Paper or plastic?
Richard Anderson, chief exec of Delta Airlines, apparently appreciates the power of the pen (and paper). Take a look at this great Q&A from The New York Times.
In response to a question about hiring, here’s what Anderson said:
I think this communication point is getting more and more important. People really have to be able to handle the written and spoken word. And when I say written word, I don’t mean PowerPoints. I don’t think PowerPoints help people think as clearly as they should because you don’t have to put a complete thought in place. You can just put a phrase with a bullet in front of it. And it doesn’t have a subject, a verb and an object, so you aren’t expressing complete thoughts.
For more about the importance of words (especially hand-written words), see “Five Questions to Ask Before You Hit Send,” published by MarketingProfs.com.
There are a lot of pluses to sending, say, holiday “cards” via email. Conveying “I care about you” is not one of them.
Experts tend to agree on this point. A “personal note is a much warmer, less mechanized/mass form of contact,” Bob Weiss, a Denver marketing consultant, wrote recently to the Legal Marketing Association listserve. “The communications research we’ve seen indicates it’s best to keep your contact intimacy/warmth at a consistent level.”
And, then, there are some really hardcore print advocates. They’re the ones who would never think of sending an e-card to anyone who really matters.
Sara Holtz, a business development guru based on the West Coast, is one of the hardest of the hardcore. “If you aren’t going to write a personal note, skip the card altogether.” She asks, “Do you want to leave the recipient with the impression that he or she isn’t worth a few minutes of your time?”
So, assess the risks and the rewards. Ask yourself what you appear to achieve at the front end with an online relationship-related message. Weigh that against what you risk losing on the back end. If an email recipient is (or might be) turned off by the impersonal nature of your digital “relationship” messaging, it may be that you’ve wasted the time and other resources it took to create the message… or worse.
It’s axiomatic, but if you catch yourself unclear about the net pluses of hitting Send, I suggest listening to that voice. If you were assessing mystery leftovers in the fridge instead, you’d probably apply the “When in doubt, throw it out” rule.
1