Hi, I'm Deidre. In my posts, I talk about my voyage down the road of self-employment as a website copywriter, my achievements and roadblocks along the way, and what I’m learning as I go (with Marketing Mentor as my guide).

I never expected that sending an e-newsletter could result in actual work – but it does! And although it’s exciting to see high open rates, I realized that the most jobs don’t necessarily come from the highest open rates.

Puzzling, right? Here’s what happened:

Since I started my newsletter, my goal has been to create something easy to read, while and adding some personality to it. I wrote 4 fun un-newsletters that had very high open rates, as follows:

• My embarrassing (yet sincere) musical pursuits – 64.3% open rate
• Officer, I'm not playing it safe – 57.8% open rate
• Typing is hard with nine fingers – 59.3% open rate
• The cutest sneeze I ever heard – 58.3% open rate

Then, in my latest issue, Stinky copy? 9 ways to tell your client, I sent out arguably more useful content targeted exactly for my main audience, web designers. They always ask me how they can convince their clients to use a professional copywriter. So I answered the question in my newsletter.

It got a 49% open rate, my lowest to date. But are open rates the only way to gauge a newsletter’s success? Definitely not.

Each time I sent an issue out, I got awesome responses. Some said, “Cool newsletter,” and some even said “Can you help me with this project?” (I love opening the lines of communication!)

My 4 fun un-newsletters resulted in lots of nice comments, and sometimes even an actual job.

My boring/useful newsletter (Stinky copy?) resulted in 3 actual jobs.

It could be a coincidence, or maybe it’s just timing, but when I told Ilise, she said, “See, speaking right to your audience has its advantages.”

Some people are saying newsletters aren’t effective anymore. What do you think?