In defense of the handwritten note

Over the past few years, email has become the delivery method of choice for many business correspondence. As smartphones and social media continue to rise, text messages and tweets are also gaining popularity. Yet, with all that technology, there are still times when a handwritten note makes sense. Here are a few examples to keep in mind:

Sales call follow-ups. Send your prospect a three to four-sentence note, thanking them for their time and reinforcing what you discussed in your meeting. People appreciate the personal touch a handwritten note provides.

Client thank yous. Mark each client’s anniversary with you — or any particularly large or meaningful orders they place — with a quick, handwritten thank you card. For even more goodwill, include a handwritten thank you with each completed order or invoice.

Employee thank yous. When someone goes above and beyond the call of duty, recognize them with a handwritten thank you card. Your employee will appreciate the gesture just as much as your clients do when you send them a handwritten note.

Special recognition. If you see a customer or prospect featured in the newspaper, send them a quick congratulatory note, along with a copy of the clip. Send birthday and holiday greetings, and look for ways to let your customers know you’re thinking of them on their special days.

Avoiding letdowns in your life

Completing a challenging assignment. Closing a tough sale. Making a big presentation. All of these can leave a person feeling on top of the world. But when that elation subsides, many people are left wondering, “What now?” The anticipation that drove them to push harder and find success is now replaced by an emptiness and longing for something more.

After investing so much time and energy into achieving a goal, it’s only natural to feel some sense of letdown once that objective is achieved. Sports teams, for example, have to struggle sometimes to maintain focus after beating a big rival, so they don’t let the next game slip by.

Commentators refer to these as “trap games” because it’s so easy (and natural) for teams to let down their guard and not try as hard in the game immediately following a big, emotional win. The result, of course, can be a disappointing loss against a seemingly easier foe.

To lessen any feelings of letdown after big wins in your own business and personal life, experts suggest jumping into the next project right away. Give yourself a little time to recoup, of course, and to celebrate a well-earned win, but then start pushing yourself forward again. As tennis great Arthur Ashe once said: “Success is a journey, not a destination.” Enjoy the ride.

Change — and controversy — are brewing at Starbucks

Starbucks has decided to rid itself of the bothersome words “Starbucks Coffee” in its logo and leave behind only their green mermaid. The company says it’s making the change because it sells more than coffee.

This is a pretty familiar issue to printers who debate changing their name from SomeName Printing Company to SomeName Marketing Company, in order to emphasize the diversity of products and services they provide. It’s equally familiar to any company that is thinking about rebranding.

Some people think such a name change is a silly move. “I think it’s nuts,” said James Gregory, chief executive of brand consulting firm CoreBrand, in a Reuters article. “What’s it going to be — the coffee formerly known as Starbucks?”

On the other hand, there are companies for which their logo is so universal they don’t need anything else. Apple comes to mind. For their part, Starbucks says, “Our new evolution liberates the siren from the outer ring, making her the true, welcoming face of Starbucks.”

So I guess the question is — what do you think? Will you buy more stuff from Starbucks, sans the “coffee”? And would you ever consider a similar move for your own company?

For reference, here’s a link to the Reuters’ piece quoted above:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE7045YF20110106

The Nation’s Mood, According to Twitter

Researchers using data from Twitter, the U.S. Census Bureau, and the Google Maps API have mapped the mood of our nation over a three-year span, based primarily on what we tweeted about during that time. A joint venture of scientists at Harvard and Northeastern universities, the study looked at 300 million tweets sent between September 2006 and August 2009. Here are some of the findings:

* Tweeters tend to be happiest early in the morning (around 6:00am) and later in the day (around 10:30-11:00pm). Moods dip to their lowest in the early afternoon, then slowly begin to rise again.

* Not surprisingly, weekends (Saturdays and Sundays) are the happiest days of the week. In fact, Sunday morning ranks the highest overall.

* Thursday — not Monday — sees the lowest dip, on average, of any of the days. Our collective mood bottoms out on Thursday evenings, apparently.

Tweets were scored against the Affective Norms for English Words (ANEW) word list to determine their overall “mood.” The researchers say they plan to continue their work into the future, with further breakdowns of weekday versus weekend moods.

More details can be found online at the study’s website:
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/amislove/twittermood/

Tips to bring your email under control

Have you heard the phrase “inbox zero”? It refers to having no messages unread and not acted upon in your email inbox. With so many messages coming in all day long from colleagues, clients, retailers, and opt-in services (such as e-newsletters, newsgroups, and other subscriptions), is inbox zero even possible? In some cases, maybe not. But even if your inbox seems completely out of control, there are some things you can do to tidy it up and restore some sense of sanity.

For starters, create folders and sub-folders where you can store messages in a more organized manner for future follow-up. Start with folders for email from clients, email from colleagues, newsletter subscriptions, etc. Add a folder for urgent messages requiring immediate attention, and consider a folder for each day of the week, where you can drop messages that require action on those particular days.

Once you have your folders in place, set up mail filters to automatically route your messages to the appropriate place. Filters are especially helpful for subscriptions and newsgroup messages, which might otherwise clog up your in-box. By having those messages routed automatically, you can focus your attention on the rest of your mail or check a specific folder at a specified time and see just the messages that are relevant for you at that time.

Another option is to set up an alternate email address for opt-in newsletters, newsgroups, and online transactions. This will help to de-clutter your main email in-box, cut down on the “noise,” and help you feel less overwhelmed. It will also have the added benefit of reducing unwanted and unsolicited emails, as spambots won’t have a chance to grab your primary email address off discussion boards, comment screens, and the like.

And finally, once you’ve acted on a message, delete it or archive it for future reference. Many people who struggle with in-box overload exacerbate the problem by leaving messages in their in-box, even after they are no longer relevant. If you can’t bring yourself to part with old messages, archive them instead, somewhere outside the in-box, where they won’t get in the way.

Not all PR is good PR after all

Just weeks ago, negative comments on Internet review sites (Yelp, Google Places etc.) were as good for your SEO as bad ones. Google has changed the rules.

The argument used to be that Google couldn’t downgrade your ranking based on negative comments because that meant your competitors could hurt you, even when what they said wasn’t true.

Google’s policy seemed to make sense, but what happened was that Google counted the number of reviews (quantity) and how fast the reviews came (velocity), not the context (good or bad) of the review. Consequently, 1,000 horrible reviews that came in during a single week actually BOOSTED rankings, while four good reviews over a period of a year did little or nothing.

All of that changed recently. Now, Google is going to weigh good reviews over bad reviews, but this has a lot of issues, too. It means you need to watch out for mentions of you EVERYWHERE, and you need to stay on top of them. Seriously.

So how do you do that?

There are actually a lot of interesting services out there that can help you…and (of course) Google tops the list. You can set up a “Google Alert” (http://www.google.com/alerts) with the name of your company and get an email if there is a mention. You can have an alert sent to your phone if there is a mention of you on Twitter, too. But what about all the other stuff? What if someone disses you on Yelp or Facebook?

Here is a list of services that you can use to keep track of your brand online. http://is.gd/j5YgX

Celebrating Your Company’s Anniversary

We have a client who recently celebrated 15 years in business. Not that it matters, but 15 years is the average lifespan of a woodchuck. Being around for 15 years can be a big deal for small businesses and woodchucks.

It’s important that your customers know about your longevity. People like doing business with companies that have been around for awhile. It makes them confident you know what you’re doing. It’s that competency thing you’ve heard so much about.

Sometimes, people are shy about getting older. My mother said her birthday is “just another day.” When I’m 95, I’m going to celebrate every day as if it’s my birthday. I’m going to let everyone know that I’ve made it another day, and I’m not going to be shy about it. Party like a rock star.

You shouldn’t be shy about celebrating your business anniversary. It’s an important event and will cost nowhere near what it costs to marry off your daughter. Given all the goodwill marketing you will receive, getting out the word is extremely inexpensive. We all like inexpensive.

Start with anniversary labels. Stock labels have been around for years. Stock labels look like stock labels. If you take marketing seriously, spend a few more pennies and get some custom made. Stick them on everything. Next year, they will be as passe as today’s television network schedules.

How about some thank you cards for loyal customers? People like thank you cards, and it’s becoming a lost art. Thank you for being with us over the long haul. Here’s a 10% discount for being loyal. We need you, and I hope you need us. It’s a partnership we’d like to continue in the future. It’s a better deal than Conan O’Brien got from NBC.

Testimonials. Nothing is better than testimonials. Print a simple brochure you can stuff into every envelope you mail. “A good belt keeps your pants up, and there’s no better place to buy a belt than Ernie’s Belt Shop.” I’m a printer. A few years ago, I did a testimonial for a paper company. I got four orders from it. Testimonials work two ways. It’s a gimme.

There are so many more ideas. We can work together to see what fits you. Give us a call. Shoot us an email…and happy anniversary.

5 Keys to Putting Customers in Their Comfort Zone

It’s crazy out there. The market is bouncing like a basketball. Consumers are keeping their wallets in their pockets. The tried and true doesn’t seem so true anymore. So it’s more important than ever to keep your customers comfortable. They have to know you aren’t vanishing today, or tomorrow. You have to make your customers feel secure. If you lack credibility, your customers will lack that comfort! Here are a few easy, and few not-so-easy, things you can do to make your customers comfortable.

1. Put a phone number and address on every single page of your website. People are a lot more comfortable if they know it’s easy to get to you. So check your website. Is that number there, prominently on every page?

2. Update! Update your website, your marketing materials, your emails, your message. If you’ve got your Christmas message up in June, that doesn’t look very credible to your customers.

3. TELL people you’ve updated. Not only is this an opportunity to get in front of your customer with a new sales message; it’s an opportunity to let people know you are on top of things and remaining proactive and relevant. A new business card, direct mail piece, email, Twitter feed, or blog entry is a great way to let people know you’re still around… and still working for their business.

4. Surround yourself with credible people. Who do you think is the most credible person around you? Your lawyer? Your banker? Your local bed and breakfast? Look at what they do. What makes them feel credible to you? Surrounding your business with other credible businesses makes customers comfortable. It’s why testimonials and recommendations work so well… which reminds me…

5. Put testimonials on your website, blog, printed materials, and anywhere else you can think of to strut your (very credible) stuff.

I Am a Printer!

I have been around for 560 years
I invented the Renaissance and caused the Reformation
I have recorded war and peace
My pamphlets and documents created America
I take ideas and information and make them tangible
I print lofty Bibles and lowly forms
I am a printer
I help you promote and inform and entertain
My catalogs and direct mail are a spur to action
Like calling, clicking, or visiting
I communicate your brand and facilitate your marketing
I am a printer
I preserve and protect your most precious memories
My greeting cards say what you feel
My photo books are your families’ legacies
Freedom of the press began with me
I am still the reasoned and reliable history of our times
I am a printer
I put ink on paper and plastic and other materials
I produce packages and publications and products
My business is an extension of your business
Print and paper will transcend the digital age
Because print gets attention
Print is not a momentary image on a screen
You feel print in your hand even fleetingly
And that is its power: it moves you without moving
I am a printer
My industry and I care about the environment
I deal with responsible paper and ink suppliers
I recycle and conserve and reduce waste
I am your partner in progress
I am your printer

By Frank Romano
From a Poster displayed at the Museum of Printing in North Andover, Mass.

Museum of Printing

Too Much of a Good Thing

Choices are good, right? Yes… to a point. Neuropsychologist Susan Weinschenk wrote, “Resist the impulse to provide lots and lots of choices to your customers. Remember, they will say they want lots of choices, and you will think that lots of choices are a good thing (because you like them, too), but having too many choices means many customers won’t buy at all.”

Seriously, if your marketing is all over the place and you are offering a zillion different things in a zillion different ways, you are in real danger of driving customers away.

Study after study show that while people do want choices, having too many choices makes it harder for them to pick… and that means they might walk away in frustration.

So simplify your offers. Make it clear what the offer is and when that offer ends.

So simplify your offers. Make it clear what the offer is and when that offer ends.

Hick’s Law states that the time it takes to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of choices. As decision time increases, the user experience suffers. Don’t make your customers suffer.