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Handwritten thank you notes increase sales

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Re: Handwritten thank you notes increase sales

#81

Post by b112 »

boringg wrote: post #66

I will counter that i get those hand written notes to buy my house (clearly a marketing effort) which turns me off so fast. Does anyone reach out to those fake hand written offers? Only real hand written note i got in the mail was from jehovas witness outreach campaign on lined paper that couldn't have been faked. To be fair, it caught my attention but was swiftly dismissed.

Hah! In Quebec, Canada. The Witness folk did this here, last summer. I think it was because they couldn't go door to door, due to pandemic.

To be fair, I guess it is legit, as each person is writing notes, instead of going to door to door.

Was this last summer for you? Am curious, where is your approx location?

Re: Handwritten thank you notes increase sales

#82

Post by ekianjo »

juve1996 wrote: post #46
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, "a scalable way to bring a little bit of joy to many people" is actually nice & good.

The reason it brings joy is because they think it's from a human. If they knew it wasn't it wouldn't bring joy.

Thats true for every product though. People are willing to pay more for something that pretends to be hand made rather than something manufactured. There is no new insight here.

Re: Handwritten thank you notes increase sales

#85

Post by gregsadetsky »

iambateman wrote: post #65
mikkergp wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“How do we scale that feeling that someone got a personal handwritten note” is really dystopian.

Last year I built an entire service [1] around the idea that scaling handwritten cards was a good business… Before ultimately concluding that you’re right, it’s pretty dystopian. So I called it quits. [1] fountaincards.com

Was it working / were you making money?

Automated handwritten notes companies seem like they render text using a handwritten font and then potentially pass it off (via API) to a “print anything and ship it” company — is that an accurate statement?

Is there a clear advantage to building and maintaining the hardware / plotting pen portion? i.e. isn’t that something you could do by randomizing font parameters?

Also, it does seem like a pretty crowded space - was that ever a problem? Googling “handwritten notes automation” brings up a lot of companies/ads.

Thanks. Really curious about this!

Re: Handwritten thank you notes increase sales

#86

Post by ekianjo »

sweetheart wrote: post #10

Being kind is fine and all, but my one gripe with it is that it doesn’t make me any money. Glad to see the dark days of being nice without any ROI are ending.

Being kind is a cultural trait that we have been selected for, over generations, to increase our chances of survival and also ROI. There is nothing gratuitous about it once you understand where humans come from.

Re: Handwritten thank you notes increase sales

#87

Post by pradn »

deltarholamda wrote: post #70
waselighis wrote: post #34

Fucking marketers just want to destroy all sincerity in the world.

Well, yes, but... take away from this something less grim. It's something a friend who was in marketing used to say to me all of the time: "good customer service is the best marketing, and it's often very nearly free." Chick-fil-a figured this out years ago. Their employees are required to be nice and kind, and they can get fired for having a crappy attitude. This sounds awful, Stepford-wifeish, but in reality it imp…

Yup until recently, they had no real competition in the fast food chicken sandwich game. Popeyes and McDonalds have caught up some amount, but not fully. They also don’t have waffle fries. In college, the line for the Chic Fil A was impossibly long every single day because the food was great. It also somehow doesn’t give you as much of the bad feeling you usually get after eating fast food.

The midtown locations in New York are also incredibly efficient. They take orders on iPads in the line and the order is done by the time you get to the front.

Re: Handwritten thank you notes increase sales

#88

Post by bheadmaster »

Silverback_VII wrote: post #48
waselighis wrote: post #34

Fucking marketers just want to destroy all sincerity in the world.

Another interpretation would be that they are just uncovering the fact that behind many nice and kind behaviours lie some very selfish interests. In every human interaction you can perceive the battle over power, social status and personal interests. It's just the way it is. Some people can see it, others not or just don't want to.

> In every human interaction you can perceive the battle over power, social status and personal interests.

I agree with this in general - but some interactions really are more about mutual feeling-good, than about power struggles. Of course, those interactions are necessarily with people who are close to us.

I think the better way to put this would be:

    In every interaction *with strangers* you can perceive the battle over power, social status and personal interests.

Re: Handwritten thank you notes increase sales

#89

Post by wallawe »

iambateman wrote: post #65
mikkergp wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“How do we scale that feeling that someone got a personal handwritten note” is really dystopian.

Last year I built an entire service [1] around the idea that scaling handwritten cards was a good business… Before ultimately concluding that you’re right, it’s pretty dystopian. So I called it quits. [1] fountaincards.com

We built and sold a similar business (handwrite.io) and it was a pretty rough experience. We scaled to 40k MRR within several months (bootstrapped) but the margins were terrible and hardware is not fun, especially not being a hardware guy so I had to rely on someone else to make sure we had an efficient/quality product.

Re: Handwritten thank you notes increase sales

#90

Post by lotsofpulp »

ekianjo wrote: post #82
juve1996 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason it brings joy is because they think it's from a human. If they knew it wasn't it wouldn't bring joy.

Thats true for every product though. People are willing to pay more for something that pretends to be hand made rather than something manufactured. There is no new insight here.

They are willing to pay more for something they think is hand made, not for something they know pretends to be handmade. Fraud is not excusable.
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