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Easy and effective relationship building in your newsletter.

By: Martin Avis

Or ... how to build a relationship with your mailing list.

Building a relationship with a largely anonymous list of people who have randomly subscribed to your ezine or newsletter sounds like a hard challenge. In fact, it is much easier than you may think. Of course, you'll need to demonstrate a few character traits in the things you write. For example, you won't get far unless your honesty and ethics are unquestionable. Reliability and trust are the foundation of any good relationship and you'll need to build on them with charm and empathy for your reader's feelings. Add in a generous sprinkle of outspokenness and the ability to keep your writing newsworthy and current and you have a winning combination. Not all of these factors come naturally to everyone, but learning them is vital.

Let's concentrate here on the key factors that I believe you can learn that will set your writing apart from 99% of the rest, and give you a head start in building relationships with your readers. These are the things you can put into action from today.

The secret to building a great relationship with your list is to stop thinking about the people you write to as a list. Nobody builds relationships with lists - only with people. One to one.

Kickstart Today, the newsletter I've been writing for years, is read by thousands of subscribers, but every single paragraph is, in my mind at least, written to just one person. It may be a reader who asked a question. Sometimes it is a close friend who I imagine is sitting in front of me. Next issue it may even be you.

There are hundreds of other people who have written to me over the years and told me what they like and dislike, what their problems are and what they need to know. So when I'm writing about a particular subject it is easy for me to imagine that I'm writing it for that one specific person.

The strange thing is that the better you succeed at addressing one person in your writing the more you'll get emails from other people asking how you knew exactly what they wanted to hear. Your writing will resonate because there are only so many concerns to go round and by addressing one person's thoughts, you'll appear to be reading the minds of many.

The more you can make your writing appear to be one-to-one, the more of your readers will imagine themselves as the one you are talking to. It is like a whispered aside in a real conversation - it makes the listener feel special.

Well-meaning experts, who often pontificate about online writing techniques, love to trot out a couple of 'truths':

1. Use the words I and Me as infrequently as possible and concentrate on 'you' and 'your'. Readers don't want to hear about you.

2. Sell something to your list every message to 'train' them to be more receptive.

Both are nonsense if building relationships that are what you want to do.

The information that you provide in your writing is only one reason that people read what you have to say. Newsletters that are totally focused on topic tend to be quite boring to read. There is no personality. You can't build a relationship if you write like a text book. It is vital - especially online - to inject yourself and your life into what you write.

In my experience, so long as you are delivering the real information too, you can't talk about yourself and your life enough! I get far more emails about the personal things I write than about the stuff my newsletter is really about - and I love it!

A good newsletter is like a soap opera - it draws the reader into the life of the writer and makes him or her eager to know more.

Subscribers may say that they want the important content and nothing but the important content, but my experience clearly shows that it is the day-to-day life stuff you write about that really connects.

As to trying to sell them stuff every time you write ... well, that is very dangerous unless you can pull it off with a a lot of charm.

Certainly there are newsletters that manage to promote multiple recommendations in every single issue - and a few 'interim' ones besides - but in the main they are from long established writers who have a lot of experience writing to very loyal readers. The vast majority of writers can't manage it without looking desperate, dishonest or lacking in ethics.

In my own newsletters, I've always stuck to the principle that I only recommend things I've used myself and can honestly say are worth the money. If that means I only recommend something every few weeks, so be it. At least my readers know that the recommendations, when they do come, are heartfelt. And I believe my response rates bear out my policy!

How often you publish is another thing that can affect relationship building and should be thought about carefully.

It is hard to build a close relationship with your readers if you don't get to talk to them very often. It is tough to allow your readers to get to know you if you only 'speak' to them once a month, for example. As everything moves so fast online, even weekly publication can be too little unless you are a powerful writer.

Once the writing bug gets to you and words begin to flow naturally, you may want to consider publishing at least twice a week. My own Kickstart Today started out life as a five times a week publication and the biggest complaints I ever got was when I reduced to 'just' three times a week!

I still get dozens of emails whenever I skip an issue!

Of course, if your newsletter is full of other people's writing and doesn't have a personal style, then very frequent publication may be a bad thing for you.

On that subject, a lot of publishers still use guest articles. While that isn't necessarily a bad thing, the best writing by far that you can publish is your own. As you build your relationship with your readers they will want to hear about you, your life and what you think. If you are going to effectively give them that, you just have to get on and learn to write. Or more accurately, learn to communicate.

And while we are talking about writing, try to unlearn most of what you've been taught about grammar. You are not writing for your English teacher, you should be writing like you are talking to a close friend.

Write conversationally, using conversational grammar (sentences CAN start with and, contractions are better than okay!)

Which brings us right back to the beginning - when you sit down to write, every paragraph that leaves your fingers is a conversation with one person who is sitting in front of you. An old friend, not a list. Relationship building has nothing to do with lists, it is about reaching one person at a time.

Article Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com

About the Author:
Subscribe to Kickstart Today and we'll build our relationship right away! Kickstart Today inspires and motivates your day. From famous quotations to the latest news from the world of Interenet marketing. From personal development tips to reviews of the latest movies - straight from me to you.
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