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The term "handwritten marketing" refers to mail marketing
that features hand-addressed envelopes, handwritten materials
and/or include a handwritten note to the customer. "Handwritten"
means that the work is actually done by hand rather than using
a cursive "pseudo-handwriting" font. This is a relatively
new method of marketing that combines the advantages of using
a computer (to develop and maintain a database of customers) with
the attention-getting and personalization capabilities of hand
writing.
A simple way to understand why handwritten marketing works is
to look at how most people and businesses go through their mail.
Most businesses and individuals receive a lot of mail ... letters
from friends, direct marketing, political advertisments and (of
course) bills. When your potential reader picks up their mail,
they generally sort it into two stacks. There is a "Now"
stack for "mail I want or need to open now" and a "Later"
stack for "mail I can deal with later".
The "Later" stack is usually bigger and includes credit
card offers and, sadly, business mail from companies that they
don't immediately recognize. A typed envelope from a person or
business that the reader doesn't recognize usually goes into this
stack. When the reader goes through this stack, the mail will
be opened and read while the reader is in the mindset of "this
is stuff I have to open but will probably throw away" Obviously,
your marketing is swimming upstream at that point, and if the
person gets busy, it may sit unread for days or even get thrown
away unread!
The first stack includes mail that they recognize (friends and
bills) and mail that catches their interest. I put that
in italics, becuase those last three words are the key to the
success of handwritten marketing -- handwritten envelopes are
generally put in this stack to be read now. Even
if the reader doesn't recognize the return address, the fact that
it is handwritten catches their attention. Mail opened from this
stack gets seen while the reader is in the mindset of "hey,
this is interesting; wonder who it's from", which makes them
much more receptive to your message.
As the purpose of marketing is to get your message in front of
receptive eyeballs and generate the desired response, increasing
the receptivity of the reader makes handwritten marketing significantly
more effective than a standard, pre-printed mail marketing campaign.
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