When a Letter Isn’t Enough

My very lovely fiancee and were having an oh-so exciting talk about the mail we got a few days back when something out of the ordinary came up. She said that she received something in the mail from Publisher's Clearinghouse, cleverly disguised so she opened it up instead of immediately chunking it. But what really shocked her was that the letter was personally signed. She even took the time to examine it in order to see the pen indentation on the page. She was so amazed that she made a point of telling me how impressed she was. Now granted, it was probably just some lackey spending days on end signing these pages, or maybe even automated in some way, but the important thing was that it made an impact. It was no longer impersonal, there was actually someone that had touched that letter, and that made a difference.

 

 

This of course got me thinking about our own correspondence and how personalizing correspondence is all relative. Many communities send out signed renewal letters for something their resident spent over $10,000 for in just one year. Publishers Clearinghouse just wanted her to buy a few magazines and they were able to provide the same signed letter. When receiving junk mail, getting a signed letter was impressive, but when your resident spends thousands and thousands of dollars on your product, do you really think a signed letter is really enough?