Know your audience, but how?
My simple process to having one-on-one calls with subscribers
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Iām having one-on-one calls with Newsletter Circle readers!
Everybody says, āKnow your audienceā, but very few mention HOW to do this.
So, Iāve decided to create my own process.
I posted about this on LinkedIn last week, and it got so much attention that I decided to share a bit more details here.
How did I decide to talk to my subscribers?
After building Newsletter Circle for a year and studying successful newsletters, it was time to level up. I want to create useful resources and meaningful revenue streams to turn it into a solid business.
But with so many ideas floating around ā courses, communities, case studies, paid membership ā I was stuck.
There is a lot to talk about and a lot of paths, but I couldnāt manage to decide which one to take. After an honest discussion with myself, I confessed the obvious truth:
I didnāt have enough information about my audience.
So, I started with knowing what I didnāt know.
I always said I write for newsletter creators & enthusiasts, but is that too broad? I needed specifics: who reads my content? Are they newbies or veterans, or both? What are their pain points and needs?Ā
I knew that figuring this out would shape who I interview, what I write about, and which products I ultimately create.
What exactly do I need to learn?
To make my thinking more structured, I listed three main questions that I desperately need to get answers to make iterations and further develop Newsletter Circle:
Who am I writing to?
What do they like / not like about my content?
What are their main struggles with newsletters?
The answers to these questions will help me:
craft a well-defined target audience persona
ensure product-market fit
create relevant products
How did I schedule the calls and get prepared?
After identifying the problem and the questions, I created a simple action plan.
First, I sent out a mini survey where I asked about:
whether the respondent has a newsletter or has any intention to start one
the size of the newsletter and the biggest challenges for the ones who have a newsletter
social media accounts
Then, I started to book 15-minutes calls starting with survey respondents.
Having the survey answers beforehand helped me to prepare for each call by knowing where to focus and keeping the discussion as short as possible.
After reaching out to all survey respondents, I continue with VIP subscribers, as how I call them. This segment, which Iāve already been following separately on Beehiiv, has an average open rate of over 85% and a click rate of 12%. So, theyāre already highly familiar with my content and have strong opinions about it.
Numeric objectives
So far, Iāve booked 27 calls in total and had 20 of them.
My objective is to have 100 calls. I believe this number is sizeable enough to generate insights to shape my strategy.
Whatās next?
The process has been enlightening so far. I've already started identifying strategic shifts I need to make.
Plus, it is amazing to meet and talk to fellow creators.
As newsletter creators, we're building communities beyond numbers and metrics. It's empowering to remember I'm writing for real people!
Iām really grateful for anyone who has joined the calls so far.
Now, I continue with reach-outs and also prepare a small thank-you gift. I should have done this before, but I got so excited about the idea of having these calls that I couldnāt wait to start more.
I'm excited about what's to come and will share the entire process in detail once it's complete.
š Do you want to reach 2,000 newsletter creators & enthusiasts?
Thatās all for today. Thanks for reading.
See you next week.
Ciler
š P.S. Iāve switched from Substack over to Beehiiv (here). But donāt worry; you donāt need to do anything; I will manually add you to my Beehiiv list if you subscribe here. This is just for you to know :)
And donāt worry; you will receive the new issues only from ācilerdemiralp.beehiiv.comā, no duplications.