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    31DBBB Day 5: Email a Blog Reader

    Paul SteinbrueckBy Updated:98 Comments4 Mins Read

    This is Day 4 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, a group project 60+ of us bloggers are doing together in an effort to help each other become better bloggers. You can read an overview here.

    Today’s assignment is to look over the comments on your blog, find a commenter you don’t recognize, and send them an email.  Taylor the email to their comment and include a link to your blog.

    It’s an easy assignment.  In fact, it’s so easy, that some of you may be tempted to blow it off and not do it.  But this assignment points to a larger principle concerning blogs, one I think it’s important to address…

    Blog Growth is Slow and Steady

    Many of us bloggers have this dream… that we’ll start a blog and our posts will be so amazing that even though we start with a handful of readers, those readers will tell all their friends, who will all love our blog become regular readers and tell all their friends, who will all love our blog become regular readers and tell their friends, and so on, and within weeks we’ll have hundreds or even thousands of regular readers.

    But the reality is growth for most blogs comes slow and steady.  It comes one reader at a time.

    On Day 3 we talked about promoting a blog post and how it’s important to reach out to people who have never heard of us or our blog and invite them to read a post.  But it’s even more important to try to convert a one-time visitor into a regular reader.  That conversion often comes by building relationships, and as we all know relationships can be hard work.

    7 Little Things You Can Do to Build Relationships with Your Readers

    Good relationships don’t happen overnight or with one big “event.” Relationships are developed over time with small things that demonstrate genuine interest.  Here are 7 little things you can do.  Some are taken from today’s lesson, others are things I do for my readers.

    1. Email a someone who has commented on your blog (today’s assignment)
    2. When someone comments on your blog, post a comment in reply.
    3. Go to commenter’s blogs and comment on their posts.
    4. Allow people who comment on your blog to include a link in their comments to their own blog.  If your commenters find they are getting visitors from your blog, it’s one more incentive to become a regular reader and commenter.
    5. Remove the “nofollow” attribute from comment links. By default many blogging platforms add the “nofollow” attribute to links in comments.  This attribute tells search engines not to “count” the link.  Including the nofollow tag eliminates the incentive for spammers to post spammy comments to your blog, but it also takes away the search engine value of the links your legitimate commenters post.  I think it’s worth it to remove the nofollow tag if your blogging platform allows you to do so.
    6. Periodically do things to thank your readers. Be creative.  Give away a book or a CD.  Do something for them.
    7. Thank people who retweet your posts on Twitter.

    Discussion

    • What other little things can bloggers do to build relationships with their readers?
    • What little things did you ACTUALLY do today?
    • Did you see any immediate results?  (You may not. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t)

    The Extra Mile

    A few other things you can do to take your blog, other bloggers, and this project even further today…

    • Reply & give other bloggers feedback on the little things they do.
    • When other bloggers include a link to a new article they’ve posted today, click, read, and comment on it.
    • Check previous posts in the series for new comments.
    • Tweet, share, & bookmark this post.  (You could win a $25 gift card!)

     

    Share and Enjoy !

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    Co-founder & CEO, OurChurch.Com Paul has been the CEO of OurChurch.Com since its founding in 1996, combining his passion for faith and technology to lead the organization. An accomplished writer, Paul has authored over 2,000 articles on faith and technology, featured on platforms like ChurchLeaders.com, The JoyFM, and his personal blog, LiveIntentionally.org. Beyond his professional achievements, Paul serves as an elder at Journey Community Church and is deeply engaged in his community through his involvement with the Florida Sheriffs Youth Ranch and the Safety Harbor Chamber of Commerce. He is a contributing author of the book Outspoken! Conversations on Church Communication. 

    View 98 Comments

    98 Comments

      • Stuart on

        I'd rather receive an email than a newsletter. Newsletters are good, but they are also very impersonal and I guess the point of today is getting up close and personal with a blog reader.

      • L.L. Barkat on

        This is a lot more fun, if you ask me: for my Monday post I'm asking for tips…

        Wanted: your must-read tip for bloggers. Funny is good. Profound can work too. Brevity is sweet. I'll put you in my Monday 31 Days post (unless I run out of room).

        Tips from history, poetry, the box in your cabinet, all accepted as potential 'must-read tips' for bloggers.

        Please provide tips asap so I have time to compose the tippy post. 🙂

        (Drop your tip herehttp://greeninventionscentral.blogspot.com/2010/0… )

      • Stuart on

        Didn't comment your blog today but let me say bravo!

        My approach to this has always been to reply to a reader in the comments but not always reply to the reply of the reply (following so far?) and if the comment requires a more detailed response it either gets a post all of its own or a personal email to the commenter – if they've left their email address in the first place,

        The other thing I do is state publicly that I'll be mailing them – a real pet peeve of mine is folks who say "I'll call / mail / whatever" and then don't.

    5. Phillip Gibb on

      hmm, I wonder what some of the ways are to email:

      1. The list of email subscribers – if you have have feedburner set up
      2. select from author email for comments – if you have a self hosted blog
      3. The users from a list of top commenters or recent commenters
      4. manually go thru the comments for commenter's emails

      The manual process is a bit arduous – I tried that. And after you get the emails there is the risk that a number of them are fake – not so for verified email subscribers.

      But who is to say that most readers leave comments – so how do you email the ones that do not? hmmm – if you have a facebook fan page linked to your blog then you can email them.
      Are there any other ways?

      • Richard Sipes on

        Good idea on the FB thing. I had been trying to figure out who to e-mail. i think I will write to a FB friend who I know has read my blog but has not yet commented on it. I'll invite them to get in on the discussion.

      • PaulSteinbrueck on

        I was just assuming Darren was referring to #4: manually go thru the comments for commenter's emails, since we're manually sending personalized email messages any way.

      • rc2k on

        Facebook fan page…..I've been trying to think of a way to incorporate into Facebook…I want to keep my facebook network that I currently have separated to just friends and family. I had thought about opening one that would be open to all and use that basically as a glorified twitter..but a fan page sounds like it would be a great route. Anyone have any luck or have done this already?

          • rc2k on

            Thank you for that info…I will definitely look at creating one(as well as becoming a fan..err…'liking' yours!)

          • Stuart on

            Interesting – nice to see that I'm not the only one that tends to keeping FB to literal friends & family. But a fan page could be the answer to interacting with those that care – for example, most of my friends & family are non-techy and simply couldn't give a monkies about my blog.

          • Stuart on

            Interesting – nice to see that I'm not the only one that tends to keeping FB to literal friends & family. But a fan page could be the answer to interacting with those that care – for example, most of my friends & family are non-techy and simply couldn't give a monkies about my blog.

          • Stuart on

            Interesting – nice to see that I'm not the only one that tends to keeping FB to literal friends & family. But a fan page could be the answer to interacting with those that care – for example, most of my friends & family are non-techy and simply couldn't give a monkies about my blog.

      • PaulSteinbrueck on

        I was just assuming Darren was referring to #4: manually go thru the comments for commenter's emails, since we're manually sending personalized email messages any way.

    6. justapen on

      Like most have been saying, I'm trying to maintain an interaction with everyone who comments or comes to my blog, and I do send out regular e-mails to some folks I know read my blog. I posted today a response to a conversation I had resulting from one of those e-mails. The guy runs a recording studio and asked me to publish more of my poetry so I did, if anyone was curious (and yes it still falls under the "Christian inspiration" niche) http://justapen.wordpress.com/2010/05/07/now-is-t…

    7. rc2k on

      I've got to agree with Erica on this one.

      I don't really like the email concept, perhaps sending a reply/dm/rt on twitter thanking them(that gives both of you greater visibility as opposed to email alone). Commenting on their blog is a must as well. If they have neither than what do you do? If you respond to their comment in reply to your blog I think this would suffice.

      I might be wrong I might be right or it might just be a lunatic you are looking for. : )

      Happy Friday #31DBBB'ers!!!!

      • Phillip Gibb on

        hey lunatic
        Happy Friday
        🙂
        I too am not so keen on the email thing, but I have done it and I'll try again.
        The first time was really a call to action, the response: not encouraging.
        This time I'll just say thanks. Just a bit silly thanking a person for commenting once about 6 months ago.

    8. Kim on

      I really do try to reply, comment and link to people who comment on my blog. There was a time when I was guarded of my actual identity and this would be totally compromised by e-mailing to strangers. Not so much now.

      People sometimes say that I dwell too much on my shortcomings. Here's a success story I titled "If God Can Make a Man From Mud, Can He Make Stone From Nothing?".
      http://preparation4eternity.blogspot.com/2010/02/…

      • Kevin Weatherby on

        Really enjoyed your post today…I needed it actually.

        As far as guarding your actual identity, I let mine hang out all over the place. If we write about our own lives, I feel that you have to.

        • Kim on

          Thanks, Kevin. Yeah, I don't worry about identity so much now. We do have an unfathomable God, don't we?

      • Stuart on

        Kim – I understand the need to 'guard'.

        In my case I have several (read way too many) email personas and use different ones for different reasons. Most of them I don't care who knows or uses or even who's behind them, but I have one (guess what, I won't be telling you it :)) that is used purely for hiding who I am.

        Sure, a tech could compare the IP address I'm coming from and spotting that I'm one and the same but this isn't about keeping the authorities out, but preserving some semblance of privacy from the rabid hordes (few!!) that like to troll.

        I've been around the internet for a while now (even before it was the "internet") and there are some folks out there that are just plain not sane …. so I find on forums it's best to remain anonymous.

    9. tijuanabecky on

      Thanks for the 7 ideas today on emailing a blog reader, those are great ideas, I tried several of them. How do you remove the "nofollow" attribute for comment links on WordPress?

      One way that I've seen other bloggers build relationships is to ask a couple questions regarding their post at the end, and also sometimes encouraging rss readers to comment as well and visit their blog.

      You can ask questions, thank them for reading when chatting with them if you're already friends, and do all the things that have already been suggested.

      Today i emailed a commenter, visited several of my commenters blogs and commented on their posts, and replyed to some of the comments commenters left on my blog.
      I have not seen immediate results.

      Post(s) coming for today, waiting for FB and Twitter to load so I can finish them.

    10. Kevin Weatherby on

      New post is up.
      http://campfirecowboyministries.com/2010/05/size-…

      I like the idea of emailing. There is a lost art of sending a "thank you" letter. I wouldn't go overboard with it, but I believe that successful blogging will be built on relationships, not just on quality or wit.

      Even with someone like ProBlogger, how awesome would it be to get an email from him because you commented one time.

      • Stuart on

        You know the old saying … we're quick to complain but rarely praise.

        Letters of appreciation are a stock in trade for me when we've had excellent service and I always remember to thank even if I've been complaining.

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