Your task for this first day of the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog Challenge is to email a new reader of your blog.
Create a great impression upon a brand new readers to your blog by choosing a commenter that is new and emailing them to thank them for their comment.
It might not sound like the most profound tip but I’ll let you in on a secret – this is one of the main strategies I used to build up ProBlogger’s audience a couple of years ago.
What I found is that when you do it the chances of the readers that you email coming back to your blog again increases significantly. Get them to come back to your blog once and you increase the chances of them coming back again… and again….
So email a reader now, thank them for commenting and tell them that you’re looking forward to further interactions.
Make sure you include a link back to your blog so they know who you are and make the email relevant to their comment (ie answer a question they asked or add to their comment in some way). While there are some tools out there that do this automatically for you – the more personal you can make it the better.
This simple tip takes just a moment to do but can create a loyal long time reader. Do it at least once a day (or set yourself a higher target) and you’ll build your blog consistently over time.
Is this Tip Not SPECTACULAR Enough For You?
Last time I shared this tip with a fellow blogger they rolled their eyes at me and told me that they didn’t want to find just one more reader for their blog – they wanted hundreds or thousands.
This blogger failed to realize two things: (more…)
Great tip! I will follow along! *=) Maybe I’ll even email TWO!
And if you really don’t want to e-mail people just respond to their comment at least.
Well, that’s inspired me. I will email my commentors too.
Great tip Darren….so who did YOU email today?
;)
Great tip.
Do you recommend using an autoresponder or emailing each one personally?
Oh my. Who said that’s not a good tip? They don’t know much about promotion I guess.
Very nice idea!
Very good tip. I’m off to email someone as soon as I finish this comment.
Thanks!
– Mason
I call jinx. :)
I wrote the same post this morning: 5 tips for emailing the readers of your blog
great tip and it works best when it is personal and not done automatically!
Really Nice tip !
And what is most appropriate for the subject of the e-mail ?
I employed this on my blog when I started out, because I was genuinely thankful for any feedback I could get.
And guess what, those few people I mailed stuck around for quite a while. But recently, I haven-t gotten any comments, however good I think my posts are, and it’s been frustrating. I get the feeling no/one wants me. I wanna cry.
This is a great tip. But what if your blog is not really too popular yet and you have no comments to respond to?
It is a great tip!
On some of my blogs, I get too many first time commenters to email them all so I pick and choose one or two commenters whose comments were insightful or high quality and email them. They’re more likely to be the kind of reader you want anyways!
On my newer blogs/less popular blogs, I try to email ’em all.
But I have waaaaaay too much time on my hands :)
Probably a combination of personalized and automated emails would work well also.
Since I started doing direct emails yesterday, I’ve had the following response.
“Well, I owe you a thank you.
You inspired me to work on my categories and get things cleaned up on my blog. I just finished reorganizing things and I think it looks much better. First I just went through all the articles under “manage” and put them where they seemed best. After that, I actually went through my blog using the categories function on the side bar to see if the everything actually made sense. That was probably the most helpful to check the flow of the categories and to find things I had categorized that really had no place in there. I had been going with “the more the merrier” as far as categories go but the line in your article about redundancy between the categories struck a chord with me as far as it was a mistake I was making.
So, now I am utterly exhausted but things are definitely better.
Thank you for the inspiration.”
Made my day.
(reprinted without permission, so left anonymous)
This sounds like a great tip, but how can I do it on a Blogger blog? I don’t know if it’s possible to find my commenter’s emails.
Hi! I started a blog 2 weeks ago and I already have 3 solid contacts in my niche market. It works. Not only do they read my blog but I feel like business opportunities will arise from keeping in touch with them.
Done! Although, I didn’t only email a commenter; I emailed a subscriber too.
I think emailing subscribers is a good way to connect with people who regularly read your content. It helps to build regular visitors and there is always the chance of making a new friend.
– Mason
Darren,
Great tip and I just wrote my first thank you note.
If you email someone you need to include the same they go by and say why you are thanking them more than just because they commented. Something like: “Thank you Bob for the comment about how you interact with visitors. I love getting feedback about my tips in use. Thanks for your time, Dan.”
I have actually been doing this for the past couple of weeks. At this point, my commenters are still few and far between, but with the email technique and responding to every comment left on my blog, I am hoping to build the community up. Looking forward to more tips on that area!
Umm… what if you are so new and small you don’t really get any comments yet?
I do this for every commenter on my site. It’s great to further communicate with my readers. My blog is nothing without an audience!
I have an automated e-mail that sends to you the first time you leave a comment, I think it is a very nice feature, leave me a comment on my blog to see it.
I have a ‘suscribe to comments by email’ plugin on my main blog Classroom Displays. So if I leave a thank you as a comment they get it by email. Does that count? If so I’ve completed today’s task :-) If not I’ll think again.
Yeah I think if you have an auto responder people can get annoyed as they often promote their feeds etc. It’s overkill (I do have it on my blog though).
I generally do reply to people’s comments via email and it does work. Just a quick email to respond to the decent comments is good.
Now all I need is a new reader to comment! :)
I respond to all my comments on the blog. However I have the comment email responder plugin installed which means my reply is automatically emailed to the commenter. This is great because they receive a personal email, but it also adds a response online so it is clear I like communicating with the people who comment on my blog.
You can find the plugin
http://www.u-g-h.com/index.php/wordpress-plugins/
This is a great tip. But I have one question: I always reply to my commenters on my blog, so what do you guys think I should write in the e-mail then? Tell them that I have answered their post, or even copy the reply in the e-mail as well?
I suppose both approaches would work, but I’m curious to know how you do it…
Thanks for the tip Darren, I’ve just emailed my first commenter. It took me a while to build up the courage to do it. I’ve always thought it was a bit cheeky to email people out of the blue but conversely have always felt appreciated when the owner of a blog I’ve commented on emails me. Weird that isn’t it. Keep those tips coming, I’m going to try and follow each and every one.
This tip can be used in any business…make people feel important and you’re meeting their most fundamental need! They’ll be back again and again!
Thanks,
Graham
I’ve just noticed that one of the comments previous to mine was from Rhys. I commented on your blog a while ago Rhys and got a very nice email in reply, finding out that it was an autoresponder has left me feeling a little betrayed ;)
Great tip. Often the simple acts are the most powerful. I look forward to the next 30!
Great tip! I just e-mailed a few today because of this post.
I do this on a regular basis; in fact, I emailed a new commenter just a few hours ago!
Thanks for the great tip! I have a new website and I will be starting to blog very soon. A friend of mine mentioned your blog. I will be back.
Cheers,
Steve
Great tip! I e-mailed one of my few commenters!! Can’t wait to learn more from you!
Nice idea, simple yet effective
I tried this tip out today. I had a notification of a new comment on a post at my blog, so I took the time to email that person who commented. It was difficult, though, because their “comment” wasn’t much more than a plug for their site (although it was related to the content of the post). Any idea on how to thank those people for the comment even if it wasn’t a “genuine” comment? I did the best I could this time, but wouldn’t mind a few more pointers on how to handle it when it happens again in the future.
Otherwise, most of my commenters are friends of mine who read. I rarely get comments from “new” readers :(
Funny you mention that, because I just spent a lot of time today emailing everyone who has written a comment for my creativity contest!
It’s not always easy, but it’s really worth it. When I write to people to thank them for commenting, I always mention a little something about their comment (usually almost the same thing I respond on my blog to them) and invite them to come back. If they leave a connection to their blog, I usually check that out too.
The way I see it, if they took the time to read my post and comment, the least I can do is to say thank you. And, like Darren said, it’s a fabulous way to encourage readers to come back and comment again. It works amazingly well!
Great tip Darren. I never did this before, but it is so obvious.
I agree that this is important!! Totally!! I have used this thank you message also as an opportunity to ask them to consider adding me to their link list or blogroll if their site, which also brings new visitors!
Cheers Darren, nice tip thank you very much.
We are inches away from going live on our blog here
(www.employeeincentives.com.au/blog) sorry for the shameless plug
I will initialise this further personalised communication immediately
Good blogging out there
Mark
What’s wrong with responding to them in your comments?
How funny, I just wrote about a similar topic on my own blog. What’s also important to note is that new readers and subscribers are picked up one by one, and it’s way better in the long run to slowly build up a loyal following than to be a flash-in-the-pan.
It’s great to let commenters know that you value them.
In terms of auto responding to comments – I’ve got nothing against this. However if you can add some personal touches to the email it is significantly more powerful. I don’t know about you but even if an email has my name in it (taken from the comment I left) I can pick an auto generated email. However if someone emails me and says not only my name but something related to my comment, answers a question, asks me a relevant question etc I will take more notice of it than an auto-generated thank’s for commenting.
The auto generated ones are better than nothing though I guess.
I’ve already been doing this, but it’s nice to see that you think it’s good idea, too. I hadn’t done it, yet, today, though, so because of your post I just did. I’m really looking forward to the entire 31 days!
That’s a good hint, thanks
Great tip.
Hand-built and one-by-one is hard work but so worth it. I’ve developed several wonderful friendships from simply initiating email contact with a new reader. They are loyal, supportive and spread the word – and they take responsibility for your blog right along with you! This is one of the coolest things about blogging, in my view – building friendships with people from all walks of life and everywhere in the world.
that sounds like a really great tip, I will start trying to email a new reader of my blog each day.