Mini-Mass Mail is Undervalued

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Not the large mass-mail where we spit out a Christmas card for every one of our contacts, but a rather small subset.

Early this morning I was reading the latest issue of ITWorld Canada, a trade paper. Great article on The Perils of Social Networking .

Great for me because I can scan it and send a printed copy by mail to half-a-dozen peer contacts (fellow consultants and entrepreneurs) who have some interest in the subject.

But is it Cost-Effective?

I think so.

All-up I spent less than 30 minutes on clipping the article, scanning it, printing 6 copies, snagging 6 addresses from my contact list, printing 6 envelopes, and writing a short note by hand inside a card to accompany the printout.

Factor in about 60 cents per item (postage, paper, toner, envelope).

Now consider what happens when I phone those peer contacts during regular business hours:

1 I’ll be lucky to get away with a 15-minute chat.

2 I may be interrupting them.

3 It won’t have the impact of a nice surprise in their mail box

4 They won’t have something tangible to keep, for a few days at least.

5 I will have burned up 90 minutes of MY precious time during business hours; I could better use that time to focus on contacts in my target market.

Delegate Tasks By Time

We are urged to delegate tasks to other people so that we can focus our energies on our core tasks.

Equally I would encourage you to delegate tasks by time and medium to zones outside the prime contact time, to free yourself up for revenue-enhancing contacts that really need a 1-1 conversation.

Talk to Me !

P.S. Don’t forget to update your “follow-up” date by the standard 2 months, or whatever you use.

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