A great way to connect with your loyal readers and keep them coming back is to acknowledge them as much as possible. Of course, you should respond to all your blog comments and you can even turn a comment into a blog post. Another thing you can do is email your subscribers. It takes a pretty enthusiastic reader to actually give you their email address so they can be notified of all your new blog posts. So you definitely want to keep subscribers at the top of your mind as you build your blog readership and community.
Today’s assignment
Email a new blog subscriber to thank them for subscribing to your blog. If you use Feedburner, you can find the email addresses of your subscribers by going to the “Publicize” tab and then clicking on “Email Subscriptions” on the left hand side. Click on “Subscription Management” and scroll down to where it shows you the total subscribers and click on “view subscriber details.” This will show you all the people who have subscribed to your blog by email. Choose one of the first email addresses in the list as those will be your newest subscribers. You can also email an older subscriber or even several subscribers. It’s up to you and how much time you have.
What if you don’t have any blog subscribers yet? You can email a recent commenter on your blog to thank them for reading and commenting. This same concept applies to encourage them to keep coming back to your blog.
What should you say? Be gracious and simply say thank you. You can also ask them for their feedback if you want.
Here’s an example of the email I sent to a few of my new blog subscribers this morning:
Good morning,
I just wanted to drop you a note to say thanks for subscribing to my blog! I really appreciate you taking the time to read what I have to say. I’m always open to new topics to explore in my posts, so if you have any ideas, send ‘em my way. And please feel free to leave your comments on the blog! I’d love to hear your voice as part of the online conversation.
Hope you enjoy the weekend,
Rosetta
Tell us about your experience connecting with your blog subscribers in the comments. Did anyone write you back? If so, what did they say?
I twisted this a bit, because sadly I don't have many subscribed readers
But I did want to reach out to those who have commented on my blog, so I sent them each an e-mail thanking them for commenting and providing feedback. I hope this creates some loyal readers and encourages them to spread the word 
really like the interview idea. I have been having trouble finding blogs in my niche. This is a great way to connect to others.
I never thought about this. I have about 3 of my readers that subscribe to my blog via email. I am make a mention note to connect more often.
This is a really great tip. It's actually a tip I saw sometime ago on ProBlogger, and which I have been implementing since. I've actually sent more detailed comments to two people who commented on a post, and some great opportunities have come out of it:
1) I emailed one reader and asked her if I could interview her for my blog about the experience of a young non-profit professional. She invited me to guest post at hers as well. I'm going to do a great feature on her!
2) I emailed another reader, who also invited me to guest post at a blog for one of her law school social justice journals. A great opportunity to get my work out there!