subject: The Best Of Both Worlds: Developing A Respectful Relationship With Op-in Clients [print this page] The Best Of Both Worlds: Developing A Respectful Relationship With Op-in Clients
There are a lot of things to look at and listen to on the Internet. Facebook is a virtual autobiography of everyone from everywhere, YouTube is a video documentary unrivaled by any in history, and Napster and Rhapsody offer a music selection never before gathered in one place. This should be good news for us all, and for the most part it is, but for independent publishers, it has been tough. Large online communities that contain a fixed format of sharing information have replaced the creativity of individual Web sites. The small publisher who makes it big is almost unheard of these days.What this means is that if you are producing content that someone subscribes to, you better do everything you can to retain that opt-in visitor. It means that after watching videos, listening to music, and creating their online biography, you wrote something that captured their attention. That's a tribute to your content, but it's not the end of the journey.An opt-in contact is an interested contact, but they're also busy and picky with a mind designed to go from one Web site to the next. Your retention of opt-in visitors is going to be a delicate balancing act between marketing to the visitor and not marketing to the visitor. Most Internet users are wary of marketing tactics and will run the instant they feel marketed to. Your job with an opt-in subscriber is to make them feel welcome and respected without making them feel like you're trying to make a sell. Here's how.A Few Things to Remember- Focus on the information you have to offer: They're interested in your writing style and the information you have to offer them. Consider your best marketing tactic to be the sharing of information. You're not a salesperson. You're a teacher.- Stay in consistent contact: Don't run away from the subscriber and be afraid to contact them. Simply keep it respectful. A good contact compromise is once a week. You can put a lot of information into your once a week contact, which will reduce the number of times you contact them, but increase the amount of information you can share.- Answer questions immediately: If a visitor responds to one of your e-mails, respond the second after you read it. They've done more than read what you have to say; they've responded to you. That means a lot in the online world today.An opt-in visitor is a huge deal. Someone who voluntarily wants to hear from you in his or her inbox is a person to treasure forever. Respect them. Give them what they want. Communicate with this valuable person in a way that is a respectful, useful conversation, not a sales pitch. By doing so, you increase the success of your marketing and you gain a loyal, satisfied visitor who will turn to you time and again for the information they feel you are knowledgeable about. This is the kind of visitor-writer relationship that is best for everyone.
