Know Your Readers, Nurture Your Newsletter: A Polling Strategy + Downloadable Guide

Use these poll questions to refine your reader persona and strengthen audience connection | 🌙 Paid members can download the full Reader Connection Blueprint in the Digital Resource Library

I want you to know your readers.

Really, truly know them.

Because when writers create from a place of relational connection and nurturing, the pressure cooker of performing for likes, algorithms, and publishers tends to dissolve away.

We create more soulfully and strategically.

Of course, like any relationship, understanding our readers takes time, care, attention, and nurturing.

One way we can intentionally learn about readers is by building a reader persona—a composite sketch of the people engaging with our newsletters. And while there are many ways to gather the insights that shape a reader persona, this month, I’ve focused on equipping you to start publishing polls in your newsletter.

But there’s always more to learn.

That’s why I’m wrapping up this month by sharing poll questions you can keep asking all year long.

A Deeper Dive: The Reader Connection Blueprint

These poll questions are designed with my Reader Connection Blueprint in mind — my in-depth guide to understanding your audience on a deeper level.

📖 Paid members: You now have access to this guide inside the Digital Resource Library. You can download it now as part of your membership.

💡 Not a member? You can still grab the Reader Connection Blueprint as a one-time purchase for $50, or upgrade to full membership for $99/year and unlock this guide plus my entire resource library.

In this guide, I explore why every author and newsletter creator needs to know their readers — and how a reader persona becomes an invaluable tool for tracking this ever-evolving knowledge.

→ If you’d like to own the guide, you can purchase it for $50 here.

→ If you’re ready for full access to my entire resource library, upgrade for $99 here.

Paid members: Inside your copy of The Reader Connection Blueprint, you’ll find a blank reader persona template to fill in. Here’s what a completed one can look like.

Today’s post is a companion piece to this digital guide, designed to help you start building out your own reader persona. (Of course, you don’t have to use the reader persona template I designed to implement the poll questions I share below the paywall — but the guide and the questions were intentionally designed to work together, and I’m confident it will help you organize and deepen your understanding of your audience.)

What’s below the paywall?

These aren’t basic questions. I’m not writing out standard-issue demographic questions like “Where do you live?” or “What’s your age range?” (My readers are astute enough to write those on their own.)

These are relational and behavioral questions designed to get into who your reader group really is — and what motivates them to read your newsletter.

How can I use these questions?

I understand and honor the nuance that every newsletter creator brings to their work and how they connect with their audience. And perhaps you’re someone who doesn’t want to be polling their readers month over month. So here are a few different ways you could use these poll questions:

1. Design a month of posts around one theme below and ask one question per essay to fill in one or two sections of the persona. (And then take a break from polling for several months!)

2. You could ask a series of questions once a quarter in a themed essay that reflects on your readers’ lived experiences.

3. You might design a large survey twice a year to gather this information and create a survey party (with giveaways and thank-you’s).

Whichever combination feels right for you, I’m confident that these questions will be a great starting point to start learning about your audience. And that as you do this intentional reader-learning work, the creativity and connection inside your newsletter will also begin to blossom.

Most of these poll questions are below the paywall

Of course, I do need to share a caveat before you start using these questions …

I get quite nervous whenever I share a long list of poll questions like this — because it’s always a bit creatively risky.

I know how tempting it can be to just copy/paste a resource and move on, so here’s my user guideline for this resource…

You absolutely must bring your creativity, heart and soul into these questions for your audience.

→ You must tweak them to match your tone of voice.

→ You must know the questions that don’t really apply to your readers — and throw them out!

Because if the questions do not sound like you or reflect what your audience has been trying to tell you about themselves, readers will be staring at generic, uninspiring poll questions — and you won’t get the insights you really need.

OK, now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s look at these poll questions.

1. Demographics

Demographics are an important part of your reader persona. In newsletter writing, I find that basic demographics don’t help us as much during the building years. So I want to encourage you (if you’re starting from a smaller audience) to learn more about demographic-adjacent attributes.

Poll Ideas:

• Where are you most likely to open this newsletter?
  Options: At home, on my commute, during lunch break, in bed at night, etc.

• Which best describes your vibe?
  Options: Busy professional, creative explorer, lifelong learner, juggling it all, etc.

• If your life had a tagline, what would it be?
  Options: “Work hard, play harder,” “Chasing dreams,” “Taking it day by day,” “Something else (I’ll share!).”

Purpose: These questions will help you identify patterns in your audience’s daily routines, lifestyles and interests, which you can use to tailor your essay posts and upgrade invitation tone. (There’s a time and place for asking basic demographic questions, too, as your newsletter grows. These questions above are designed to also get just a bit “below the surface” on demographics.)