Be Personal; Not Social

The average Facebook and Twitter users have hundreds of friends and followers and get hundreds, even thousands, of updates each day. If you’re a small business trying to get customers’ attention, how can you stand out? Try sending customers a handwritten note. That’s what DuO, a small clothing boutique in Austin, TX, does and it’s generated more attention than any social media fan page. Customers get handwritten postcards thanking them for coming in, inviting them to special events, and offering them discounts. It’s a little “high touch” that stands out among all the high tech. And it’s low cost. It’s been really effective for DuO, enabling them to compete with bigger firms that have big marketing budgets. Because so few businesses use personal letters and cards these days, it really stands out. Customers get so excited by DuO’s hand-written notes, they snap pictures of them with their smart phones and post them on Facebook and Pintrest. That’s social networking that money can’t buy.