Two week's ago Sports Illustrated's George Dohrmann had a great piece on the amount of useless recruiting mail top hoops recruit Roberto Nelson received during his high school days, and it brought to light one of the biggest problems that marketers, salespeople, and communications folks deal with every day. How to cut through the junk, decide whats the most effective way to deliver a message and who is the best person to deliver it to. In the easy world today of spamming emails and press releases or sales pitches, or in this case, volumes of recruiting mail, the personal touch is lost, and with it goes the relevance. Many times people get caught up in trying to do things because “thats the way its always been done” instead of trying to be more innovative and effective with a personal touch. The digital world today has made it easy to hit send and hope to deliver a message, many times without knowing if the recipient ever reads, is interested or even knows the sender, or even worse, if the info is relevant to the recipient at all. In the “old days” editors and reporters would get deluged with faxes of press releases or volume of mail, but today's world makes the deluge even bigger because there is no real cost to blast or spamming email. The cost lies in reputation of the sender. Many times the inexperienced will not personalize letters or note, send to people no longer employed in a position or with a company or outlet or even worse, pretend to know someone when they really don’t. So what's the answe. Simple. Personal touch matters. Take the time to know who is on the beat, covering the story, selling or marketing the product or making the decisions. Are there points for mass distributio. Of course. Are there times when you send info to try and remain relevant or top of min. Yes so long as the info is useful. Is snail mail…a personalized hand written, note or item sometimes still the most cost-effective way to set yourself, your brand or your sales pitch apar. You betcha. The worst thing you can waste is your reputation for doing well and knowing your business and someone's precious time. Even asking periodically if someone wants to stay on a list, or if information that is being sent is appreciated or useful, is also a good idea. In these days of not just cost efficiency, but time efficiency, personal contact goes a long way in delivering the right message, and quality usually wins over quantity.
Some good Friday reads…si.com also had a good piece on what's next for baseball now that the Olympics are a memory... the NCAA News had an interesting piece on where small conferences are looking to find their new commissioners…and the Wall Street Journal had a good piece on Dave Bing's challenges as Detroit mayor.
