Email Interaction – Why you should respond to all your emails?

I am a regular reader of almost all the top blogs in the Internet Marketing world. I get a fresh perspective to things, when I read these blogs. I learn new things and am also able to getting a different view on things that I already know about.

It was during once such session that I decided on writing a guest post for one of the blogs owned by a Big Boy in blogging. I respect the individual and consider him an ideal for myself. I had a very good idea for the guest post and spent that night working on it. I was sure that the post will be accepted by the blogger because it was on a topic that was covered in one of the posts already published at the blog and was an immense value add to the post. I was extremely enthusiastic about it.

The next day I wrote to the blogger with the idea and started waiting anxiously for the reply.

I waited for 4 days but received no reply. I picked up another email address for somebody who I got to know was handling the emails for the blogger in question and wrote to her. Again, I received no reply.

The result…. I just did not feel like going to that blog again. For somebody who did not have the courtesy to reply to an email, that was the least that I could do in protest. I stopped visiting his blog. A few days back he launched an excellent course and looking at my earlier admiration for him, I would certainly have been one of his subscribers and a promoter. But with the current experience I decided otherwise. He lost a customer.

The Importance of a Response

The internet marketing business is of relationships. And relationships are built through interactions. Email responses is extremely important if you want to interact with your readers or, customers. Other mode of such interactions include comments. In the same way that email responses is important, responding to the comments left on your blog by your readers is also important.

It is indeed extremely important to respond to each and every email that you receive, even if the email contains one of the dumbest questions. Your response gives your reader the confidence that their emails are being read and that they are interacting with you. This interactivity helps make the bond between you and your reader even stronger.

7 Tips to a Healthy Email Interaction

These are 7 important tips in order to maintain a healthy email interactions with your readers, subscribers and customers.

1. Dedicated email address – Maintain a dedicated mailbox, the details of which you only share with your readers, subscribers and customers and set up a few extremely stringent guidelines to detect SPAM. This should not be a catch-all email address else you will be spammed to death.
2. Use Outlook – It is always advisable to map this email to a desktop application like MS-Outlook. This helps you to set rules and keep a tight watch over your mailbox. It will also help you keep those spammers away.
3. Email reading frequency – Ensure that you read your emails at least once in 24 hours. So a TAT of 24 hours for a response to anyone who writes an email is acceptable. If you can check your mails more than once in a day, it is all the more better. But responses should have a turn-around-time of 24 hrs. Too quick responses could mean you set the wrong expectations, consequently destroying your relationships.
4. Don’t overdo it – Internet Marketing is something that requires you to carefully set your priorities. Too much of emailing and responding could mean that you are only emailing the entire day and wasting precious time you could spend on other productive activities.
5. Set up an Auto-response – It is advisable to set up an auto response informing the people sending the emails about a time that you will respond within. This helps in setting the right expectations.
6. Out of office – In case you are traveling or, unavailable, ensure that you put an Out of office in your mailbox. This way people sending the emails are informed of your unavailability and hence a possibility of a delayed resp0nse.
7. Signature – Since there is quite a bit of effort that you are putting into responding to each and every email, why not use it for some promotion as well. Add a signature to your emails. Just put a few links to your products or, websites in this signature. You will find a trickle of traffic coming in from these links as well.