As a person in business, you are constantly on the lookout for ways to connect with existing clients and find new ones. Not only that, but you want to keep partnerships with stakeholders and suppliers strong, meaning you end up with a plethora of contacts to try and connect with on a regular basis.

Methods for doing this vary greatly. Traditional ways to stay in touch may include making a phone call or sending a piece of mail. Today, digital communication tends to be the preference, and often involves hyper-personalisation through marketing automation software, Facebook advertising and chat-bots.

But even with this incredible technology, email open rates have become abysmal from all the noisy communication that your clients and colleagues receive daily (according to Campaign Monitor, that’s around 121 emails per day per office worker; senior management get much more). The fact remains that no matter how personalised an email or Facebook post is, your competitors are doing exactly the same thing as you. As a result, your clients are being inundated from every angle with campaigns to persuade and motivate them to keep on buying, and it can at times feel tedious.

Sending a handwritten note may feel like a step back, but this clever method of communication is still very much appreciated by your contacts. Even better, it is still effective, meaning you get the business results you want while keeping customers and partners happy. In a world where everything is automated and viewed on our screens, you’ve taken the time and effort to carefully craft a handwritten letter for each and every one of the recipients – hence validating them as valuable to you and your business.

Not convinced? Think of the last time you received a handwritten letter from someone; whether that was a gesture of romance, kindness, a seasons’ greetings card, a letter expressing condolences or even a letter of apology. We are socialised to perceive handwritten letters as kind, sincere gestures – and this same message can be conveyed in a business context.

Aside from making your contacts feel special, handwritten notes enhance business relationships by:

• Reminding your clients and partners that you’re actively ready to do business
• Showing high levels of proactivity
• Re-igniting disengaged contacts

However, as you may have guessed, writing hundreds (if not thousands) of letters to clients, prospective customers and stakeholders, all by hand, is pretty much impossible.

Luckily, there is still a way to do just that. In today’s technologically driven world, the simple solution is combining marketing automation and the human touch of handwritten letters. In other words, handwritten notes need not be “handwritten”; they can be crafted by machinery, saving you and your business hours of manpower while still delivering the same impact.

With the various opportunities digital communication presents, we often think that the next best strategy lies within technological means. But contrary to our efforts, digital communication might feel distant, overwhelming and repetitive. If you are looking for ways to show your contacts how valued they are, try sending them handwritten notes.  You might be surprised how different their response will be when you take things to a level that is truly genuine.