I’ve got a simple answer for you. You’re reading this because you let me in. By handing over your email address, you made yourself a very different audience to anyone who’s just scrolled past an ad of ours. Keep that in mind, because I’m about to use you as my example.

Firstly, why are you different? Well you already know Dilate, at least a bit, which means I’m not trying to convince a stranger of anything. I’m talking to someone whose attention was already captured at some point.

That means everything you do from here is feedback, and none of it is filtered. You open my email or you don’t. You click a link or you skim past. You reply, or you go quiet, or one day you hit unsubscribe. Every one of those is you telling me something, whether you meant to or not.

And underneath all of that, no algorithm sits between us. Nobody’s deciding whether you see this based on engagement signals or ad spend. You own this channel. I mean that literally, it’s one of the only ones you fully control.

Most businesses treat that as permission to be noisy. A promo here, an announcement there, the odd “big news” email when there isn’t really any news at all. Open enough of those and people stop opening altogether, because you’ve taught them exactly what to expect from you.

Here’s the better way to think about your database: stop treating it as a channel and start treating it as a relationship. Give people a reason to open that isn’t always about you, and actually notice what they respond to. That’s lifecycle marketing, properly done.

Which brings me back to you, reading this. This email is what that relationship actually looks like: no hard sell, just something worth thinking about.

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This is taken from the weekly email written by one of our directors, Roberto Boi. Every Thursday he shares observations, ideas and perspectives from the work we’re doing day to day at Dilate. If you’d like to get it delivered straight to your inbox, you can sign up here.