If you've been in business awhile, you'll know that competition for attention is fierce. It's one thing to attract online customers and convince them to sign up, but it's quite another to turn people into advocates. Only advocates are going to spread the message to friends. As marketers we naturally aspire to producing content that encourages this free marketing - so what can we do to encourage advocacy?

Authenticity is Key.

My wife, Vickie, ran a member-driven recipe site during the time my oldest child was a baby. With the trials and tribulations associated with first-time parenting, answering user questions and approving recipes slid down the list of priorities.

One day, after much complaint, Vickie submitted a post telling it straight. “I am a Mother of a young child. I do this for love and not money”, she confessed. “Unfortunately I can’t spend all day approving recipes, so I do request your patience”.

The formerly irate community immediately showered her with supportive email messages and offers of marketing ideas. Many offered mentions on their websites and blogs.

What was most unexpected (and somewhat touching) was how many people shared what they were dealing with in their own lives. Overnight, members came to a mutual understanding. They had completely overlooked their complaints in order to support the site, its owner, and each other.

Tell it Straight.

Our company sends millions of email marketing campaigns and e-newsletters monthly, both internally and for our customers. And being human, occasionally we make errors with landing page links or email copy.

Our policy has always been to resend the email with an apology in the subject line in addition to the corrected copy. On each of these occasions our open rate has exceeded (over 10%) that of the original message.

It seems people are attracted to mistakes in the same way they feel compelled to slow down at the scene of a road accident!

The Reply Path is Your Friend.

Reading your email "reply path" is the best way to gauge your readers' sentiments. With email marketing, customers find it easy to hit "reply" and vent. To diffuse an upset customer and build an authentic rapport, simply answer any replies and make someone available to talk with them.

As the owner of my business, I respond to upset customers directly. The mere fact that someone has replied often surprises people, but when they hear from the owner it blows them away. It takes less than a minute and may keep a customer for life.

Ask and You Shall Receive.

One of the most important actions to protect your email deliverability is being added to the “safe sender” list by your email subscribers.

We recently ran a trial campaign that gave our email subscribers an additional chance to win $5,000 by simply adding our email address to their safe sender list. We also asked them to reply directly to our message. Having a reply means that we are added automatically to the address book in many email clients.

The response saw over 30% of users participating. The email campaign is now in our auto-responder as a welcome message, ensuring our deliverability up front. The email welcome campaign enjoys response rates over 40%.

In summary, it doesn’t matter how big or small your organization is - taking small steps towards being authentic and respecting your email readers' time and input always pays off.

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About the Author

Adrian Saunders is co-founder of Cogent Online P/L. As one of the earliest adopters of the value of opt-in email marketing, Adrian has spent ten years educating Australia's marketing community on the benefits of electronic direct mail (EDM) and database marketing. Adrian is well regarded as a leader in the EDM field in Australia, and shares his expertise with clients to help them get the best results from their email campaigns.

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