Easy and effective relationship building in your newsletter.

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

There are lots of factors that help to build that mystical thing called a relationship: honesty, reliability, trustworthiness, charm, empathy, newsworthiness, ethics, outspokenness. But if you don't have them, you may find it hard to learn them. Without them your career as an online writer may be short lived.

However, there are important factors that you can learn to put you ahead of the crowd as far as building great relationships with your readers is concerned. This is my own take on some of them that you can start doing right away.

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.

Right now, for example, I'm imagining that you have asked me a question about building relationships through your writing and I am simply answering you. As your relationship with your readers grows and they write to you with more comments and questions, your need to imagine reduces.

Then, the funny thing is that I get emails from all kinds of other people saying 'how did you know that that was *exactly* what I wanted to hear?' Like astrological star signs there are only so many problems to go round. Write about one and you'll resonate with hundreds of people.

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.

There are two often-repeated bits of advice that you'll hear time and again:

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.

People read your newsletter for the information you can give them to make their lives better/easier/more successful. If that was the only reason they read you, then the I/You ratio of 1:5 that is often quoted would make sense. But the reality is that people do business with people they like and they get to like you by knowing about what is going on in your life.

Many years of writing over 800 editions of my newsletters has taught me that readers expect the core information - the things that your newsletter is supposed to be about - but thoroughly enjoy the real-life stories about family, health and visits to the movies. The stuff that relates to their own lives is what brings in the most response.

A well-written newsletter is a balance between fulfilling its task of educating and informing and entertaining. The very best are like soap operas that make you want to know what is happening next in the writers' life.

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.

You will sometimes find a newsletter writer who has mastered the art of the constant hard sell, but most who try it just end up looking over-eager to grab your money.

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.

Many ezines and newsletters publish monthly - way to infrequently, in my view, for serious relationship building. Even weekly publication can be slow if you are not a strong and personal writer.

As you develop as a writer you'll find it easier to write more often. You don't need to write huge newsletters every time - it is the frequency of contact that matters, not the length of your prose! So long as you are interesting and amusing you can publish every day if you like. Just don't become boring!

When your readers complain that they haven't received an issue, you know that you've made a connection.

It goes without saying that over-use of other people's writing in your newsletter can damage your relationship building if you aren't careful.

Which brings me to content. Many people still think that a newsletter can be a mish-mash of guest articles. I'm sorry to have to tell you that that particular model stopped working well several years ago. Now, your readers want to hear what you think, what you have to say, what your experiences are. And to provide them with that you've got to sit down and learn to write.

Which brings us to another old chestnut: grammar. The grammar you use in your newsletter should have more in common with the conversations you have with your friends than with anything you ever learned at school.

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

Which brings us full circle. Write as you would talk to a close friend who is sitting in front of you. You don't hard sell your friends and you don't worry too much about perfect sentence construction. It is all about communicating a message - and my message to you is that relationship building is only effective when you do it one person at a time.

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