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In email marketing there is always the careful balance of your needs vs your reader’s needs. In order for the experience to be satisfactory, both of you need to be getting something out of it. What if you could give your reader more of what they wanted? The trick here is figuring out what they want. Asking is a great option, but feedback isn’t always the easiest thing in the world to get, especially if people don’t have anything to complain about. A generally happy customer can’t always tell you the ways in which you could improve your offerings. Here’s a good exercise that can help you to start thinking in terms of the reader experience. In this exercise, focus on your ideal readers, those who are engaged and interactive. After all, you want to be writing for the type of reader you want, right?

Make a list of the qualities your ideal readers possess. You can get as detailed as you like here, and the more details you provide the more you have to work with.

Look at your list and make some basic statements about the type of reader that you think is ideal. Create a character sketch in your head of that reader.

Make a list of everything that the reader would want in a newsletter. The key to being successful with this step is that you must use only the criteria of the character sketch to fill out this list. Leave yourself out of it.
Now, look at the list you made in Step 3. Is that the newsletter you send out? What differences do you see in how you handle email marketing and what your readers might wish for?

Answer the questions of what the ideal reader wants vs what you have send and you have some great new ideas for improving your email newsletter.