Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Communicate to others as you would have them communicate to you. Engage with other people, the way you would want them to engage with you.
In 2018 we will be inundated with content in higher volumes than ever before. The flood comes in, predominantly, through our devices: emails, notifications, texts, pop ups, calls… “Have you made your PPI claim yet?” (The final deadline is August 2019 by the way, you might want to get on it). And, almost unbelievably, people still pay for things to be printed and stuffed through our letter boxes.
As communication has moved online we’ve all started deleting emails without reading them faster than we ever binned our junk mail. However, the data you can gather to tell you what works online and what doesn’t has increased at an even greater rate. “Are you using these five words in your headlines?” If you do, you’ll get more article reads, better click-through and you’ll make more money. In 2018 we can expect subject fields and headlines with more questions, more lists, and more calls-to-action, all in an attempt to get us to actually read stuff. And perhaps initially we’ll click to open rather delete. But then we’ll become immune to it, just like we know there’s nothing left in the sidebar of the Daily Mail website which we’ll find genuinely unbelievable.
So what’s the answer to connecting with people and customers in 2018? It’s the empathy, stupid. Which emails do you read, not delete? Which mailing lists do you stay on rather than unsubscribe from? What is it about those communications that engages you? Whatever it is, make sure you’re doing it yourself. What’s the most personal tends to be the most universal too. Engage with others, the way you would want them to engage with you. It’s amazing how often we prescribe or choose a course of action, and then when someone asks us, “how would you like it if someone did that to you or told you that or made you do it”, we say, “well I wouldn’t like it very much at all”. Into this trap, you must not fall.