I know Iām not the only person whoās been lured by the siren song of vanity metrics.
I hear it in client coaching sessions and in conversations with creatives. We seek numbers that sound impressive but mean very little.
Audience size has historically been my vanity metric Achillesā heel. Iāve craved more Instagram followers, more TikTok followers, more newsletter subscribers because that would mean Iād made it.
Or, if Iām being 100% truthful, it would mean that other people would think Iād made it.
Thatās why we call them vanity metrics. Theyāre more about aesthetics than utility.
Your job is to figure out what metrics actually matter for your business, your priorities, and your values.
Inner Workout has effectively been off Instagram since October. The platform is having a quarter-life crisis, and I wasnāt seeing an ROI on the time and money we put into our presence there.
Plus, it felt misaligned to be regularly posting content on a platform that was such a time suck when the most common feedback we get from community members is that they donāt feel like they have time for self-care.
I felt comfortable pulling back from Instagram because our newsletter has always been our biggest traffic driver anyway. However, there was still some vanity metric residue in the way I looked at the newsletter. For so long, Iād focused on growing that subscriber number to be as big as it possibly could be. Thatās vanity. Utility is looking at how many people actually read the newsletter.
We were hovering around 30% open rate. Above most industry averages, but not jaw-dropping by any means. Until I did something Iād been avoiding for years. I cleaned out our list. We emailed everyone who hadnāt opened the newsletter in the last six months to let them know weād be removing them from the list in a week unless they told us they wanted to stay.
All in, we deleted over 1,000 subscribers. Now our open rate consistently sits around 43%ādouble the average open rate for all industries. This list cleaning is now a quarterly practice for Inner Workout.
Iād rather have a smaller list thatās engaged with my emails than a larger list that only feeds my ego.
Turns out, my ego was also trying to run the show with my book launch stretch goal: make a bestseller list. Thereās nothing inherently wrong with harboring a pipe dream of becoming a bestseller, but it took a conversation with my publicist, Megan, to show me that it wasnāt necessarily the only way.
She said something like, āPublishers love seeing that you can write a book that has legs.ā
And I felt something open up within me. Sheād unearthed a new goal, one that was less about ego-stroking and more about sustainable impact. I want to write books that have legs. Books that transcend a trend cycle. Books that youāll return to for reference for years to come. Books that youāll recommend to a friend long after the publicity campaign has ended.
New goal: unlocked. š
Wanna work together? I have space to work with three business owners starting in January. I updated the page this week with a testimonial from my client, Kasia, that is far better than any sales copy I could write myself. If youāve got some $$$ to burn in order to reduce your tax burden, this is a fruitful way to do it!
Iām pausing on book launch asks (besides pre-ordering the book!) while I get my ducks in a row. More to come in the new year.