Nobody has been harder on the United States Post Office than I’ve been over the years; however, there IS a lot to be said for the virtues of snail-mail these days…especially when it comes to communicating with your donors.
I have a space on my desk where I keep cards and letters I’ve received because they’re so personal. And so out-of-the-ordinary. And so meaningful.
The most recent was a HAND-WRITTEN greeting card from my Dad, following up on a certain “meaning of life” conversation the two of us had.
And I kept the HAND-WRITTEN card Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sent me after we bumped into each other on an airplane from Phoenix to Las Vegas years ago.
And there’s a HAND-WRITTEN card from Sharron Angle thanking me for a donation I made early to her campaign in 2009.
But my favorite is a HAND-WRITTEN personal one-page letter – IN CURSIVE! – from late Nevada State Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio.
Again, none of these were standard-issue form letters. They were all hand-written and personal. Truly personal; not “mail-merge” personal.
And they must have meant *something* special to me, even if on an unconscious level, because, well, I saved them.
Folks, do NOT underestimate the value of communicating with your donors and your constituents – as Smith Barney (ask your mom) would say – the “old-fashioned way.”