We’ve only gone and bloody done it!

We’ve already made it through the first quarter of 2025 – time flies when you’re having fun (and writing newsletters and watching the stock market crash)!

It’s been a few months since our last check-in, a yearly review in December 2024, but now feels like the perfect time to reassess. Why, I hear you ask.

WE JUST HIT 1,000 NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIBERS  🎉

When we began this journey, I mentioned that one of my key goals was to reach 1000 subscribers after reading Kevin Kelly’s inspiring viral blog “1000 True Fans", which is essential reading for anyone in sales or entrepreneurship. Although 1000 subscribers isn’t a massive milestone in the grand scheme, we are still quite pleased.

Another goal we promised from the outset was to keep you in the loop on how Irish Insights is growing. In this update, we’ll cover:

• 📊 Crunching the Numbers – the latest subscriber stats and engagement metrics

• 👍 The Good and the Not-So-Good – what went well, and what could be better

• 🚀 Plans for Q2 – how we’re tweaking and improving things moving forward

But first, a huge thank you to all of you. 🙏 Whether you’re a new subscriber or have been with us since day one, your support means the world. Seeing this community of Irish tech enthusiasts grow and engage with our content is fantastic. Your feedback and shares motivate us to improve each week.

Go raibh maith agat! (Thank you!) Now, let’s dive into the update.

📊 Crunching the Numbers

Time to break out the abacus and see how we’ve fared in the last 90 days:

• Subscriber Growth: we’ve gained around 300 new subscribers this quarter, bringing our total to 1012! That's a 200 subscriber jump compared to our previous September quarter (~100), with new subscriber velocity increasing MoM since the new year.

• Email Engagement: We're seeing a 57.18% open rate, down from our 60.66% average over the last 12 months. Our click-through rate is 7.34% (down 9.3% from 8.09% last year) but still well above industry standards.

• The bright side? Impressions are through the roof at 18,362 – a massive 390% increase from 3,745 over the past year! Only 18 people unsubscribed this quarter, a tiny 0.21% of all emails sent.

• Top Growth Sources: Word-of-mouth and LinkedIn dominate our growth. 165 sign-ups came directly through shares, while LinkedIn brought in ~132 new readers. Organic search contributed just five sign-ups. Our community continues to be our best marketing tool!

• LinkedIn Community: Our LinkedIn presence has exploded to 2,349 followers, with 706 new followers in the last 211 days! We've seen several notable spikes in follower growth, particularly in early September, when we hit a peak of nearly 130 new followers in a single day.

👍 The Good and the Not-So-Good

The Good: 

We had some standout content that resonated with you. The “How Ireland Became a Sports Tech Powerhouse” issue led the pack with about a 66% open rate, our highest of the quarter. 🏅

Other fan-favourites included the intriguingly titled “Alpaca Joe” and the tongue-in-cheek “Ireland’s AI Minister Has Never Used AI.” Which had a stonking Click-through rate of 11%. These editions got people talking and clicking – proving that a mix of quirky and insightful content keeps things interesting.

Our recent analytical deep dive, which analysed 500 Irish investment professionals abroad, received considerable positive feedback, and we will produce more of these data-driven reports in the next quarter.:

Interstingly, they also served as a tremendous growth driver as we put together a super personalised outreach campaign to let the people featured in the data set know about the article. If you were a part of the outreach and are reading this, thanks for subscribing 😅:

The Not-So-Good: 

We've noticed a trend in our LinkedIn performance. After hitting an impressive peak of 65,570 impressions on September 8, our content reach has steadily declined. Our organic impressions (160,583) remain substantial, but the downward trajectory is clear.

The culprit? Our posting schedule has slipped significantly—a casualty of that tricky old foe called life. Our consistent content calendar took a hit between work commitments, personal obligations, and the general chaos of the past few months.

🚀 Plans for Q2

Here’s how we plan to address the not-so-good bits and build on our successes:

• Content Mix & Formatting: Based on interviews with 10 engaged subscribers, we learned you value our newsletter as a curation tool. You appreciate having multiple relevant stories to choose from, which has guided recent changes to our fortnightly insights format. We'll focused on making content skimmable, ensuring Irish Insights works for both thorough readers and quick scanners.

• Want to Get Involved? We're expanding our team! If you're passionate about promoting Irish innovation globally, let us know in our survey. We welcome contributors for news, articles, or other support to help grow Irish Insights.

• Referral programme, we’ve created a referral programme to incentivise you to share the newsletter with your buddies. We are going with a Father-Ted theme. In true Ted style, the referral incentives are currently resting in our account, but we will get the prizes sorted soon. You can check out the referral programme down below 👇👇👇 Go on, go on, go on...

  

Most of all, we’re reminded that we’re not alone in this journey. Irish Insights isn’t just “our” newsletter anymore; it’s yours as well. Each of you – through your opens, clicks, feedback, and shares – has shaped this newsletter and its becoming. And for that, we are incredibly grateful.

Here’s to smashing that 10K subscriber milestone next (and a nice meme as a thank you)! 🚀☘️

🔗 Share irish insights

You currently have 0 referrals, only 1 away from receiving The Golden Refferric Award 🏆.

Or copy and paste this link to others: https://irish-insights.beehiiv.com/subscribe?ref=PLACEHOLDER