Regularity and relevance breed loyalty

Regular

Happening in such a pattern with the same time between individual instances; recurring at short uniform interval.

The key words in the above definition are pattern, time and interval. If you want to develop a strong bond with your client base you need to help them grow accustomed to receiving communication from you. Planning what you want to say or ask is vitally important in ensuring regular communication.

Brining your clients to a space where they are expectant of receiving communication from you is the goal here.

Relevance

For communication to have any value, it must be relevant. This seems like an obvious statement, but one that is often missed. Relevant communication cannot be defined only as communication that you, the brand, think is relevant. It is the communication that your customer sees as relevant. Fundamentally, relevance can only be defined by the importance the recipient places on it.

It is important for you to check in with your recipients on whether they see your communication as relevant. Seek their input on topics that they would like to see covered. Run surveys or question and answer options as part of your process. This step of engaging your customer will of itself already make your communication more relevant. It immediately imputes a feeling of connection.

Regular is not SPAM

This is the trap that many organisations fall into. As soon as you lose relevance your communication messages will be seen as SPAM. A universal problem faced by many brands is the decline in their mailing lists. Many organisations respond by simply increasing the number of communication pieces they push out.

This action, ironically, turns some of the relevant communication into SPAM as other people lose interest. A true measure for me of how seriously an organisation takes communication is what happens during the unsubscribe process.

Many organisations fail at this point. They place a generic tick box list asking why the person is unsubscribing. The truth is that the recipient had actually "unsubscribed" weeks or months ago, they simply had not yet hit the unsubscribe link. The only response that could get a person back is a personal call asking why they had decided to unsubscribe. This is the only hope a brand has of rescuing a subscriber.

Final thought

If you are serious about your communication and you want to really connect with your clients, you need to plan the interactions. Keeping your communication regular and relevant will keep your client base engaged. Be intentional. If you only push out communication you are going about it incorrectly and you will ultimately lose your subscriber platform.