Mar 15
25
The Power of The Handwritten Note
One must never underestimate the power a handwritten and mailed traditionally that a handwritten note has. In the age of where even a coherent email is being replaced by cryptic text messages and tweets, receiving something via traditional snail mail can have an enormous impact on your client or anyone you are trying to impress.
Back in February, I was a guest lecturer to a Digital Marketing class at San Diego State University. The topic was “Measuring Social Media Efforts”.
The class was a lot of fun and a great success. Many of the students after the lecture connected with me on Twitter and on LinkedIn to say thanks and how much they appreciated the case study I presented. A few weeks after the class, I received a handwritten thank you note from the class professor and it made me feel like my efforts were truly appreciated by the professor. Then 10 days after receiving the professors thank you note, I received a package full of thank you notes from many of the students in the class.
It is hard to imagine the feeling I got as opened and saw all the note, or when I opened each individual note to read all the personalized messages. I know how much more effort it takes to write these notes out by hand instead of just sending a quick tweet or message on LinkedIn. This type of personal contact escalates the on-line social interactions to a new level. This simple effort will make my decision to be a guest lecturer at San Diego State University or other institution in the future much easier to say yes to, because I know it will be truly appreciated.
This same concept has to become part of all of our on-line engagements. It is through personal notes, that we and our organizations stop being impersonal on-line entities, and can become someone others want to do business with.
Let’s never forget the power of the handwritten note in the ever changing age of technology.