Engagement Starts With Asking

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I asked everyone who receives my email newsletter for their opinion yesterday. So far, almost 600 people have replied (there are another 147 downloading to my inbox this morning). I am so thrilled with the response, which is about 10% (think about that for a moment: I’m pleased that 10% replied – most open and response rates are even lower!). But how does that come about? If you’re email marketing, how do you go from pushing out content to building relationships?

In my case, I shoot for being as personal as I can. I write as if I’m writing only to you. I ask you questions where I’m genuinely interested in your answer. It’s the only way I know how to do it. I can’t imagine just lobbing news.

But there are other ways to get it done. Peter Shankman has HARO, (Help A Reporter Out), where he’s built a place for several people to ask for help. The people receiving the letter (like me) scan it to see if they can be helpful. It’s a really clever little system.

In all our efforts to reach out to people and do business, sometimes the magic formula is no harder than this:

Ask a question you really want to hear answers to, and then respond.

The trick is knowing that the people receiving your communications really care about the information you’re sharing. But then, that’s another whole conversation, isn’t it?

Where are you engaged? How do people get you connected to them?