Good morning! Thanks for being here. You readers are pretty special. It’s been an amazing year, and I’m grateful for every one of you. This week’s newsletter goes out to you, the readers, who make this work both possible and worth it!

(If this email was forwarded to you and you'd like to receive this weekly newsletter, sign up below!)

Move to Improve’s 2023 Year in Review

54,400 words! That’s a lot of time spent involved in my passion, and I’m grateful I got to share those words with you. It means so much that you read them.

Also proud that I don’t believe a single typo or grammatical error has slipped through my editing eagle eyes. (Knock on wood that doesn’t happen in this week’s newsletter!) No shade, but that’s better than Morning Brew, the king of newsletters. 👑 

We started on January 11, and this is the 48th post. I can already look back on my first articles compared to now and see the growth in my writing and expression. The first few newsletters are truly about the foundations of Move to Improve’s philosophy, so if you’d like to revisit them, click the links below!

Subscriber Growth

For spending probably 97% of my time on writing, editing, and publishing and all the rest on actual growth, social media, and marketing, that’s not bad!

Of course I’d love to have more subscribers by now, but for the amount I post on social media to promote subscriber acquisition (it’s not much), I’m pretty proud of this little community we’ve built.

In 2024, I hope to continue exponential growth. I’m considering upgrading my Beehiiv (this newsletter platform) account to a paid version that will have many more features that make growth easier, including a subscriber referral program. *cue “oohs” and “ahhs” from the audience*

Of course, a paid plan would give me more buy-in and probably incentivize me to spend more time on both quality and growth. But that does require funding. Sooo, if you’d like to talk sponsorship, hit me up. 😁 

Top Articles

These were all very fun posts to write, and I’m happy to see that you all enjoyed them, too! Sometimes I wonder if it’s really just all in the subject line, or if there’s more to a topic/post style that is most appealing to readers. If you have any thoughts or feedback on what posts you like best and are most beneficial to you, please reply and let me know! My inbox is always open!

And here are links to those three posts, in case you’d like to revisit them.

Opens & Click Throughs

An open rate of ~57% is actually pretty incredible for emails. Most senders are thrilled if they’re over 50%, so I’m very happy with this number. It means I have engaged readers—aka you’re the best!

A click-through rate of ~5% is pretty good, too, especially considering I usually am not incorporating a call to action that asks for clicks, anyway. Most links are just in my recommendations section or asking you to share the newsletter.

• A quick note if you want to help pad my stats: Opens mean a lot for an email! So if you ever see one that doesn’t seem to interest you one week, or you just don’t have time to read it, simply opening the email (whether you read it or not) rather than deleting or leaving it unread, is a great way to support the newsletter!

What’s in store for 2024?

I hope the quality of my newsletters has always been high. I plan to keep it that way and continue to refine my writing.

I’d love to solicit more feedback from readers on topics you want to hear about! Please always feel free to send me topic recommendations. Maybe one day we’ll do a reader mailbag edition where I answer reader questions!

We’re also aiming for growth in the new year. Now that I’ve got a solid year of writing repertoire under my belt, we’ve got some credibility as a newsletter. I hope to build on that and really engage in promotion across platforms. If I upgrade to a paid plan, I will certainly enable the reader referral program and incentivize you accordingly! 😉 

Speaking of growth, monetization would be great! That has to come after we’ve built a considerable audience size first, so hopefully as we grow our community, there will be more opportunities for partnerships, sponsored posts, affiliate programs, etc. I do still have a full-time job, after all, so I only have so much time to dedicate to this while it’s still in the startup phase!

Another exciting potential endeavor on the horizon is personal health coaching! I’ve increasingly thought about pursuing this in tandem with Move to Improve. I hope to pilot some personal coaching calls and consultations soon to see how this might play out. I don’t think it’s necessarily in the “near” future yet, but it’s a goal I’m increasingly deciding I’d like to aim for!

✅ Take Action

Every newsletter's Take Action section will invite you to take small steps to improve your health. Recognizing that we all have different capabilities, I'll offer three different levels of action you can choose to take.

Level 1: Only one level of action to take today. All I ask is that you click and copy this link and send it to one friend today. Tell them what you enjoy and encourage them to subscribe!

This newsletter is brought to you by… me!

Interested in becoming a sponsor? Know someone else who might be? I’d love to get to know you and/or your business and see how we can partner together. Reply to this email!

✍️ Drew's Picks:

• No picks this week. Just enjoy the holidays :)

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this little behind the curtains peek at how Move to Improve did this year.

I’ll be taking next week off to enjoy the holidays with fam & friends. I’ll see you back in your inbox in 2024! Exciting things ahead! 🥂 

Keep moving,

Drew

The content in Move to Improve is meant to be informative in nature, but it should not be taken as medical advice. It is always a good idea to consult with a trusted health professional before making any major lifestyle changes that could have a significant impact on your health. This is not a medical resource, and any opinions and articles are not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention, and/or treatment of health problems. They are not substitutes for consulting a qualified medical professional. Please think critically and take what I say with a grain of salt (aka don’t sue me).