Hit Reply

Look at the last few emails a business sent you. Check who they came from.

A lot of them will say something like noreply@. Some don’t say it, but you can tell. Nobody’s on the other end.

It’s a small detail, but it says a lot. The sender has decided before they hit send that this is a one-way street. They talk, you listen, and if you have something to say, you can go and find a contact form.

That’s a broadcast. And for a business built on community, a broadcast leaves the most useful part out.

A list isn’t the same as a relationship

In The Landlord, I wrote about building a hub you own instead of renting space on someone else’s platform. An email list is a big part of that. Nobody can change the algorithm on your inbox, and no one can take your list away.

But owning a list and having a relationship with the people on it are two different things.

A list is a set of addresses. A relationship is when some of those people write back.

Send it from a person

The first step is the simplest. Send your email from an address a real person reads, and say so.

“If you hit reply, it comes straight to me” is one of the most useful lines you can put in an email. It turns a newsletter into a letter.

Then it has to be true. If people reply and nobody answers, you’ve taught them not to bother. I wrote about this in The Cost Of Saying “I’ll Call You Back”. When someone says they’ll get back to you and doesn’t, you stop waiting. Readers do the same.

Ask one question they can answer

The welcome email is the best place to start a conversation, because it’s the moment someone is paying the most attention to you.

Most welcome emails are a list of links. Here’s my best content, follow me here, check out this offer.

Try asking one question instead. Keep it easy:

“What made you sign up?”

“And what are you working on right now?”

“Or is there something you’re stuck on?”

One question, not five. Something that takes a sentence to answer, not an essay. You want it to be the kind of thing someone can reply to on their phone while the kettle boils.

Not everyone will answer. Most won’t, and that’s fine. Most people in any community read quietly. The ones who do answer will tell you more than any dashboard can.

Replies are the best research you’ll get

When someone tells you, in their own words, what they’re stuck on, you learn two things at once: what the problem is, and how they describe it.

The second one is gold. The words people use for their own problems are almost never the words a business uses. A business says “audience engagement strategy.” A person says “I post every day and nobody says anything.”

If you write about that problem in their words, the people who have it will recognise themselves straight away.

Keep a simple note of what people tell you. Nothing fancy. Just the question or the problem and how often it comes up. It’s the same idea as keeping a record of what you’ve tried in the first few weeks of anything new. After a month or two you’ll have a list of things to write about that came from your readers instead of your guesses.

One caution. A reply is a private message. Don’t quote anyone, even anonymously, without asking first. Most people will be happy to say yes. Asking is part of earning the trust that got them to write back in the first place.

Write like it’s going to one person

An email that sounds like it’s addressed to a crowd gets read like a flyer.

Write it the way you’d write to someone you know. Plain words. A real greeting. Something that sounds like you. It doesn’t need to look like a magazine. A few honest paragraphs often do better than a beautifully designed page, because they feel like they came from a person.

If you wouldn’t say a sentence to someone across a table, it probably doesn’t belong in the email.

Answer the ones who answer

When someone writes back, reply. Personally, if you can. Even a couple of lines.

This is the part that doesn’t scale, and that’s exactly why it works. Someone who writes to a business and gets a real reply from a real person remembers it. They tell people about it. They’re more likely to write again.

As the list grows, you won’t be able to answer everyone at length. That’s okay. Answer as many as you can, and be honest about the rest. “I read every reply, even when I can’t answer them all” is fine, as long as it’s true.

Let them know what to expect

Part of a conversation is knowing when the other person will turn up.

Tell people upfront how often you’ll write and what you’ll write about, and then stick to it. If you say weekly, send it weekly. If something changes, tell them. Silence, as I’ve said before, creates uncertainty, and uncertainty is where trust starts to leak away.

And when someone unsubscribes, let them go. Not everyone is meant to stay. The people who do stay are the ones you’re really writing for.

Leave the door open

A broadcast goes out and nothing comes back.

A conversation goes out and, now and then, somebody answers.

You can’t make anyone reply. But you can stop telling them not to.