Like in any relationship, if you don’t constantly make deposits into the Emotional Bank Account (to borrow the phrase from 7 Habits), then the relationship will become insecure rather than grow stronger.

I think it is exactly the same thing about how you treat your blog readers.

It helps to think that every reader has a one-to-one relationship with you as a blogger.

It is your responsibility to make your readers happy or they won’t come back to your blog again. There should be at least one good reason for them to visit or subscribe to your RSS feed.

And no, I am not talking about being everything to everybody. That is impossible. I also learned that being bold and opinionated could turn regular readers into loyal readers. Not all them, some will hate you with a “passion”, but those who do will become great customers.

1. Focus on long term relationship

Every reader could possibly be an evangelist for your blog, considering how easy it is to start a new blog and leave comments on other blogs nowadays.

If you think your blog as a business, then every reader could just be your potential customer in the future.

2. Readers are customers

At least there are two reasons why readers are your immediate customers. In certain type of blogs, bloggers don’t necessarily have to nurture the readers to become prospects, and prospects to become customers.

• Participate as an AdSense publisher - AdSense publisher should treat their readers as customers because they are the one who click on the dispalyed ads and earn them revenue.
• Sponsorship and advertising - A bit like AdSense publisher, but this model depends on the readership to establish a strong profile about the site to attract sponsorship and advertisers.

3. Readers are potential customers

In other blogs, first time readers are not going to be paying customers. Getting the readers to the door is just the first step. In this scenario, you should have a strategy that turn first time visitors into regular readers and then customers.

This could possibly mean combining other strategies like RSS subscription, email marketing, podcasting, and so on.

Bloggers should be worried about retaining readership, just like they think about their customer retention strategy. It’s not only about fixing the leak in the marketing funnel but also get the readers to refer business to you.