This morning, I was doing my usual inbox cruise.Generally, this involves:

• Checking for important messages from clients or colleagues
• Sifting through the newsletters I subscribe to
• Opening and reading the ones I’m interested in
• Filing away the ones I’m not

And I had a funny realization: there are certain newsletters that I file away without opening, every single time.I don’t unsubscribe, I just stash them away in a folder that may as well be titled, “Who Cares?”So I wondered: why is this?And I realized it’s for one simple reason: they lack “equity,” in my eyes.It’s not that the organization doesn’t have brand equity. They do. For example, I always file away MailChimp newsletters, despite the fact that I’m a customer.But, somewhere along the line, they lost their equity with me--their reader. At some stage, I lost my sense that this sender offered value. Or, worse yet, they never established that value with me in the first place.And there’s a huge lesson in this: building that "equity" with your audience is hard. It takes a ton of time, focus, and trial and error. But most importantly...

• It requires that you always prioritize value for your readers
• It implores you to be thoughtful and purpose-driven with the content you create
• It demands that you show up often and consistently
• It dictates that you write what your audience actually cares about, not just whatever comes to mind

Then, when you get your formula down to a science and you do it for long enough, people will open your emails on autopilot.