The age-old handwritten letter is an extremely powerful way of marketing your services. Something everyone knows how to do, has the equipment, but just have forgotten to use.
When last did you receive a handwritten letter via the post?
Receiving a handwritten letter makes the recipient immediately realise that the writer took special effort to pause and dedicate time to communicating via a personal letter.
If you think about it, nobody receives handwritten letters any more, this makes the letter a unique and special experience for the recipient. Not only will they be impressed, but they are bound to mention the special service to the friends and family.
Also the handwritten letter is deemed to be more intimate and personal than any other electronic or electronically generated communication, this will illustrate to the reader that you care a little more than the rest.
Make sure your envelope address is also handwritten, this improves the chances of the letter being opened and read.
Don’t cheat by printing out a letter from the laser printer while using a fancy cursive writing font. The recipient will notice the laser print a mile away. Hand written letters have the ink “run” from the pen nib and if you look at the reverse side of the page, you will see the ink “bleed”.
There are services that offer automated hand written letters, where you just email them the text, but not sure there are any in South Africa.
A simple solution I found was to “print” to the old plotter – those older than 45 will remember the plotter, where it did drafting mainly using pens that it picked from the side of the device and then used the pen to draw. These give you the same result as a very neat handwriting in pen and keep going until it runs out of ink. Also was fascinating to watch 😉
If you want an easy way out, buy birthday cards and handwrite the personal message to your prospective or existing clients. Again make sure the envelope address is also handwritten.
In marketing you always have to seek the unique special way to get your prospective client’s attention – handwritten letters are special and unique, use them to get ahead of the competition.
