Next Tuesday we will be in September. Labour Day will be past. For me this is a milestone. It has nothing to do with the summer being over or the fact that I was able to shed my 18 hour work days for a few weeks to focus on family and friends (though it probably should).
It has to do with this Tuesday Morning Commentary. Next Tuesday will mark a full year of writing the Tuesday Morning Commentaries. Yes, 52 consecutive weeks. I never missed one. It was important to see if I could deliver on it and actually do it weekly. I have issues with not doing things right. I fear that one day someone will notice that our quarterly newsletter, The Sponsorship Update has only been published 4 times in one year once! All the other years we only get it out three times a year. Yikes it is out!
So I decided that I would test myself to see if there was enough content for weekly commentaries and enough time in my 80 hour work week to write this commentary each week. If that could be mastered I would continue, if not I would alter to be bi-weekly or even monthly.
So where am I today? Yes I met the time factor. I did write 52 weekly commentaries. They always went out on Tuesday morning and before 8 am! So that was accomplished. What about content? Man there is enough content. Between what I hear and see combined with my own opinionated thoughts and ideas there is definitely enough content. I have a list of topics still to write about. So that is a check mark. We have the content and time availability. There is another criterion. Does anyone read this? Am I just typing to say I write a column or do people actually read this stuff and care about it? My wife is still bewildered. She constantly asks or comments (because I am pretty sure it is a rhetorical question when she asks it) “who would read what you write anyway?”
I figured some people read the commentary. Each week I get about 10-12 emails back with everything from “I look forward to reading this every Tuesday, it makes my week” to “we signed up my boss who now gets this, he knows nothing about sponsorship and this is such a big help because he reads it every week. You are making our lives so much better with these commentaries, please keep them up” to “you are an idiot, you don’t know what you are talking about” (a few of those every once in a while when I creep too close to someone’s comfort zone and they think I am talking about them specifically) to “great perspective” or “great information, please keep this up” to just other people’s thoughts and takes.
I then looked at it and said “10-12 people are reading it. Is that worth my time?” I know when it is really controversial I get 25-30 emails, but normally it is 10-12. So I went to my trusty email system tracking on Constant Contact. This was the clincher! Each week the Tuesday Morning Commentary lands in 4000+ e-mail boxes. Each week nearly 1000 people or nearly 25% of our entire data base open and read the commentary. Some open it multiple times, some pass it on. I am told a 10%-12% open rate is very good. We have almost doubled that. Man that scared me!
So yes, the answer is yes. We will attempt another 52 weeks. We may even add this to a blog or something at some point.
What I wanted to really do though was say thank you to you! Yes you. If you read this far you are one of the almost 1000 people a week who read this. Thank you for your feedback over the past year for those who have emailed back. Thank you for continuing to open and read. Thank you for being interested in the world of sponsorship outside your own organization. YOU have made my year. Thank you.
This is one person’s thoughts. Yours are welcomed as well, so please email me at brent@partnershipgroup.ca and thank you for reading.
Brent Barootes
President
Partnership Group – Sponsorship Specialists
Office: 403-255-5074
Toll Free: 888-588-9550