One of the reasons that I really like Cliff Ravenscraft (there are many) is that he talks about building a brand-based communities by touching people one at a time. I have always felt this way, and even though I am terrible at it sometimes, I know it is the right way to build a business.

(By the way, I am interviewing Cliff on the podcast next week).

Basically, it's a question about How To Treat Readers.

I cannot tell you how many times I have made a decision to do something based on whether or not someone paid attention to me or my situation. For example, I recently switched my backup to BackBlaze simply because they responded to my Tweets. There are lots of backup tools out there, but I use them because the care.

A Mailing List Example

Now most blogging gurus will tell you that you need to have a mailing list (“the money is in the list”). I agree that you need a list, but it goes way beyond money. All of that is the subject for another post some day.

Those same bloggers that talk about the importance of lists will tell you to ignore (or turn off) unsubscribe comments. I use Aweber, and you can certainly do that. After all, you usually only get comments from people that are angry about something — that is why they are unsubscribing in the first place.

The gurus argue that you should protect yourself from all that negative energy and just have those comments go to trash. What’s the point in listening to the rantings of an angry former subscriber anyway.

Man, I could not disagree more.

How To Treat Readers

To make this point clear, I wanted to share the following example from this morning.

Today, I got this unsub notification:

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Now, I get these all the time. Basically, this guy is just trying to focus. I actually highly recommend this approach. The Internet Business Mastery guys call this an “information diet”. If all you are doing is reading my blog (and others) all day long and not making progress in your business, then that is bad for BOTH of us.

Anyway, I replied to Jeff and said this:

This is a very (very) smart thing to do.
Good luck!
Be sure to let me know if there is anything that I can do to help you Jeff.

Regards,
Mark

Now, I really meant every word of it — but look at this reply.

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Now, I don't know if he will actually resub, I did not reply to him as a retention strategy (although that is a benefit of caring for customers). I am not trying to sell him something (although I may in the future).  Who knows?   It just doesn't matter because it is not my focus.

I just started out doing two critical things:

• I did not take his unsub personally
• I responded his unsub professionally
• I stayed focused on what would actually help the reader

It took me 13 seconds to reply to his email. I don't get to them all. I don't always get a reaction. I am not perfect. Not even close.

But, my heart is in the right place. And that is often really what matters.

What do you think? Does all of this matter, or am I wasting my time? Leave a comment below.