What Makes Handwritten Notes Different?

Consider a handwritten note, a simple message to a consumer. What makes this important and valuable? These notes are:

• Personal – It feels special and intimate.
• Human – It doesn’t feel like an automatic response.
• Tangible – They can hold onto that note as a constant reminder of the company.
• Trustworthy – Handwritten notes feel like they come from a person, which makes them instantly more reliable.
• Genuine – Taking the time to deliver a message like this feels authentic, not like another gimmick.
• Warm – Depending on the prose of the note, this marketing method feels friendly and upbeat.
• Scalable – This strategy fits your business’s demand, allowing you to quickly reach out to dozens, hundreds, and thousands of people.
• Trackable – Designed to be tracked, companies can see how well their messages work.
• Affordable – It’s inexpensive to reach your customers with a solid ROI.

Learn more about how handwritten notes work with Handwritten Notes: The Be-All, End-All Guide You Need.

It Started with Handwritten Marketing

Marketing started when people began selling things. Outbound marketing, a method that interrupts the consumer, talking to them about what they need and want. 

Print advertising, which could be the first form of handwriting marketing, helped educate about the products and often included detailed sales pitches.

The marketing and advertising departments of the 1950s helped to create print and television ads that played on consumer emotions and the need to own products.

Digital Enters the Scene Shiny and New

By comparison, digital is a type of marketing that’s developed over the last 30 years. The advent of the internet is perhaps the catalyst that turned things around. The digital marketing world was very different. The same premise of talking at a person was initially employed, but over time, digital marketing changed.

Find out What Marketing Strategies Work Best Today?

Today, instead of speaking directly to the consumer, we see businesses marketing to the public, creating opportunities for the company to promote products. The use of search engine optimization and websites helped make that possible.

Early on, marketers used keyword stuffing and other aggressive marketing tactics to get clicks from search engines. Today these outdated, invasive methods are called black-hat marketing

Email marketing was also an effective tool to use. Creating emails and sending them to customers is an efficient way to reach consumers, at least it was in the days when people didn’t receive a hundred plus emails a day.

Overstimulation Starts Changing the Marketing Scene

Take a moment to remember when you opened your first email account. Perhaps you had a simple AOL account, and every time you heard, “You’ve got mail,” you raced to open it to find out what incredible thing was inside.

Today, you probably have an email box filled with unopened emails. That left email contributing to reader overstimulation.

Today, everyone uses email, and it’s not noteworthy. Even though email can be effective, it and other forms of digital marketing are so “noisy” that people don’t see what’s out there. With so much marketing and constant advertising, it loses its ability to impact a person.

Overstimulation like this has changed the marketing scene, often making it even more difficult for companies to get their message out.

The World and People Stopped With Covid

COVID-19 hit the world by force, creating changes in virtually everything a person did and every touchpoint for customers. Technology helped to keep people updated and in touch with their favorite brands, but companies had to make significant changes in marketing.

Companies quickly determined if their message was wrong and tried to correct it. Or, they pulled back on marketing because the supply chain couldn’t manage to keep up.

This led to those long-lead-time creative processes becoming far more constrained. People were glued to their TVs and the internet, looking for ways to connect.

Yet, they were also more conscious of whom they interacted with – and brands suffered the consequences if they couldn’t keep up with what the industry demanded, a quick message, at the right time, with the correct language based on the current pandemic state.

The Need for Personal Connection Grows

In the last few years, there’s been a significant change in consumer needs. The outcome of the marketing changes during the initial period of the pandemic forced companies to reimagine and rethink what they were doing.

They needed a new mindset that was considerate of the times. This leads to a demand for agility in their marketing, with a new level of creativity.

Understanding consumer sentiment is an important revelation. The use of demand sensing and consumer listening tools has allowed for better insight into what the consumer needs and wants from the companies they do business with.

Instead of the sales methods of the initial years of marketing that spoke at the consumer or changes in expectations in the digital world, today’s consumer wants something much different. That’s a personal connection.

People want to know the brands they’re working with and even have access to the key players who matter within the company.

We cover more on personalization in Personalized Communication Boosts Customer Engagement.

By far, companies that create this type of personalization, where people feel intimately connected with the brands they love, are the companies that build strong customer loyalty that lasts.

Things like sustainability and ethical sourcing are essential. Still, consumers also want to feel valued by the brand more individually.

People Step Out and Want it All – No Sacrifice

What does today’s consumer want when it comes to marketing? There are many things you could focus on because today’s consumer wants it all. They want to learn about products, services, and the brands behind them.

They’re more likely than ever to demand personal service. They want to feel valued as a customer as if they’re the most important individual to that brand.

At the same time, they want a message that’s fast and easy to access. Purchasing online means getting that product fast, too.

Consumers today want good relationships, the best products, and the most trustworthy companies to work with. They want to be kept up to date on the whole process.

Now is the Time for Handwritten Notes

Let’s face it. Personalization isn’t something you can do quickly. Imagine sitting down to write a note to a consumer to thank them for signing up for your list or for requesting more information from you. Most companies receive thousands of requests over a month and often much more.

This is where handwritten notes come into play. It’s an opportunity for you to reach out to your customers with genuine sentiment.

When a consumer receives a message that feels and looks like a person wrote it, a person who took the time to show them they were valued, they’ll respect that and, most often, want to continue working with the company.

The power of handwritten notes is the ability to “give it all” while creating a marketing method that’s financially responsible to brands.