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5 Ways to Use Handwritten Notes for Your Business

Gaining customer and prospect attention can be a challenging effort. Due to the increase in marketing and sales messages our customers and prospects receive every day, your efforts are going unnoticed and under-appreciated.

WHY YOU SHOULD USE HANDWRITTEN NOTES FOR BUSINESS

Gaining customer and prospect attention can be a challenging effort. Due to the increase in marketing and sales messages our customers and prospects receive every day, your efforts are going unnoticed and under-appreciated.

This is reducing the effectiveness of your efforts due to the cluttered inboxes and voicemails of our customers and prospects. Businesses everywhere are facing challenges with getting their customers and prospects to convert since they rely on traditional outreach methods.

But you don't have to fall victim to this as you can use handwritten notes to help separate yourself and get out of the clutter. You could be using handwritten notes in every aspect of your business as they have multiple use cases. When used correctly, handwritten notes can get your customers and prospects to respond and convert faster. The note itself is out of the ordinary and people value what they can touch and hold.

Due to the intrinsic value of your note, the ask inside the note will hold more weight, increasing the chance that your customer or prospect will listen to you and take the action you want them to take. All because you sent a handwritten note that was addressed to them specifically.

When you use handwritten notes, you can experience a multitude of benefits such as:

  • More referrals
  • More sales
  • More customer loyalty

Now that you understand the benefits and the why behind using handwritten notes, you may be left wondering two things:

1. In what ways can you use handwritten notes?

2. How can you write an effective note to gain your customer or prospect’s attention?

Well, this post won't be going in-depth on how to write a good note as we will be mainly covering the five ways you can use handwritten notes, but if you need a resource telling you how to write a good note, check out this post from Inc. that'll explain how to write a good handwritten note to your customer.

Keep reading to learn the five ways in which you can use handwritten notes.

5 WAYS TO USE HANDWRITTEN NOTES FOR YOUR BUSINESS

When you're looking to implement handwritten notes in your business strategy, there are five ways you can use them and they can be used for:

1. Referrals

2. Sales

3. Customer loyalty

4. Customer reviews

5. Customer appreciation

Let's dive deeper into how handwritten notes are being used for each of the ways mentioned above.

1. HANDWRITTEN NOTES FOR REFERRALS

The first way you can use handwritten notes is to gain referrals. Handwritten notes will work wonders for you in the referral gathering process because they're intimate and personal. Typically, our customers are being asked for the referral over phone or email, which is okay but not highly effective because your referral request can get lost in their inboxes or voicemails.

However, when you use handwritten notes, the referrer will appreciate this much more because the referral request won't be cluttering their inbox or voicemail. Handwritten notes also benefit you as they show the customer that you care about their referral due to the time it took to handwrite and personalize a note to them, which many people aren't doing nowadays due to the time constraints they face.

Handwritten notes will get your customers to consider your request much more as opposed to the traditional methods. And if you want to increase your chances of getting a referral, you can also put an offer in the note itself, so if the customer gives you one, they’ll be able to benefit from that referral. Doing this will benefit all parties involved all while helping you gain more referrals.

2. HANDWRITTEN NOTES FOR SALES

The second way you can use handwritten notes is for sales efforts. Whether you're looking to break open a new high-value account or to get a repeat purchase, handwritten notes will be your best weapon. Due to your prospects packed schedule, most of them will not have the time to read an email or take a phone call with you. But when you use handwritten notes, your prospects will make the time for you because they’ll notice the personalized handwritten letter that usually will end up in their hands or on their desk.

Thus, leading our prospects to read our pitch, which will result in more meetings booked because you're gaining the attention of your prospect that you otherwise wouldn’t of had. Handwritten notes can also work for gaining repeat purchases as they can be sent at the perfect time in the customer lifecycle, which is right after the purchase.

When you send out the personalized thank you letters right after the purchase, your customers will be inclined to buy more products, or if it's a one-time purchase, they might just give you a referral as stated above.

Which leads us to our next point, handwritten letters can also be used for customer appreciation.

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3. HANDWRITTEN NOTES FOR CUSTOMER APPRECIATION

Another way handwritten notes can be used is for customer appreciation. Customer appreciation is vital to every business because customers want to feel connected with the brands they buy from. And the best way to build this connection is to thank all of your customers after they've purchased from you.

You can build authentic and valuable relationships with all of your customers by handwriting thank you notes. Your customers will love this because they’ll know the time it took to handwrite and send a thank you note, thus, making the transaction more personal. Handwritten thank you letters also help you build a great customer relationships because the notes make a long-lasting impression, which in turn, helps you stay top of mind for all of your customers especially when they have specific needs.

Shopify recognizes sending handwritten notes as a great way to show appreciation by citing this in their post 6 Creative Ways to Show Customers You Care.

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4. HANDWRITTEN NOTES FOR CUSTOMER LOYALTY

Customer loyalty and handwritten notes should go hand in hand because, as mentioned before, handwritten notes help you build deeper bonds with your customers. Consumers buy from hundreds, if not thousands of brands in their shopping lives. And most of these brands miss out on this opportunity since building customer loyalty takes both time and effort.

When brands miss out on this opportunity, they suffer loses of both sales and profits because these brands don’t have solid and loyal customer relationships. Without strong relationships with your customers, your brand and products become more like a commodity to the customer, which results in them leaving you when they can have more convenience or a better price. Therefore, making it harder for you to succeed, since you’ll be constantly looking for new customers to replace them.

In order to solve this problem, you can prevent your customers from leaving by sending handwritten direct mail and notes. When you send out handwritten notes to your customers, you’ll be better equipped and able to build those deeper bonds since you went one step further. Just by doing this simple act of thanking your customers with handwritten letters, you’ll be able to build a better customer base, who will then go on to become raving fans for your brand leading to better customer retention and loyalty.

Take a look at how you can Use Direct Mail to Increase Customer Retention and how handwritten notes can be used.

5. HANDWRITTEN NOTES FOR CUSTOMER REVIEWS

Lastly, handwritten notes are great to use when it comes to gaining customer reviews. When you're looking to gain a helpful review for your business, there’s no better time to ask for a review than right after the purchase. Now, most companies do ask for reviews, but they do it wrong because they’ll usually ask for reviews through emails or phone calls, which most customers ignore due to the lack of personalization.

Now if you want to ask for reviews the right way, you have to send handwritten notes. Handwritten notes will help you bolster up your reviews due to the personalization handwritten notes bring, which customers always appreciate. Customers appreciate the personalized nature of a handwritten note because they feel that their purchases and transactions matter to your business and a handwritten note proves that. Additionally, you could experience more benefits from using handwritten notes as well since customers are more likely to share the great experience with their friends, which may cause these new customers to come and shop from you to experience this same treatment.

Sending handwritten notes will also help you gain more reviews as you can take advantage of the principle of reciprocity, which states when you do something nice for someone, they’ll naturally want to reciprocate back with a kind or generous act. Here's a great resource that covers what the principle of reciprocity is and how you can use it to gain more customer reviews

CONCLUSION

When it comes to using handwritten notes for your business, you should be taking full advantage of them as they can help you grow your business in various ways. Looking at this post, you now have five ways you can use handwritten notes and they can be used for:

  • Referrals
  • Sales
  • Customer appreciation
  • Customer loyalty
  • Customer reviews

So, how are you going to use handwritten notes in your business today?

If you're looking to take full advantage of handwritten notes to increase sales, referrals, or reviews, look at IgnitePOST.

We make the handwritten note sending process very easy while automating this entire process for you, so you can have a medium that's both highly efficient and personalized.

Contact us today so you can get started!

IgnitePOST Team
Verified writer
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