Making your newsletter a two way street

There’s a real mixture out there of what you get from joining a blog’s subscription list. The most basic ones simply deliver an email with a list of the recent posts. The more sophisticated send out a monthly newsletter with additional content and information. And then there are some which are simply a sales funnel, delivering a series of autoresponders offering various products.

However you’re set up, this post is about making what you send into a conversation rather than simply a broadcast. But first, I’ll share with you my strategy for my mailing list.

Subscribers get four types of contact from me:

1/ Every 12 posts they get a simple email which gives links to those last 12 posts. This is for those who prefer to receive an email reminder, as opposed to using an RSS feed.

2/ I send out a personal email every ten days or so. I share my thoughts, what I’ve been doing and try to add stuff of value in a conversational format. It’s quite personal, and the people on that list are getting the real deal about my life and ups and downs.

3/ They get an autoresponder series that sends them an email every three weeks in a sequence. Half of these are pure “value” – free books, some great blogging ideas I’ve come across and some free resources I’ve found. The other half are gentle pitches to let them know about my products, as well as a couple I recommend.

4/ They occasionally get a broadcast email from me if I hear something interesting, or want to support someone else’s product launch to my readers.

In summary, around a third of the contact is selling, with two thirds giving or sharing, which feels about right to me, and I’ve applied this formula to our travel blog as well.

But now we get to the point of this post. A few months ago I started doing something different with the personal emails that go out. I started asking questions. And people responded!

It had a major impact on my relationship with people, I saw a massive increase in open rates, greatly increased blog comments, and the whole thing started to feel like a community.

Let me give you an example. Five days ago a personal email went out to the travel blog subscribers. I told them about what we’d got up to over Christmas, what the weather had been like here, and how the economy was starting to pick up. Then I finished with the question: “When are you planning your next trip to the island?” So far, a fraction under 20% of the people on that list have come back to me. We know when they’re going to be here, we’ve arranged to meet some for coffee, and in June we’ll do a tweet up as there are a lot of people here, and we’ve even been invited to a 40th birthday party!

The same happens when I pose questions on this blog – people come back to me, and we develop a much deeper, more meaningful relationship as a result.

There is a downside of course. It means a lot of emails, and a lot of work. But no one said it was going to be easy to create a real community.

Ask questions. Don’t broadcast. Start a conversation. What do you think?

Here are some more you may like:

1/ Dear CEO of the company spamming my blog

2/ Eight barter tips for bloggers

3/ Eight tips to overcome a lack of motivation as a blogger

Gordie Rogers said about Beyond Blogging:

“Beyond Blogging is of those rare books that actually lives up to and even surpasses the hype. A great book for anyone looking to make a living online or just create a strong online presence. It’s going to be the book of 2010 for bloggers and Internet marketers.”