Build Relationships with Your Readers

Now I know that many of you just read that and said "Geeze Jen, we get it already!!" Stick with me though, because I'm not going to tell you yet again how important it is to build relationships online. (Ok, I am, but I'm going to tell you how to do it in a new way.)

Caught a good post over at Maya and Marketability today that talks about the tactic of using what she calls "authentic empathy" in order to build trust with your readers. The idea here is to help your readers establish a relationship style connection with you even if you've never actually had a one on one conversation. Maya writes about this from the perspective of boosting sales but it could easily be extended toward building community, building links and building branding.

She makes excellent points and offers up strong suggestions. In fact, it was this line of thinking that led to the creation of the Zero Dollar series more than a year ago. I was looking for a way to better understand the perspective and limitations of many of my readers so I set off to create my own small business using my marketing skills, but limiting myself to no money spent out of pocket.

The series was a stellar success having been downloaded more than 50,000 times within six months of the launch. While the book went a long way toward helping to provide me with perspective that helped improve the focus of my writing, it also went a long way toward building my own credibility among a new audience. All because they genuinely felt like I understood what they were dealing with.

So ask yourself this...if you blog, run an online community or some type of email newsletter, what are you doing to show authentic empathy for and with your readers. What efforts are you taking to ensure that you are presenting a perspective that truly applies to them?

If you aren't, then give it a whirl. I have no doubt that you'll find it paying off in increased contacts, higher engagement levels and even increased sales.