all people want a full post and think that this is something super important!! Actually, I expected this to be more people to be honest.

Next, I had a very important question and wanted to know if people would unsubscribe if only an excerpt is delivered instead of the full post and the result was super surprising! 

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Even though 30% said that a full post is super important only 18% would really unsubscribe!! That is interesting and actually tells me that if I would really go and decide to deliver only excerpt I wouldn’t lose too many people. Still, even 18% are lots of people and… I wouldn’t really want to lose them. so It’s save to say that an Email should have the full post if you want to make everyone happy!

So how many people actually come from an newsletter and visit your blog? 

What many of us do not realize is, that whenever someone reads your post in an email, you are not getting any pageviews if the reader is not actually visiting your blog. And in times of statistics and pageviews this is rather important!!

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Well, this is rather hard to translate and it’s a little sad that only 8% come to your blog every time. Still, it does makes sense and I’m definitely among the ones that go to a blog “whenever I like the content”. I might not always comment, but at least I read the post on the blog rather than in the feed or mail!

Part II Feed Subscriptions

Emails are just one way to subscribe to a blog, most people only subscribe to the feed. But, we have the same options, we can only deliver an excerpt and thereby “forcing” the readers to come to your blog.

So, I asked a similar question and wanted to know how important it is to deliver full feeds? 


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A very big majority thinks a full post is an absolute must have!! This is actually exactly as I expected. People want to read posts fully on their reader before they decide to go to your blog or not. By delivering an excerpt you are probably not getting more hits but rather get more people annoyed with you!

So, how many people click to come to your blog? 

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Interestingly, more people who read a feed come directly to our blog when compared to the Email readers! 23% come directly and read our post in their natural environment:)

So now the big question, would people unsubscribe if you deliver excerpts? 

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This absolutely clear, many people would unsubscribe and not read your blog anymore, and more than 50% would unsubscribe if your blog is not among their favorites! That is a lot and tells me to never, ever limit my feed to only an excerpt. I wouldn’t dare loosing all those people just because I wanted more pageviews. I think in the end, I would rather lose pageviews than gain ones!

Note to everyone: My question about the interest of a weekly newsletter should in no way imply that I would NOT deliver daily mails anymore. A weekly newsletter would only be an additional option! Don’t worry!

Some interesting comments in the survey:

  • If you post excerpts into the blog feed/newsletter I tend to ignore the entire post. I follow 180+ blogs and I only have a few seconds to decide if I am going to read further. 
  • It always drives me nuts when I’m trying to get the RSS code and the link takes me directly to a subscription host instead – I want to put the link into a separate software program, and if I don’t have the exact address of the feed, I can’t subscribe!
  • I find myself more likely to go to the blog after having read the whole post in a RSS feed. If it only has an excerpt I’m more likely to just scroll through it.
  • I strongly dislike excerpts, I much prefer when the whole post is included.

 

Here a comment PRO Excerpts! 

  • I’d love excerpts because I usually just see what the post is about and click on the link to your site if it’s something I’m interested in.

So, what do you think about all these information now? Are you surprised by some results? Do you now rethink the way you deliver a feed? Or .. maybe you now want to set up a newsletter yourself? 

I’m excited to hear your thoughts about this and I wanted to thank every one of you again for filling out this survey and to help me figure out how to deal with my feed and my Emails Newsletters!

I’m now certain that I will never ever switch to excerpts and that I value all my Subscribers and the way to make everyone happy is to deliver daily and always with a full post!

Much Love,

danny Siggy

P.S. : Winner of the $10 amazon gift card is Paperback Princess! I’m going to contact you very soon! Thanks to everyone!

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7 Responses to “The Big Newsletter Survey – Surprising Results and Insights!”

  1. I LOVE THIS POST! You’re awesome for compiling all these results. Seeing survey results is like my biggest guilty pleasure in the universe.

    I think most of the results are about what I expected, and most of the majorities fit in with my own opinions!

    Love the new newsletter! 🙂
    Ashley recently posted..Stacking the Shelves (49) – Samsung Galaxy S4 EditionMy Profile

    Reply »

    Danny 4/27/2013

    Yes I also liked seeing these results and most of them didn’t completely surprise me. Still! It gives me a good feeling about what I do and what I shouldn’t do;-)

    Oh and did you get the newsletter alright? I’m a little nervous today to be honest ;-))

    Reply »

  2. Danny fascinating results and I’m glad you did such a survey. I’m just unsure though, what do you mean by excerpts? I currently use the Blogger default for subscribe via email and I use Feedburner for my RSS subscription on my blog, where do I choose whether I should include full post or excerpts?

    I’m one of those people that subscribe via email when it’s a favourite blog only because I use Gmail and archive posts that I think I’ll refer to in the future which not many RSS feed readers really do, well anyway. I always do click on the link to read it on the blog, I’ve always done this before I knew statistics, the only reason is because:-

    a) easier to comment if I decide to comment
    b) I love looking at the blog designs LOL

    Danny, what newsletter app did you use? I’d love to deliver a newsletter to my subscribers. Is there a way for the RSS subscription to give your RSS address because like I said, mine is the default Blogger one and it only goes to Feedburner with the most used RSS feed apps but there aren’t many choices there so I maybe eliminating some of my readers that do want to subscribe via RSS but use an RSS client that’s not listed.

    Looking forward to your replies 😀

    Reply »

  3. I get your emails but I also subscribe to you through Google Reader and Blog Lovin’. I shouldn’t miss a post! lol But I don’t remember a newsletter from you.
    Maybe it was something separate I had to sign up for? Also I haven’t been getting my emails. Did you clear my name off the list?

    My preference is to have the full post in either the email or reader. I’m going to click through and comment if I take time to read it so it will register but you do make an interesting point about statistics. Just shows how we shouldn’t be judged by our numbers.

    Great post! You always have such great ideas!!
    Heather @ Buried in Books recently posted..The Eternity Cure by Julie Kagawa- ReviewMy Profile

    Reply »

    Danny 4/30/2013

    Did you get my mails before and now you don’t? I just switched my email settings but I can check if you’re on the list. But if you subscribed via email you should get an email ever day with the newest post.

    And don’t get me started on bloglovin there my blog hasn’t been updated for a week! I’m so furiois!!

    Reply »

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