It’s that time of the year, when pleasantries are exchanged. People are open to meeting each other (within the pandemic stipulations), which makes this an important concept to know and practice; especially now.
It’s the Digital age. We are used to sending messages in a jiffy and everyone we know are at our fingertips, just an app away. In fact, It’s become so convenient that the possibility of sending physical mail seems tedious. So what’s the discussion about anyway?
Let’s imagine this scenario. Suppose that you receive mail at home addressed to you. How likely are you to open it? Now consider the same scenario with an email. It is highly possible that you will open the mail. While at the same time the email, which again has been addressed to you and hence reached your inbox, will probably sit in your spam folder and will never be opened or will be deleted without being clicked on.
Ok, what if the first question is transformed with the mail being delivered to you at the office instead of your house. Almost a cent percent chance that you’ll open it. Why? Because mails being sent to the office are quite rare these days. Most professionals in mid or junior management do not receive any physical mails. This might not be the case with senior management in corporations, and even there, they’re quite rare. That’s the USP of mails. It is a pleasant break from reading/deleting emails.
Try this method and there will be a lot of ‘unreachable’ executives who’ll become reachable. And if this mail gets passed on to you from your superior, what are the chances that you’ll take action on it? Ah well, how about, always!
Ways to write that (almost) Perfect letter:
With the importance of physical mailing being understood, let us focus on what it must look like. If you send in a newspaper-like brochure with printed products on it, then an email would have caused you far less money. So here we go:
1. Keep them crisp
The letter should be attractive enough for someone to read it. The written portion on it should be succinct with a lot of empty spaces and big margins on the sides. If it’s a lengthy extempore, it’ll certainly get to the dustbin. Therefore it’s essential to keep the message down to a few lines, which will prompt the reader to go through it.
2. Spark their interest
You showed them that you understand how to reach them, which also shows them that they are worth the effort. But you need to maintain their attention further by intriguing them about business areas they care about. Sounding self centered after all that pomp and circumstance will end up with them binning the letter after all. Salesy is sleazy.
3. Ask a Question
Yes, the right questions are quite the attention grabbers, aren’t they? Does not matter how boring the product is, opening with a question draws people in, hook, line and sinker. For example, a company I dealt with directly converted letters to sales. This magic happened by sending senior executives everywhere this question : “What would it be worth to you if your new employees made fewer mistakes?” Genius. The response rate was off the charts as all those executives were calling them asap.
4. Make an Offer they cannot refuse
Be specific. Vague words are fanciful but not fruitful. To hold the interest of your prospects, you need to make them understand what exactly you will be doing for them. Will you be offering a twenty minute presentation on the changes your competitors are making in the industry? Will you be providing free trials? How exactly will you be sweetening the pot so it will be easy for your prospect to take the steps you would like them to take?
5. Gain their attention with other forms of Communication as well
We love triple threat matches. Or two pronged approaches or even double bagging our shopping. Because we love covering our bases with certainty. So use other tools in your arsenal as well. Perhaps an email or a voicemail as a heads up to inform your recipients that they will be receiving mail.
6. Repetition is key
Think of songs playing on the radio. Are the jingles stuck in your head? It is because you hear them so often. What about Coca cola? Everyone knows about Coke. Because they spend approximately $71 million dollars on advertising every single day (2006). A single message may fail to impress the target, but an ongoing campaign is for the win.
Keeping up with the Kommunications.
Now that we have done the grand deed of making a splash, how do we keep the hot prospect hot? We cannot rush the prospects or force them to move at a faster pace. We also want them to keep momentum and head off any competition that comes their way. To stay close to the prospect, I do have easy and less vexing methods that are simple, cost effective and impactful.
1. Whenever you make the first letter, make six envelopes to go with it.
We know that the less friction a task has, the easier it is to achieve it. If you already have stamps, envelopes and stationery prepared, it will be easier to keep up with the habit.
2. Send something regularly
Well, the envelopes are good to go already, are they not? You may as well slip something motivating in it and send it out. Well, don’t repeat the “Just checking in” messages. Those are exasperating and you are probably diminishing a little bit in the eyes of the prospect every time they bin those. Do this instead:Write a relevant success story of your product or service doing well
Start with a cover note along the lines of “Hello AAA, I thought you might find this interesting – as this management team certainly did!”
3. Send other relevant items
A press release or other news article pertaining to you or your industry that affects you. This will be keeping your prospect up to date about your achievements or keeping them abreast of important changes in your field. If you don’t have any of these, you could send them another success story.
Following-through can now be your secret power that you can impress your prospects with. In addition to maintaining a good relationship with them, it will help you get noticed by new people in case of takeovers or reorgs as your mails will be physically filed in the drawer. So go ahead, bring back the old world suave in the new world chaos.
